I love the time of year pumpkins are harvested, I love the color of pumpkins, I love roasted pumpkin seeds, I love pumpkin pie, I love pumpkin spice lattes, and most recently I love pumpkin sausage soup. This year was our first trip to the pumpkin patch with our toddler. He was very excited to go out to the field and pick out a pumpkin, until he discovered the tractor drawn hayride. Then it was all about the tractor. We waited in line then rode the tractor out to the field, as soon as we got off the tractor he asked for more tractor. I told him we first had to pick out some pumpkins then we would get back on the tractor. He looked around pointed to the nearest pumpkin and said, "That one. More tractor?" Well it wasn't very pretty and the hayride was full for its return trip so we urged him on deeper into the pumpkin field to find the best pumpkins. In the end we got some nice pumpkins and he got two tractor rides out of the deal.
The recipe I want to share today is my new favorite, Pumpkin Sausage Soup. I was looking for recipes that would be easy to freeze and found a few websites listing pumpkin sausage soup. This one is my favorite because the only dairy it has is from the butter which could be easily replaced with olive oil. The creaminess comes from adding coconut milk at the end. Another thing this recipe gave me was the courage to find a way to use mushrooms so that I don't have to feel the texture in my mouth, I only get to experience the dimension of flavor they add. Instead of cooking the mushrooms whole I chopped them up in my food processor first then cooked them. When stirred into the soup and mixed amongst sausage and onions I didn't even notice them.
Bon Appetite!
