Quick Pumpkin Pear Soup

I've talked about my pantry before, most recently in this post from August.

This picture is a couple years
old. The pantry doesn't look
this clean and neat anymore!

My pantry serves a couple functions. It's an emergency pantry for bad weather or hiccups in our family income. It's also a long-term food storage pantry because I like to take advantage of sales, and I like to be prepared in case of a chocolate shortage (and yes, I really do have twenty pounds of cocoa powder in my pantry!)

But mostly my pantry is available to give food when and where it's needed.

However, a pantry isn't much good unless you use it. Even canned goods have a shelf life, and I don't have any desire to have a pantry full of food I can't use!

I think I've said this before: "Store what you use and use what you store."

Now the problem most people run into at this point is the assumption that the main foods to keep in long-term storage are beans and rice. And after a couple days of living off of beans and rice, you're ready to chuck the whole thing out the window, right?

So I set a challenge for myself to make meals from my pantry that would be 1) Delicious! 2) Healthy and 3) Quick.

Here's this week's result!

Quick Pumpkin Pear Soup

ingredients:
makes about six cups of soup

2-4 Tablespoons butter (optional)
2 Tablespoons minced onion
1 teaspoon Rosemary
1 12-oz can chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1 can pears (drained)
1 can pumpkin
salt and pepper to taste
cream (optional)

As you can see, by leaving out the optional ingredients, you can make this an extremely low-fat soup. I happen to think healthy fats are necessary in a person's diet, so I include a little fat in my recipes.

So, start out by sauteing the onion and rosemary in the butter (or about 1/4 cup of the chicken broth) in a medium saucepan until the onion is soft.

Add the chicken broth, pears and pumpkin and heat for about ten minutes.

The next step is to blend the soup.

This immersion blender is GREAT for soups like this, but you can also pour everything into your blender or your food processor.

Blend until the soup is smooth, and then season to taste with the salt and pepper.

Serve the soup in a bowl and drizzle a couple teaspoons of cream on top. I also sprinkled some hulled hemp seeds on my bowl.

Super delicious!

Another topping that would be fabulous on this soup is crumbled bacon - if you like the salty/sweet combination. :)

Now for a fall color tour! I often share pictures of the time we spend in Custer State Park, in the southern end of the Black Hills, but this week we headed north to Deadwood.

I had fun playing with my camera, and the fall views from Mount Roosevelt were fabulous.

Happy October!