Pumpkin Soup

We've been eating too much these last few weeks, mostly rich holiday feasts and restaurant food. This past weekend, I thought we needed a hearty home-cooked meal, one low in fat and calories and high in flavor. Pumpkin soup.

Ok, so that's not my bowl of soup - I forgot to take a photo. Mine was darker in color, due to a long slow cooking, and garnished with Spanish smoked paprika-sauteed mushrooms, apples, and marcona almonds. It was a bit of a kitchen-sink soup: leftover canned pumpkin and vegetable broth, flavored with onion, mushroom, garlic, chipotle, and dashes of this and that (paprika, aleppo pepper, a dash of brown sugar, charnushka seeds) until I felt the seasoning was just right. After two hours of simmering, the flavors were rich and deep.  With a couple spoonfuls of leftover rice in the bottom of the bowl and buttered toast on the side, we were full and satisfied.

As the famous slogan goes, "soup is good food."