Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Soup! I took this recipe from a Taste of Homes Halloween magazine, however I changed it up a bit. This is what I did:

Ingredients:
1 Large Pumpkin, cleaned out and insides scraped. (Seeds saved for baking later).
1 Box of Vegetable Broth
1 Onion
1 Bell Pepper
3 Ribs/Sticks of Celery
1/2 Bag Frozen Corn
1/2 Bag Frozen Peas
1/2 Bag Frozen Prince Edward Medley
1/2 lb Carrots
4 Red Potatoes
1 Small Zucchini
1 Can of Pinto Beans, drained and rinsed
1 Can of Diced Tomatoes
Random Seasonings
Oil

My mother wanted to hang out, so I brought this all over to her house and cooked my pumpkin soup there. I was able to treat my parents to pumpkin soup, which only happens in Fall. This year it will only happen once, as my other big pumpkins rotted due to our weird weather. (Snow. Snow? Wow!) Instead of making pumpkin soup twice, I will make plain vegetable soup for the second soup day.

1. I diced up all of my veggies. I do not peel my potatoes or my carrots. I cook and eat them with the peels on.
2. I put all of my veggies, beans, seasonings and vegetable broth in a pot. I covered and brought it to a boil. I turned it down to a slow bubble and cooked it for 1.5 hours.
3. While the veggies were bubbling, I cleaned the pumpkin. Clean the pumpkin the same way you would clean a Jack-O-Lantern.
4. I then set pumpkin on a sturdy, shallow baking pan/tray.
5. I brushed the outside of the pumpkin with oil. I usually do this with a rubber cooking brush but my mother did not have any, so I used a paper towel. This step is important, as you do not want your pumpkin to get dried out or fall apart in the oven.
6. After the bubbling veggies were done cooking for 1.5 hours, I stirred in the can of diced tomatoes.
7. I ladled and poured the cooked vegetables with the broth into the pumpkin.
8. Then I baked the filled pumpkin for 1.5 hours. I made sure that my pumpkin did not collapse and pour all of the soup all over my oven.
9. Tip: When you ladle the soup into individual serving bowls, scrape some of the inside of the pumpkin and add the scrapings to each bowl. I do not like eating huge pieces of pumpkin, so I cut the fibrous pumpkin up in my bowl with my spoon. Tasted great!

Pumpkin only has 30 calories per 100 grams, per Google. So this dish has a low calorie density. I really like the taste and the presentation is unbeatable.
Warning: the pumpkin does not save. The pumpkin that we do not eat, I cut up and store in a large container to feed to my dogs. They love this treat as well!

It really is a simple dish, it is just time consuming to clean the pumpkin. But like I said, it is well worth it for the presentation!

What fall meals do you like? Tell me in the comments! And as always, have a great one!