Curried Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup

Based on this recipe from epicurious.com.

With Claire away and a major math test a day away, Daniel was beginning to wander around with a shuffling, broken gait, wearing sweaters and staring for long moments at random items in the supermarket. And so, soup to the rescue!

Ingredients

1.5 c. tinned pumpkin (120)
2 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks (640)
4 c. water with vegetable bullion or vegetable broth
1 c. skim milk (90)
seasonings, including sweet curry powder, red Thai curry paste, cumin, turmeric, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, and cinnamon. (100)

Methodology

1. Put sweet potatoes in a pot with water and vegetable bullion and bring to a boil. Add curry powder and stir occasionally until the potatoes are cooked.

2. Spoon potatoes and 1 cup of broth into a blender and blend until smooth.

3. Return blended potatoes to pot. Add milk and pumpkin and stir. Season to taste.

Makes approximately 10 servings (I think. Big servings), approximately 100 calories per serving. I recommend serving them with whole wheat pita bread; yoghurt is also a possibility, as is Parmesan cheese (Claire's innovation).

Notes

Something about the sweet potatoes and pumpkin means that it doesn't take spices very well; I added a lot of pepper before it started tasting spicy, and even then it was the sort of spicy that creeps up on you instead of being spicy all at once, which is nice for luring the faint of heart.

Normally when I make curry I add sugar, because I love things which are both sweet and spicy, but the sweet potatoes are sweet enough already that you don't need it.

I think the best part of this recipe is the way you can tweak it. For a more Thai flavour, add coconut milk instead of skim and leave out the curry powder (just use the paste). For a more Indian flavour, you can add butter and leave out the curry paste; you could even mix in some dal if you had some, that would be nice.

2/7 on the disaster index, mostly because of my own nervousness about spicing it. A liberal hand seems to be necessary. So go forth and curry (and don't forget to check out Em oi! while you're at it.)