Cinderella Soup

Many of our dates have been at our own dining room table on a Saturday afternoon during Peter’s nap. We love exploring new restaurants together, but the times we have spent together tucked away in our own home, recreating or inventing a beautiful dish to share with one another have been some of my favorite memories as a newlywed. I have been wanting to make this soup for years and after coming up with some revisions of my own, I finally took the time to do it. Last weekend Mike put Peter in his crib for a nap, and I set the table for two, poured some white wine, and finished the preparations for our Cinderella Soup.

This unique seasonal soup that is cooked and served in a pumpkin is both delicious and endearing. It’s autumnal fragrance fills your home as you cook it and once it is set before you all you can do is stare for a few seconds before taking a bite! We hope you enjoy this fairy tale soup just as much as we do!

Cinderella Soup
Serves 2
For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Ingredients

2 small pumpkins
1 cup vegetable broth, preferably homemade
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
sea salt
black pepper, freshly ground
1 fresh sage leaf
1 fresh thyme sprig
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 bacon slices
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 slices day old bread, torn into bite sized pieces
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. After cleaning and drying pumpkins, remove their tops by cutting a small circle around the diameter of stem.
3. With a spoon, kitchen scissors, and your hands, remove the seeds and stringy fibers inside the pumpkins. Save a few seeds for roasting and garnishing, if you desire.
4. Whisk broth, heavy cream, and nutmeg together in a medium sized bowl. Mix in a dash of salt and pepper.
5. Add the sage leaf and thyme sprig to the mixture.
6. Pour half the liquid in one pumpkin and the remaining half in the other pumpkin.
7. Replace the top of the pumpkin and place pumpkins on a foil-lined baking sheet. Rub a little olive oil on each pumpkin.
8. Bake pumpkins for one hour then remove from oven.
9. Remove and discard the sage leaf and thyme sprig. Gently spoon liquid and pumpkin flesh out of pumpkin into a blender. Blend mixture until smooth. Pour soup mixture back into the pumpkins.
10. Meanwhile, cook bacon until crispy over medium heat in a sauté pan. Remove pan from heat and place bacon on a paper towel-lined plate to drain grease. Once bacon has cooled, tear it into bite-sized pieces.
11. Return the same pan to medium heat, adding butter and garlic to the bacon grease. Sauté garlic for a minute.
12. Add bread, bacon, and poultry seasoning to the pan. Season with a little salt and a little pepper.
13. Sauté until bread is crispy on all sides, about three minutes. Remove from heat and sprinkle cheese onto bread.
14. Place bread mixture on top of soup and using a spoon, submerge it under the liquid.
15. Garnish with roasted pumpkin seeds.

– C