My pumpkin soup recipe - Xmas special

Well, I usually don't blog about recipes but that's the one I get asked about and I thought it's a nice thing to do during Christmas/ winter.

It's quite an easy recipe but just requires some time and.. mess.

What we need:

- a pumpkin, small to medium sized
- some leek (one or half)
- a teaspoonful of minced ginger
- Cream (I use reduced fat or soy cream)
- Orange peel and the juice of the orange (optional)
Spices: pepper,  turmeric (kurkuma), pine nuts

And of course, inspired by my years in Japan, I sprinkle a little Japanese toogarashi in the end 

Tōgarashi: 七味唐辛子 (see wiki article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shichimi). Avoid if you don't like spicy. As for me, it's my little treasure and I eat it on almost everything.

The Japanese Tougarashi

When cooking, I never use or count specific amounts of anything, so just use the ingredients in amount according to your taste and sense. More ginger or the Japanese toogarashi will make it spicier, the orange will make it sweeter and so on. 

(I also never use salt but you can add it, of course.  With all the spices, it's quite as tasty without salt though).

Preparation: 

1) Peel the pumpkin's skin using a potato peeler and cut it in as many pieces as you can (not easy as it's very hard, uncooked). This is the messiest part

2) Put the pumpkin pieces and the leek into boiling water, until the pieces are soft and easily cut.
In the meantime, chop the ginger using a Moulinette type multi-cutter or stabmixer.  It should come out pasty, without ginger "hairs " that get stuck in teeth, so it needs a powerful cutting tool ( in lack of, you can use dried ginger powder but the taste won't come out as sharp).

3) When the pumpkin- leek are boiled, put all the pieces into the Moulinette cutter or just use the stabmixer until they become velvety. This part is easy because the pumpkin will be very soft.

4) Put the final puree into a pot, add the orange juice/peel if you want, the spices, some water until it gets the velvety texture you want, stir and simmer in low fire for 5 minutes.

5) Serve with some cream, pine nuts and spices on top!   ( I don't actually have pine nuts this time though)

 The final result