Many of us run out and buy pumpkins for Halloween and/or Thanksgiving and then forget about them; however, I encourage you to enjoy this winter squash for months beyond fall!

Pumpkins are loaded with health-boosting nutrients, including powerful antioxidants such as beta-carotene, lutein, and xanthin. It’s also a great source of fibre and a wonderful food to promote bowel health.

Here’s a delicious soup that you can make with fresh pumpkin. It freezes beautifully, so you can make big batches of this soup when pumpkins are available. You’ll also benefit from the health-boosting properties of coconut oil and coconut milk used in this recipe! Enjoy!

What You’ll Need

• 8 cups of de-seeded, peeled and cubed fresh pumpkin (or your favourite kind of firm orange winter squash)
• two small or one medium sized onion, chopped (whatever onions you have)
• 2 to 3 TBSP of coconut oil
• 2 TBSP of roughly chopped fresh ginger root
• 2 to 4 cloves of roughly chopped garlic (more or less to suit your garlic-loving taste)
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 4 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable broth if you want to make this vegetarian/vegan) – you can make this in big batches too and freeze it (that frozen chunk of yellow stuff behind the cilantro in the above photo is frozen chicken stock). If you don’t have time to make your own, you can use store bought. Check the ingredients to make sure it’s not full of cr*p (like MSG, sugar, unhealthy fats) … buy organic if possible.
• 1 TBSP fish sauce (or organic tamari sauce if you want to make this vegetarian/vegan)
• unrefined sea salt to taste (1/2 – 1 teaspoon)
• organic plain yogurt or kefir (garnish)
• maple syrup (garnish)
• fresh cilantro or dill (garnish)

Step 1a: Sauteeing

Over medium heat, melt the coconut oil  in a large pot (big enough to hold all ingredients in this recipe), then add the onion, ginger, and garlic and sautee until onions are soft

Step 1b: Sauteeing Some more

Add the pumpkin to the pot, and sautee another 5 minutes, stirring regularly

Step 2: Simmering

Add all other ingredients (except for garnishes), bring to a boil, then turn down heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until pumpkin is very soft. Remove from heat.

Step 3: Puree

Puree the soup until smooth using an immersion blender or a regular blender. If you’re going to use a regular blender, make sure you cool the soup off a bit first and avoid pureeing too much of the soup at once to avoid a blender ‘explosion’!!!

Step 4: Garnish and Serve

To serve, pour or ladle into soup bowls and garnish with yogurt or kefir, drizzle with maple syrup, and sprinkle with chopped cilantro or dill. To make the yogurt/kefir design, gently pour or spoon the yogurt/kefir onto the soup in a circular pattern, then using a small knife, and starting from the center of the bowl, drag the knife out towards the edge of the bowl.  Repeat procedure through different parts of the yogurt/kefir swirl to make a pattern.

Enjoy!

For her first day of senior kindergarten, my oldest daughter (who is now in her 20s) made sure that she had packed her most favourite snack food ever. They were little orange square crackers called “Cheese Nips”. I would never buy them in a million years now, but back then, I didn’t know what I know now. For some reason, my daughter always referred to these crackers as “Cheese Snips”, so that’s the name I’ve given to this cheesy cracker recipe that has only one ingredient – cheese. This recipe makes about 40 “Snips” (aka crackers – or frackers as my daughter used to say).

What You’ll Need

• A preheated oven ( 350F.)
• Baking sheets and parchment paper
• 4 cups of grated cheese – I used 3 cups of grated medium cheddar, 1/2 cup of grated asiago, and 1/2 cup grated parmesan (use organic if possible).

Step 1: Scooping & Plopping

Plop the grated cheese on to parchment paper lined cookie sheets as if you were making cookies. My little mounds were about 1 TBSP worth of grated cheese.

Step 2: Melty Baking

Put the filled baking sheets in the oven for 2 to 3 minutes – until the cheese blobs are melty and have spread out – but still holding together.

Step 3: Crispy Broiling

Turn the oven setting to broil for 1 to 2 minutes – just until the edges are golden. If they get too crisp/browned, they will taste bitter. Take them out of the oven. They will look bubbly and oily – that’s OK – and they should be pretty thin. Let them cool a little – until they can easily be removed with a spatula. Once they are completely cooled, they should be quite crispy!

Step 4: Cooling

Place the Cheese Snips on a baking rack to cool.

Step 5: Enjoy Your Cheese Snips!

Serve as a side to any meal, or put the entire batch in a basket and share at your next get together. They store well in an airtight container in the fridge too.