Pumpkin-squash bisque - country living holidays

8 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
8 smalls Sugar pumpkins or small Golden Debut squashes
2 13 3/4 or 14 1/2 oz cans chicken broth, all surface fat removed
1 cup Sliced fresh or frozen cauliflower
1 medium Onion, chopped
2 cups Milk
⅓ cup Unsifted all-purposeflour
½ teaspoon Salt
⅛ teaspoon Ground white pepper
¼ cup Half-and-half
4 cups Mashed cooked sugar pumpkin or winter squash (use any dry textured, orange fleshed winter squash such as butternut, Golden Debut, or Hubbard)

Directions

1. If using pumpkins for serving bowls, heat oven to 350'F. Rinse pumpkins; pat dry. Cut a wide circle around the stem of each pumpkin making a lid. Remove lid and with spoon, scrape out seeds and stringy portion from pumpkins. Place pumpkins and their lids in large shallow roasting or baking pan. Cover pan with aluminum foil.

2. Bake pumpkins 30 to 50 minutes or just until flesh is fork-tender.

Test lids for doneness after 30 minutes; if tender, remove and set aside. (Do not overbake or the pumpkins will collapse.) To microwave, place 3 or 4 pumpkins with their lids inserted on top in microwave ovens. Cook 15 to 20 minutes, rotating them every 5 minutes, or until tender. Repeat until all of the pumpkins have been microwaved.

3. In 4-quart saucepan, heat broth and cauliflower to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer fresh cauliflower until tender-about 10 minutes. If using frozen cauliflower, cook about 5 minutes. With slotted spoon, remove cauliflower to blender or food processor, leaving broth in saucepan.

4. Add onion to broth remaining in saucepan; cover and heat to boiling. Cook until tender-about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in cup, combine ½ C milk, the flour, salt, and pepper until smooth. Stir flour mixture into onion and broth. Cook mixture, or sauce, stirring constantly, until it thickens and boils. Remove from heat.

5. In blender, puree cauliflower with ½ C sauce and the half-and-half Pour cauliflower soup into small saucepan and keep warm over very low heat.

6. In same blender (no need to wash), blend remaining sauce until smooth; return to saucepan; set aside. Add half the mashed pumpkin and ¾ C milk to blender; blend until smooth; pour into saucepan with sauce. Repeat to puree remaining mashed pumpkin with remaining milk. Heat pumpkin mixture, or bisque, over low heat just until hot, stirring constantly. (Do not allow to boil.) 7. To serve, ladle pumpkin bisque into baked pumpkin "bowls" or serving bowls and place on serving plates. Drizzle cauliflower soup on top of each serving.

Country Living Holidays/92 Scanned & fixed by Di Pahl & <gg>

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