Curried Pumpkin Soup with Coconut Milk

This recipe comes from my friend, Carla. I have tried it with pumpkin and with butternut squash, and today I am trying it with banana squash (a huge winter squash that I got from my son who works on a farm.) I'm worried about the stringy-ness of the banana squash, so I'll let you know how it turns out.

This is one of those vague "add as much as you want" type recipes. Soups are pretty forgiving and you can adjust texture and flavor as you go. Taste often until you get it just how you like it.

Here's What You'll Need

• Cooked pumpkin, butternut squash, or other winter squash
• 2 cans coconut milk
• 1 onion
• celery
• kafir lime leaves (can be found at your local Asian market)
• curry paste (thai works best here)
• veggie broth or water to thin the soup
• 1 pkg tofu
• soy sauce
• lemongrass (optional, also found at the Asian market)
• 1-2 limes
• chili-lime cashews (found at Trader Joes) or plain cashews

Here's What You Do

• Saute one chopped onion and 1/2 cup chopped celery in some olive oil.
• Mix 1/3 can coconut milk with 1 T. thai curry paste. (You could certainly use other kinds of curry paste, but this one goes particularly well with the lemongrass and kafir lime leaves in the recipe.) Add this to the onion & celery after it has softened.
• Add the rest of your can of coconut milk to the pan.
• Pulverize 3-4 kafir lime leaves in a blender, food processor, or spice grinder. Add this to the pan as well.
• Open a second can of coconut milk. Put cooked pumpkin (or other winter squash) in your food processor with about half the can. Process until smooth. Add to soup. Repeat with any remaining pumpkin. If you have any coconut milk left in the can, add it to the soup.
• You can add some veggie broth if you want to thin the soup out to a more "soupy" consistency.
• Cut up one or two stalks of lemongrass (the tender, pale inner parts only) and add to the soup.
• Cut one brick of firm tofu into cubes and marinate it in soy sauce.
• Let the soup cook for awhile.
• Toward the end of the cooking time, add the marinated tofu, the juice of one lime, 3/4 cup of peas, and some chili-lime cashews (found at Trader Joe's, or you can use plain cashews).
• Taste for salt and flavor balance. You can add more lime juice, more soy sauce, more curry paste, or anything else you think will help balance the flavors. (I added a little caramel syrup last time which provided the perfect sweetness to complement the winter squash.)

Extra lemongrass or cilantro would make nice garnishes for this soup.