Pumpkin and Tomato Soup

When I started blogging, I don't think I had even tasted Pumpkin Soup. Pumpkin was best used in sambar or vathal kuzhambu. I didn't think very much of this vegetable. Amma used to make a typical upkari with finely chopped pumpkin, but I didn't miss it if she didn't make it for a decade. I loved making (and eating) Pumpkin Pie. In the past couple of years, I have used this vegetable extensively in soups, side dishes and even used it in a cake. And I've been expermenting quite a bit.

The latest experiment was with a soup. I started out making the traditional tomato soup, but decided to use of the bag of cubed pumpkin that was stashed away in the freezer. I quite enjoyed the soup. It was rather filling and all I needed to go with it was a couple of cream crackers.

1 cup Pumpkin, cubed

4 Tomatoes, diced
1 Onion, diced
2 pods Garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste

Pressure cook the vegetables and the garlic with 2cups of water. When cool, blend in a liquidizer and strain. Bring the liquid to a boil. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

If you're like me, there, dinner's on the table!

If you miss the train I'm on...

... you will know that I am gone. You can hear the whistle blow a 100 miles.

I'm sure you're all wondering what these lines have to do with my food blog. Agreed that this is the blog of The Singing Chef and that music has to be a part of this journey. Read on till the end if you want to unravel this little mystery. This is a long post.

I have always talked about why blogs and cookbooks will co-exist. Each fixes a different problem, a different need. There is a certain joy in going through a cookbook, getting inspired by it, cooking something from it and enjoying it. There is a different joy in blog hopping, finding a recipe, cooking it, letting the blogger know (or even seeking inputs where necessary) and then telling the whole world what a nice recipe that blogger put up. Overall, it fosters a sense of camaraderie. This post is my way of saying thanks to my fellow bloggers for putting up some delicious recipes that have added much needed variety to our dinner table. Some of the recipes that I tried (and we loved) are:

Pumpkin Erissheri from the Jugalbandits.

Tomato Spinach Pulao from Nags' Edible Garden.

Indian Style Baked Tofu from Madhuram's Eggless Cooking.

Pasta the forgotten way from Arundati's Escapades.

Mushroom Stroganoff from Aarti's Life Goes On.

Baby Carrots and Thyme from Nandita's Saffron Trail.

Chukku Kaapi from Mishmash

I have told you all that I didn't intend for this blog to become what it has. All this is a bonus. I only hoped to create a repository of recipes that I can access easily. Today, there are so many people who write back and let me know they tried something from my blog. I feel thrilled. When my "forced-to-be-bachelors-for-a-week" friends write in and tell me they cooked a simple meal from my blog which spared them another night of Maggi, I feel honoured. Then there are some folks out there who would make it seem like I am a celebrity (one even said as much!) and have nominated this blog in the Best Baking Blog category in the FoodBuzz 2009 Food Blog Awards!

This post is as much one to thank each and everyone of you who has visited this blog, encouraged me to continue blogging (especially at those times when I felt like giving up). I want to acknowledge the friends who have come into my life through this very medium. I want you all to know that I am deeply grateful for your presence in my life today. To all of you, I say:

I'm on the top of the world lookin down on creation

And the only explanation I can find

Is the love that I've found ever since youve been around

Your love's put me at the top of the world

But why am I singing the song by Carpenters, when I started with that beautiful song by Peter, Paul and Mary?

If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone

You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,

A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,

You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Lord I'm one, lord I'm two, lord I'm three, lord I'm four,

Lord I'm 500 miles from my home.

500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles

Lord I'm five hundred miles from my home.

Because Lord I'm one, lord I'm two, lord I'm three, lord I'm four, Lord I'm 500 posts from my home. And to reach this wonderful milestone on the day that S and I celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary makes both the celebrations that much sweeter! Happy Anniversary Sachin. You've made the last three years so memorable and I look forward to all the memories we will create together.

Pumpkin and Mixed Vegetable Soup

Every once in a while, I find that I have to cook for just myself. Either S isn't home for dinner or he's traveling. I don't like to cook up a storm on those days unless I have friends coming over. Soups come to my rescue at such times. I don't believe in there being the "right weather" for soup. There isn't a right weather for rice or rotis, so why single out soups.

I had some chopped yellow pumpkin in the freezer. I decided to make pumpkin soup with that. But I also noticed some mixed vegetables. It was too small a quantity to be used anywhere else, so I decided to add them to the soup.

1 cup Pumpkin, diced

1/2 cup Mixed Vegetables, chopped (Carrots, Beans, Peas)

1 tsp Olive Oil
1 large Onion, chopped
1/2 cup Milk
1/4 tsp Parsley
1/4 tsp Basil

1/4 tsp Chilli Flakes

1/4 tsp Garlic, chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a pressure pan and add the onion. Fry till the pieces turn translucent. Add the pumpkin pieces and fry for 1-2 minutes. Add the chilli flakes, basil, parsley, and garlic. Add the mixed vegetables along with some salt and a little water. Cover and cook for 2-3 whistles.

When cool, blend the vegetable mixture in a liquidizer with a little milk. Transfer this to a vessel and add the remaining milk and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper. Enjoy this soup as it is, or with some toast to make it a complete meal!

Pumpkin Walnut Soup

At one time, I only knew how to make a few basic soups. The summer of ’92 changed all that. I had 14 weeks of vacation and nothing to do. I started trying out new soups. Many years and many cookbooks later, I must say that this is now what I’d consider an “area of expertise”.


Since I make soups almost every night, I find that all the pictures look the same. Or do they? To add to this, we seem to drink the soup from the same bowls. And since I take a picture just before we eat it, I even forget to dress the coup up before taking a picture.


Without further ado, I present this foreign soup with very Indian flavours.


2 cups Pumpkin, cubed
1/4 cup Walnuts, chopped
1 Onion, diced
1 tbsp Oil
¼ tsp Chilli Powder
1/3 cup Milk
A pinch Garam Masala
Salt and Pepper to taste


Heat the oil in a pressure pan. Add the onion and fry for a minute. Add the chilli powder and garam masala and fry for another minute. Add the pumpkin and walnuts along with 4 cups of water and pressure cook for 3 whistles.


Drain the liquid and pour it into a pan. Blend the pumpkin-walnut mixture in a liquidizer and pour the contents back into the reserved liquid. Bring the soup to a boil over a low flame. Add the milk, salt and pepper and serve hot.

P.S. I used the yellow pumpkin (kaddu/parangikkai) in this recipe.

Parangikkai Thuvayal (Pumpkin Chutney)

As the summer vegetables start making way for the winter produce, I get the feeling that, this year, I may miss my new friends when I can't find them shouting out to me in the supermarket or our local markets. I've experimented a lot this summer and tried out dishes that a year ago I would have considered alien.

While planning a weekend lunch, I decided to make pumpkin sambar and remembered that I had fresh ash gourd as well. So I made ash gourd sambar instead and used my bag of frozen pumpkin to make this thuvayal. I was a little worried that it might taste a tad sweet, but this thuvayal surprised both of us.

1 cup Pumpkin, cubed
4 Red Chillies
1 tsp Mustard
3 tsp Urad Dal
1/4 tsp Asafoetida
3 tsp Oil
1 tbsp Tamarind Paste
Salt to taste

For the tempering:

1 tsp Oil

1/4 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

7-8 Curry Leaves

Place the pumpkin pieces in a microwave safe bowl. Add 2 tbsp of water and cook on high for 2 minutes. Squeeze out the water when cool.

Heat the oil and fry the red chillies, mustard, asafoetida and urad dal for a couple of minutes. Grind the chillies along with the tamarind paste and salt. Add the pumpkin pieces and grind again. Finally, add the fried mustard and urad dal and grind lightly.

In a frying ladle, heat the oil and add the mustard and asafoetida. Add the curry leaves after the mustard has spluttered. Add this to the ground mixture.

I'm sending this to dear Sug for the second edition of Vegan Ventures.


Check out these blogs too: Siri, Srivalli, Ranji, PJ, Curry Leaf, Medha, Priya, Bhawna, Raaji, Ruchii, Anu, Kamala, Roopa, Divya Kudua, Rekha, Divya M, Lakshmi, Lakshmi Venkatesh , Sripriya, Viji, Kamalika, Pavani, Karuna and Roochi.

Pumpkin Cake

This month has been very busy for me. I thought last November was the month that would have the least number of posts, but it does look March might replace November. If not, it is likely to give November a good chase. While I am hosting an event this month, my own blog has seen very few posts. I am cooking and baking. In fact, slightly more than usual. But I haven't been finding the time to blog as often.

After seeing Sig and Nupur's posts on Taste & Create, I went to Myamii's blog, For the Love of Food, to sign up for this month's event. This is an event that pairs up willing bloggers and then gets them to create one dish from their partner's blog. I was paired up this time with Ben of What's Cooking. I went to his blog and got carried away for a bit. Then I realized what I was there for. I browsed through a predominantly meat based blog to find something that I could create. I decided the dessert section was best for me. And then I found what I was looking for.

I made a few changes to Ben's Pumpkin Cake and made what he calls a bread. But since I don't frost 90% of my "cakes" I will call this a cake for now.

1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Oil
2eggs
1cup Flour
1 tsp Cinnamon Powder
1/4 tsp Ginger Paste
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup Pumpkin, cooked and mashed

1/3 cup Walnuts, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Grease a 9 inch cake tin.

Beat the eggs, oil and sugar together. Add the dry ingredients and stir until well mixed. Add the mashed punpkin and beat for a minute. Stir in the walnuts. Pour the batter into the greased cake tin and bake at 350°F for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and cut into wedges.

We devoured a couple of wedges almost as soon as I cut the cake and it was very tasty. It was just the way cakes ought to be, not too sweet, light and moist. This recipe is a keeper!

Happy Easter all!

Pumpkin Soup

We're going the healthy way... and how! Smaller meals, salads, and soups. At the time of the year when people start eating because the weather's getting cooler, I'm turning and moving in the other direction. But it doesn't matter, does it? As long as we're all having fun along the way.

I found this recipe in the same book (Favourite Vegetarian Dishes) that I found Potato Wedges, Garlic and Sage Bread, and Middle Eastern Salad in. This book has pictures that make me drool and also has step by step pictures and makes the most ordinary dish look like a million bucks.

After cakes, soups are the first things that I started making on my own after referring to cookbooks. Tarla Dalal's soups in her first few books, Joys, Pleasures and Delights of Vegetarian Cooking, were made at home almost everyday during the long vacation after I completed my class 10 exams.

I first made this soup to accompany my Garlic and Sage Bread. All of you know that this was ages ago. But when an entire month is dedicated to an event, non event stuff does take a back seat. (During such a time, I am only posting event related stuff, I am not necessarily making and eating the same.)

I have modified this recipe each time I have made it and I am now writing this from memory.

1/2 kg Pumpkin or Butternut Squash, peeled, deseeded, and chopped into cubes

1 Onion, chopped

1 tbsp Garlic Paste/ chopped Garlic

1 tsp Ginger Paste

1 Bay Leaf

1 tsp Lime Juice

1 cup Milk

2 tbsp Oil/Butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a pressure pan. Saute the onion and garlic until soft but not brown. Add the bay leaf and the ginger and saute for a minute. Add the pumpkin pieces and saute for a couple of minutes. Add about 3 cups of water and cook for 1 whistle (5 minutes).

When done, remove the bay leaf and blend in a liquidizer or pass through a sieve. Add the lime juice and bring to a boil. Add the milk and simmer for 2 minutes. (Do not boil the soup after adding the milk as it will curdle.)

Serve with cream if you wish. I didn't wish, so I didn't!!

Kaddu ki Subzi (Pumpkin Curry)

Yellow pumpkin. I have eaten it a lot. But have used it only for 2 things until now. As a vegetable in sambar. In pumpkin pie. In markets here, I couldn't find ash gourd and whatever I asked the guy for, he'd show me yellow pumpkin.

"Bhaiya, yeh to Kaddu hai. Mujhe Petha chahiye." (This is pumpkin, I want AshGourd)

"Arrey Madam, yehi to hai Petha." (This is Ash Gourd)

"Agar yeh Petha hai, to mujhe Kaddu chahiye" (If this is Ash Gourd, I want a Pumpkin)

"Kya Madam, Kaddu Petha, sab ek hi cheez hai." (Both are the same)

"Bhaiya, Agra mein Petha kaun si subzi se banta hai?" (What is the famous Agra sweet Agra Petha made of?)

"Pethe se" (From Petha!)

I am not exactly the epitome of patience. I can get exasperated quite easily. And this kind of conversation that leads nowhere can be more than trying. S asked me to buy it and make sambar and so I did. But the next day, I was adding Richa's blog to my Google Reader and I came across her Kaddu ki Subzi. I had to try it. And I did.

250g Yellow Pumpkin, chopped

1 Onion, chopped

1 Tomato, chopped

1 tsp Green Chilli Paste

1/2 tsp Ginger Paste

1 1/2 tsp Tamarind Paste

1/2 tsp Sugar

Salt to taste

1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder

1 tsp Chilli Powder

2 tbsp Coriander Powder

For the Tempering:

1 1/2 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/2 tsp Cumin seeds,

1 tsp Fennel Seeds

7-8 Curry leaves

Heat the oil in the pressure pan. Add the mustard, cumin and fennel seeds. When the mustard splutters, add the curry leaves, green chilli paste, ginger and onion. Saute till onion turns translucent. Add the chopped and fry for a minute. Add the chopped pumpkin and saute for a minute. Add salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder and coriander powder. Add tamarind paste, sugar and 1/2 cup water and pressure cook 2 whistles.



Enjoy this side dish with rotis. It is simply amazing to note that a simple vegetable can taste so good. Thanks Richa.