Lesson:  five neck pumpkins is too much pumpkin for a mere two people.  Although I am now craving fresh vegetables — cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peas, spinach — we still have not freed our freezer from its stores of pumpkin.  It seems like there’s just not that many great pumpkin recipes out there.  We have discovered a few, though.  It turns out that More With Less’s pumpkin soup recipe pales after one or two tries.  We did find a fabulous replacement pupmkin soup recipe from my favorite cooking blog, however, and a great pumpkin pudding recipe (since yours truly freakishly declines to enjoy pumpkin pie).  Although it’s completely out of season, here they are, in case you, too, need to rid your freezer of suddenly unwanted winter preserves!

Black Bean Pumpkin Soup
Gourmet, November 1996

Yield: 9 cups

Three 15 1/2 ounce cans black beans (about 4 1/2 cups), rinsed and drained
1 cup drained canned tomatoes, chopped
1 1/4 cups chopped onion
1/2 cup minced shallot
4 garlic cloves minced
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
4 cups beef broth
a 16-ounce can pumpkin puree (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup dry Sherry
1/2 pound cooked ham, cut into 1/8-inch dice
3 to 4 tablespoons Sherry vinegar

Garnish: sour cream and coarsely chopped lightly toasted pumpkin seeds

In a food processor coarsely puree beans and tomatoes.

In a 6-quart heavy kettle cook onion, shallot, garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper in butter over moderate heat, stirring, until onion is softened and beginning to brown. Stir in bean puree. Stir in broth, pumpkin, and Sherry until combined and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 25 minutes, or until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Just before serving, add ham and vinegar and simmer soup, stirring, until heated through. Season soup with salt and pepper.

Pumpkin Pudding
Recommended by Suzanna (my mother-in-law)

2 cups cooked pumpkin (when using canned pumpkin, add 1/2 cup of milk to it)
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 envelope Dream Whip or 2 cups Cool Whip (come to find out, Dream Whip is a packet of powder that you mix with milk and vanilla flavoring to create instant whipped cream.  It’s very space-efficient for our tiny freezer)

Mix pumpkin, vanilla pudding, brown sugar, and cinnamon thoroughly.

Prepare Dream Whip (if using) according to directions on package using 1/2 cup milk.  When whipped, fold into pumpkin mixture.

The only thing I might change:
The pumpkin pudding would be even more fabulous with a shortbread cookie or something along those lines to go with it.

So there you are, knock yourselves out.  You won’t be sorry you tried either of these.  And if you have any other winners. . . please let me know! The sooner we free our freezer, the sooner we can move on to all those fresh veggies and fruits.