I made some yummy soup today. This is the second time and I love it! The only thing that could make it better is Jasmine rice. One of the down falls of shopping small town Serbia.
I am one of those people who uses recipes as a guide line. As an expat, that sort of fluidity is an asset as not all ingredients are at my reach in this town or country!
I found the recipe on Pinterest here, my go to for recipes nowadays.
First, I unthawed the 2+ cups of pumpkin I had gotten from Deda’s garden last fall. The recipe called for a cup and a half. For the rest of the ingredients I upped the amount called for.
The pumpkin or tikva as it is called in Serbian was left over from last falls garden harvest here in Knjazevac. The first half was used to make this soup the first time and a nice pumpkin bread. Yum! Fresh pumpkin is great for cooking and freezing later. I prefer freshly thawed to freshly cooked. It is smoother less fibrous and needs less blending.
The recipe on pinterest calls for 2 minced cloves of garlic minced. I used four. I like garlic a lot.
It also calls for 1 to 2 teaspoons of grated ginger. I used about two thumbs of fresh ginger/dzumbir and diced before sauteing.
I don’t have sirachi or cayenne pepper. I used two of the tiny super spicy peppers they call mouse poops in Thailand. The proper name is Bird’s eye chili. This made my soup super spicy. Last time I only used one. I felt like living on the wild side today.
No broth to be found here so I used the spice here used in all soups and lots of other dishes. Zacin C or Vegeta will do. It is the same as throwing bouillon cubes into some water to create a nice broth.
I sauteed the minced garlic, The finely diced spicy mini peppers, and the tiny bits of ginger in 2 table spoons of coconut oil with a bit of the coconut flour. Then I added 2 cups of water and the seasoning to the frying pan.
Then added the mix to the rest of the pumpkin and coconut flour in the blender.
That filled the blender to the brim. With the lid tightly attached, I mixed it all up. Then it went into a big pot to simmer on the stove. After 30 minutes, we ate. A couple spoons of rice in a bowl with a few ladles of soup. Bon Appetit or Pijatno as they say here.
Chronicles of Serbia 