Election day/late birthday soup lunch

My good friend Megan had me over for lunch today... a much delayed get-together that one or the other of us had been postponing (sick, overbooked, sick, guests in town, sick) for a few weeks... and it was the perfect day for soup. We had big big rain in the morning with lots of wind and gustiness (and snow on the mountains, too soon!) and it all cleared out this afternoon for a sunny-ish sunset.

But the highlight of my day was having lunch with Megan and Grace, her almost-4 year old. When I thanked Grace upon leaving for sharing her mom with me, she looked at me and most earnestly said, "I don't want to share my mom with you," like I had just uttered absolute nonsense. Very sweet.

It was too early to really pay too much attention to what was going on with the election, so we had a chance to catch up on kids and work and husbands and such. A real treat. And far too rare these days.

And the soup, oh the soup. She's made this before, for our now fairly-defunct book group. I loved it then, and I loved it today. A perfect fall soup. I begged the recipe, and warned her it was getting world-wide-web posting.





Gingered Pumpkin-Pear Soup

½ cup chopped sweet onion
2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 T. butter
3 pears, peeled, cored and sliced
1 15-oz. can pumpkin
1 ½ cups vegetable broth
1 cup milk
¼ cup light sour cream
½ tsp. finely shredded lime peel
1 T. lime juice
Lime peel, optional

In a large saucepan cook onion and ginger in butter until onion is tender. Stir in pears; cook one minute more. Stir in pumpkin and vegetable broth; heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, about five minutes more or until pears are tender. Cool slightly. In a blender or food processor, cover and blend or process half of the pumpkin mixture at a time until smooth, about one minute. Return mixture to saucepan; stir in milk. Heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

In a small bowl, stir together sour cream, ½ tsp. lime peel and lime juice. Top each serving of soup with a drizzle of the sour cream mixture. Garnish with lime peel. Makes 6 side-dish servings.

Enjoy! And at the very least, let the country unite over soup.