Large butternut or round cooking pumpkin
3 or 4 cups of chicken stock
1 large onion
1 clove garlic, peeled
2 or 3 teaspoons ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground ginger (I like a lot more)
¼ to ½ tsp. ground cloves
1 cup heavy cream
Wash a large Butternut squash or round cooking pumpkin and place it on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil. Poke it a couple of times with a fork to break the skin.(release of steam while cooking). Place it in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about an hour until soft and smelling roasted. The time will depend on the size of the squash. When a fork inserted into it goes in easily, take the squash out of the oven and let cool until you can handle it with your hands. Slice squash in half lengthwise, remove seeds and fibers in center. Scoop out the flesh from the skin into a large cooking pot. Discard the skin. Cut up pieces into 2 inch chunks. Add one large cut-up onion, about 3 or so cups of liquid chicken cooking stock, 1 clove of garlic, 2 or 3 teaspoons nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon of ginger, and ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves. Cook until the onion is tender, about one half hour.
When the ingredients are cooked and a little bit cooled, using a ladle, put them in a blender or food processor a small batch at a time with the liquid squash has been cooking in. Process until smooth (less than a minute for each batch).
In a large clean cooking pot on the stove, place the pureed squash. Stir in 1 cup of heavy cream. Taste the soup and add salt and pepper to taste. If the squash soup is less than slightly sweet, add a teaspoon or two of granulated sugar. Serve your soup in the tureen and or roast and seed small pumpkins. Put pumpkins in a rim soup bowl and ladle the soup into them and around them in the bowl.
P.S. Carving pumpkins won’t work with this recipe. They are not good for cooking.