Pumpkin and Chicken Chowder

We received a super cute lil' pumpkin in our produce box. After letting it sit as our centerpiece/decor for a while, we decided to put it to good use -- as dinner. Paul found a easy and tasty looking recipe for pumpkin and chicken chowder.

I apparently forgot to take photos of this, but I stared by roasting the red peppers and jalepenos on a baking sheet. You put them under the broiler, turning them occasionally, until the skins blacken. This took about 10-15 minutes. Once removed from the oven, seal them in a plastic bag for 10 minutes. The steam will allow you to easily peel the skins off of all of the peppers. Once peeled, stem, seed and cut the red peppers into 1/2 in pieces. I diced the jalepenos, since I didn't want a huge bite of jalepenos. 

P.S. If anyone has a technique for keeping jalepeno juice from seeping into your skin (besides wearing plastic gloves when cutting them), please let me know. It is a frequent occurrence that I go to take out my contact lenses later that night and end up with burning eyeballs due to some residue left on my hands. I can avoid it somewhat by washing frantically after I'm done chopping them, but it's not foolproof. 

While the peppers were roasting, I prepped the pumpkin by peeling it, seeding it and chopping it into small cubes. I tried microwaving the pumpkin for a couple minutes to soften it before diving in. Paul looked absolutely terrified (I think he thought I was going to take a bath in exploded pumpkin guts), but it worked out fine. I nuked it for about 2 minutes, which softened things up and made it easier to cut into.

The peeling part will never be easy.

I washed off the leeks -- they can capture a lot of dirt in the different layers. You can either prep them (in this case, it was chopping them into rings) and then rinse them in water, or you can peel the layers apart and rinse them (which is what I did here). 

Pre-washing, obviously.

Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the chicken pieces and cook until browned. Remove the chicken and keep warm. Add the leeks and pumpkin and saute for about 5 minutes.

Here's the vegetable round before seasoning. The chicken is resting comfortably in the confines of our microwave.

Add the flour, cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper and cook for 1 to 2 minutes.

The leeks and pumpkin coated in the spices/flour mixture.

Add the corn (frozen works just fine), peppers, chicken, broth, and oregano (I used dried, and about a teaspoon and a half instead of the 1 tablespoon fresh) and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, about 30 minutes.

Cooking away!

Top with sour cream and serve hot!

Everything's better with sour cream, amirite?

The soup turned out great, but was SPICY. Paul and I debated whether or not the 1/2 cup sour cream was to be put into the soup or just used as a garnish. We went with garnish, but you definitely needed a good amount to cool things down. However, the soup wasn't so spicy that it blew out your palate and therefore couldn't taste anything. 

I would definitely make this again, probably using only one jalepeno. We were also a little short on the pumpkin (I think our lil' guy was only 1.5 lbs vs. the 2 lbs. suggested in the recipe), so that may have contributed to the spiciness factor.

Update on Lentil Fritters

I tried to make lentil fritters again last week, and failed MISERABLY. I am totally confused. I've made the lentil fritters three times, using canned lentils twice and bagged lentils once. I purchased bagged lentils a second time for this recipe, and they were hard as rocks. I couldn't get them to do anything in the food processor (where they normally mush up into a paste to be combined with the remaining whole lentils to make the patties). 

I am baffled. I looked at both of the packages of bagged lentils (I had about a 1/2 cup leftover from the previous iteration), and they looked exactly the same. No mention of needing to soak anything (like you would dried beans) or that you'd have to do anything other than use them normally right out of the bag. 

The good guys.

Any thoughts? Paul took one look at the brick lentil patties, and opened the fridge to find something else. Back to canned lentils only, I guess.