Video:Pumpkin Soup With Kids

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Transcript:Pumpkin Soup With Kids

Hi. I’m Jane Ziegelman. I’m the director of a children’s cooking program in Brooklyn, New York, Kids Cook!. And I’m here today for About.com.

Today we’re going to be making a pumpkin soup with fresh pumpkin. The soup we make today is going to have a spooky design on top in honor of Halloween.

Prepare the Pumpkin

Our first step is our pumpkin. To open our pumpkin, we’re going to wiggle the tip of our knife into the skin. And just start pressing down. Then sort of rotate the pumpkin until it’s most of the way open. At this point you can use your hands to pry it apart. And you’ll hear a nice crack.

I need you to use your fingers or this spoon as like a scraping tool, just scrape out all this. Do you think you can do it? Give it a try.

Bake the Pumpkin

Bake pumpkin halves at 400 degrees for approximately 45 minutes and you want to bake them cut side down on a baking tray that’s been lined with foil.

Scoop Out the Pumpkin Insides

Our pumpkins are now nice and squishy and they’re ready for you guys to scoop. So what I am going to do now is use your spoons as a scooping tool and just sort of gently slide it through the pumpkin and then put your pumpkin right into the silver bowl.

Prepare Carrots, Garlic and Ginger

Our next job. Carrot peeling. You know how to peel, don’t you? One carrot each – yeah slowly pull the peeler toward you. And I’m going to do the chopping cause that’s more of a grownup job. But I’m going to give the orange for you for juicing. For this recipe we want to use the juice of one nice juicing orange. And I’m also going to be crushing some garlic cloves. We just have 2 cloves. So, we’re going to give them a gentle smash. And I’m just going to cut the garlic, into a few pieces, it doesn’t have to be finely chopped. Our last ingredient that we need to cut is ginger. And we’re going to use about half an inch of fresh ginger. And we’re going to take the skin off. You can use a vegetable peeler or a knife. And then we’re going to slice it into coins. And then cut the coins into strips.

Begin Cooking

We’re ready to start cooking. Our ingredients are all prepped. So, we’re going to turn our stove onto a medium flame. Add our olive oil. And our onion. We want to cook the onion until it begins to wilt and get it until it’s a little bit golden around the edges.

Our next ingredient is our ginger and our carrot. Stir and just let it cook. After your carrots and onion and ginger have been cooking for 3 or 4 minutes you want to add your garlic. If you add your garlic in the beginning it tends to burn. So you want to save it. Well our onions and carrots and ginger and garlic have become fragrant and the onions have begun to sort of turn yellowy gold.

Add Spices and Pumpkin

So, we’re ready to add our spices. We have turmeric, cumin, and paprika. You want to stir in our spices. After you see they’ve been sort of distributed around the pot you want to start adding more liquids. We’re going to add our chicken broth and we have here four cups. And, our pumpkin, which by the way you can interchange. You can also use winter squashes. Like butternut squash or acorn squash or that beautiful Japanese Pumpkin. At last, we’re going to add our orange juice. And now there’s nothing left but to have our soup simmer. And it will need to simmer for about 20 minutes. Um, you’ll see by that time all of our ingredients are soft and they’re ready to be blended.

Blend the Pumpkin Soup

For our blending tool we’re going to be using an immersion blender. Because you don’t have to wait for your soups or sauces to cool. So, easy as pie, put our blender in. Turn it on.

Finish With a Halloween Design

Our soup is cooked. It’s smooth is beautiful. We’re going to make our design. Are you ready to make our design? Take this little skewer and with your tip I want you to pull it through. There’s your spider web soup.

Thanks for watching. To learn more, visit us on the Web at About.com.