Souper Saturday--Pumpkin Black Bean

I didn't realize until I typed out the title that this just sounds like a slightly modified version of last week's Pumpkin and White Bean. However, I chose it because it is actually very different. The recipe comes from Tammy's Recipes and she describes it as "a delicious black bean pastrami soup with pumpkin, tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a flavorful beef broth". She also says you can't really taste the pumpkin, so I figured it would be a good way to hide use some of the pumpkin I had from last week.


Tammy's Original Recipe

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
4 to 4 1/2 cups freshly cooked black beans*
1 1/2 cups fresh or canned tomatoes, diced
3/4 teaspoon sugar
4 cups beef broth
16 ounces (2 cups) pumpkin puree
1/3 to 1/2 pound turkey pastrami, diced or chopped**
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Instructions:

1. In a 6-quart stock pot, saute the onion, garlic, cumin and pepper over moderate heat, until onions are translucent.

2. Add beans, tomatoes, sugar, broth and pumpkin, stirring to combine. Simmer uncovered for 25+ minutes.***

3. Add pastrami and vinegar and heat through.

Additional Notes:

*Can substitute three 15-ounce cans of black beans, rinsed and drained. The original recipe also said to puree the beans, but we like them left whole!

**I order my turkey pastrami thin sliced and then dice it for this. You could also use turkey ham.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I rarely follow a recipe exactly. Here are my changes:

a) oil instead of butter to cook the onion in
b) I used 2 cans of black beans
c) I used Trader Joe's concentrated beef broth packets (plus water to equal the 4 cups)
d) instead of turkey pastrami or turkey ham, I used Black Forest ham because that's what Trader Joe's had
e) used only 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
f) I pureed the tomatoes and beans, as the kids protest vegetable chunks

The family liked last week's poll, so I'll probably make that a regular feature. This week's verdict:
Handsome 8 "hearty"
Me 7
Firstborn 7
Skippy 4 "too meaty"
Pinkerbelle 10 (although her reaction did not support this...should be a 6, maybe)

Average: 7.2 but slightly skewed by P's false 10

Nobody knew there was pumpkin in it until Firstborn read the title of this post. They were somewhat taken aback, but didn't make a big deal of it. After all, they had already eaten it.

I thought it was very good, but slightly too acidic or tangy, hence my 7 rating. I would further reduce the vinegar next time, or cut it out all together.