Jamaican Style Pumpkin Soup with Spinner Noodles

I typically use Winter Luxury or Sugar Pie. A Caribbean calabaza type squash would be more authentic and  Butternut or other squashes would be fun to try also.

Use organic ingredients whenever possible because they typically have more concentrated flavor.

Buying whole spices is best. Most can be easily crushed in a small mortar and pestle or grated when you need them. Pre ground spices that have been sitting on a shelf for a year will be great for spicing up your compost bin.

ingredients: 

pumpkin (or whatever squash)

onion

thyme - fresh is of course best, but dried is fine as long as it hasn't been sitting in the back of a cupboard for years

black pepper

nutmeg 

1 fresh habanero chile(or hot sauce) - scotch bonnet would be more authentic, but I haven't found a good, hot, local one. 

coconut milk and/or stock - homemade chicken or veg stock only, grocery store stock is not worth using. You're usually better of substituting a cheap wine or american lager (Rainier, PBR, etc)

olive and/or canola oil

salt

flour

Preheat the oven to 400. 

Cut the pumpkin in half carefully with a large heavy knife. I like to knock the stem off with the back of the blade first. (If using calabaza, it may need to be blanched in a pot of lightly salted boiling water instead of roasted.) Put the squash, cut side down, on a lightly oiled baking sheet and roast until soft. It'll probably take about 20-30 minutes or more depending on the size of the squash. Let the pumpkin cool and remove the skin. 

Hack the onion into chunks. Remove the peel first though, that part isn't delicious. It's very important to be imprecise during this chopping process. Always ration precision and anal retentiveness so that you have plenty left for garnishing your soup. 

Heat a generous amount of oil in a large pot and add the onion. By 'generous' I mean not deep frying, but still not generally concerned about our calorie intake and more oil means less chance of burning on the bottom of the pan. We will, depending on the current state of spousal weight loss plans, probably be adding more oil later anyway. 

When the onion is lightly browned, add the pumpkin and flavorful liquid(s) of your choice. If using liquor, never pour directly from the bottle into a hot pan or near open flame (no Molotov's in the kitchen). Add cautious amounts of habanero if desired. 1/4 of a pepper may be plenty.

Top up with water if necessary and add a sprinkle of salt. Simmer, stirring frequently, for 15-20 minutes. Near the end of cooking add ground black pepper, grated nutmeg, and thyme. Go easy with the nutmeg, you can always add more later. 

Puree the soup with a blender, food processor or 5 hp outboard motor in an oil drum (not vegan friendly, due to dinosaur based products).

In a blender, start on low speed with small batches unless you want to paint your ceiling orange.

In a food processor it may take many small batches, but if you saved anal retentiveness from prior steps then you may want to use it to push the soup through a sieve using a swirling motion with the back of a ladle. This strains out fibrous bits and gives the soup a smooth texture.

Put the soup back on the stove, thin as necessary with water or flavorful liquid. Check the taste and add more spices and salt if needed. If it tastes thin, whisk in more olive oil. 

For the spinners: mix some flour and water in a bowl with a sprinkle of salt until you have a dough that looks like rough playdough, but tastes better.

Cover the dough with a towel to rest and boil a pot of lightly salted water.

Cover a baking sheet with flour. Take a pinch of dough and roll it between your hands into some sort of vaguely noodle-ish looking shape, then toss it onto the floured baking sheet. Keep hands and noodles well floured and brain liberally basted with leftover stock substitute from earlier. Cook spinners in small batches. Shake the flour off and boil for a couple minutes. If they're not going directly into the soup, toss them with a bit of oil to keep them from sticking together. 

Garnish the soup with something that looks nice and, if you're really fancy, tastes nice too. No zig-zag drizzles of sauce, though.  If I hear of any drizzles, I won't share any more barely coherent soup recipes. 

-Anthony