Animal, Vegetable, Miracle_ A Year of Food Life - Barbara Kingsolver [140]
PUMPKIN SOUP IN ITS OWN SHELL
1 five-pound pumpkin (if smaller or larger, adjust the amount of liquid)
Cut a lid off the top, scoop out the seeds and stringy parts, and rub the inside flesh with salt. Set the pumpkin in a large roasting pan or deep pie dish.
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 quart milk or soy milk
½ cup fresh sage leaves (use less if dried) 3 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons sea salt
Pepper to taste
Roast garlic cloves whole in oven or covered pan on low heat, until soft. Combine with liquid and spices in a large pot, mashing the cloves and heating carefully so as not to burn the milk. Fill the pumpkin with the liquid and replace the lid, putting a sheet of foil between the pumpkin and its top so it doesn’t fall in. (If you accidentally destroyed the lid while hollowing the pumpkin, just cover with foil.) Bake the filled pumpkin at 375° for 1–2 hours, depending on the thickness of your pumpkin. Occasionally open lid and check with a spoon, carefully scraping some inside flesh into the hot liquid. If the pumpkin collapses or if the flesh is stringy, remove liquid and flesh to a blender and puree. With luck, you can serve the soup in the pumpkin tureen.
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AUTUMN MEAL PLAN
Sunday ~ Grilled steak and fall potato salad
Monday ~ Sweet potato and chard quesadilla
Tuesday ~ Twice-baked potatoes with cheese and late-season broccoli
Wednesday ~ Spanish tortilla (potato and onion frittata)
Thursday ~ Three-bean soup with fresh bread
Friday ~ Pizza with tomato sauce, turkey sausage, roasted onions, and mozzarella
Saturday ~ Cheese and squash quiche
* * *
17 • CELEBRATION DAYS
November–December
The closing-down season of the year set us to dragging out storm windows and draining outdoor pipes, but Lily had a whole different agenda: her egg enterprise opened for business. Her April chicks had matured into laying hens, surprising us with their first eggs in late October. Winter is the slow season for egg-laying, with many breeds ceasing production altogether when days are less than thirteen hours long. We’d counseled Lily not to expect much from her flock until next spring.
Never underestimate the value of motivational speeches from the boss. Lily shot out of bed extra early every morning so she’d have time to spend in the chicken coop before the school bus came. Her hens have special nest boxes that open from outside the chickens’ roosting quarters, so it’s possible to stand (in clean shoes) in the front room of the poultry barn and reach through to collect the eggs. Or in Lily’s case, to stand for hours peering in, supervising the hens at their labors. She actually has watched eggs exiting the hens’ oviducts—a sight few people on earth have yet checked off their to-do lists, I imagine. When planning this flock she had chosen antique, heavy-bodied breeds with good reputations for laying right through cold weather. By mid-November she was bringing in as many as a dozen eggs a day from her nineteen layers.
Lily apparently knew all along that her workforce could actualize its potential. She had also been working her customer base for months, taking phone numbers in advance. A CEO wears many hats—accountant, supervisor, egg scrubber—but this company’s special strength was public relations. Advance planning had taken into account not just winter production, but also egg color. The products from her different breeds of hens crossed a palette from soft green to pink, tan, and chocolate brown. Lily arranged