Recipes from the Point

Curated by Pamala Sheppard

Posted

Hey, Point Roberts folks.

We’re the Kings! We moved to Point Roberts in March of this year. We absolutely love it and have enjoyed getting to know everyone. Between the two of us, we are from Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando, Los Angeles, New York City and Portland.

We have a boxer named Amadeus, a black German Shepherd named Sonata and a cat named Rory. We will be adding one more to our family at the end of this year, baby Koraline.

We feel so blessed to be able to have our first child here on the Point and have this wonderful community to support her as she grows up. We found the Point in a news article talking about the hit the town was going to feel from the pandemic and we thought, “Wow, what an interesting place, we should move there.”

Fast forward about a year and here we are! Something that bonded my wife and I together is our love for all things dark and weird, hence Halloween is our favorite time of the year. Every October, we have a tradition. We carve jack-o’-lanterns, watch the original Evil Dead and eat a delicious sausage and herb soup cooked inside of a pumpkin. This recipe has evolved over time and changes based on vegetable and tool availability. It can be quite a mess but it is worth it!

As a reminder, do not throw away your pumpkin seeds. After you clean and remove all the pulp from the seeds, let them dry out overnight. The next day toss and roast them in olive oil and a slew of seasonings and have yourself a snack for a few weeks. We prefer parmesan garlic seeds and “everything seasoning” seeds. Let us know if you need more suggestions. Enjoy the recipe and happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Pie Sausage Soup

Ingredients:

2 large pie pumpkins

1/2 C butter + 1 T divided

1 C white onion diced

1 1/2 C Italian bread crumbs

1/2 C flour

1 T celery seed

1 lb Italian sausage cooked and drained or equal amount of vegetarian option like Quorn Crumbles – you will not use all of it

1/2 C  goat cheese, grated

1 C  cheddar cheese, grated

2 quarts chicken stock, broth or vegetarian option like Not Chicken Bouillon – you will not use all of it1 tsp thyme dried

4 sage leaves

1 t salt

1/4 C parsley dried

2 C kale fresh

1 C heavy cream

Cut the lid out of the pumpkin. As you are cutting around the stem, angle the knife towards the stem so the ring on the inside of the pulp is smaller than the ring on the outside of the pumpkin. This will make it so the lid won’t fall in when it is replaced for baking.

Remove seeds (set aside so you can rinse them, let them dry and roast them).

Rub the inside of the lid with 1 T butter.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a skillet, melt 1/2 C butter and sauté onions in the melted butter until tender.

Add bread crumbs, flour and celery seed. Stir until coated and cook for three minutes.

Remove from heat and pour into
pumpkin.

Add cooked sausage, grated cheeses, chicken stock, thyme, sage leaves (two per pumpkin) salt, parsley and kale. Do not overfill. Use good judgement on filling. We always start with half the sausage, all the cheese, the herbs and kale, then the chicken stock. If there is room for more sausage, top it off. Any of the leftover base makes a great side for later or a side soup outside of the pumpkin. Put the lid back on the pumpkin and bake on a cookie sheet for 90 minutes.

Remove from the oven.

In a medium saucepan, bring cream to a simmer. Add to the contents of the pumpkin. Stir well.

When serving, scrape sides of pumpkin with the ladle or a spoon so that bits of pumpkin are added to the soup. This recipe can be altered for dietary restrictions or switching out vegetables. We made the soup with spinach instead of kale and it was also great.

We have tried adding a clove of garlic to each pumpkin, which also works wonderfully. I have also used spicy sausage, normal sausage and vegetarian sausage.

We recommend using something like Quorn Crumbles, seasoned with Italian seasoning.

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