Worst Recipe Ever - Saved!

About a year ago, at this time, I truly did make a Worst.Recipe.Ever. It was another one of those recipes cut out from a magazine that looked and sounded great, that is, until I did one little ingredient replacement and then the whole thing went south. Very south. The Deep south.

I guess in retrospect, the recipe was not the worst, it was the ingredient that was the worst for that recipe. I had made a French Pumpkin Soup, recipe found HERE on my facebook recipe binder. This recipe specifically calls for a Rouge vif D'Etamps pumpkin (otherwise known as a "Cinderella Pumpkin" - different fron "Fairytale" pumpkins). I was not interested in hunting down a special pumpkin and figured I could cook this soup in any old pumpkin - WRONG!!! It was simply put, disgusting!

This year...... I felt inspired. Having driven around parts of Santa Cruz county and on 92 near Half Moon Bay (where there are lots of pumpkin farms) I felt like it could not be too terribly difficult to find this fancy pumpkin. I ended up on the internet, which by the way, has very little out there about this special pumpkin, and I found Crystal Bay Farm in Watsonville. I wrote to Jeff and Lori and Jeff responded that indeed he had a few Rouge pumpkins left and some suggestions for other varieties that might work.

Off I went to Crystal Bay Farm, which is beautiful and has a fantastic honor system farm stand and found my pumpkin. It was 14 pounds which was a little larger than the recipe calls for. That weekend I made my soup, yet again, praying and hoping, that it came out better.

AND....OH MY! It did! So, although this recipe started out as a Worst.Recipe.Ever, it has now graduated to full yumminess. The pumpkin simply melted into the soup and even the stringy bits were tasty, almost like a spaghetti squash. In order to make it edible for the vegetarians in my household I swapped out the Chicken Broth for Veggie broth which was delicious.

There really is not much healthy in this recipe, between the shredded cheese and full stick of butter, but it is worth it. In addition, cooked in the pumpkin, it makes a beautiful soup tureen serving piece worthy of any holiday table. Try it out!