Jack-o-Lantern Soup

Welcome October! In light of the season, here is a festive, fun recipe that I added some of my own tweaks to make it kid and family friendly. I saw the base of this recipe in a coffee table type book at a friend's house. I scribbled it down on a scrap paper and brought it home.

I didn't call it pumpkin soup because I didn't want to have any confusion because there isn't any pumpkin in it. It sounded like something that would be a good starter course, so I also cooked a roast beef in the crockpot all day that went along nicely with it.

Adding the decorative ranch dressing face in it was an idea I stole from another magazine. The kids loved it! Might be the only reason they tried it. I did have one child that claimed that she didn't like it. This is the same one that had a very empty bowl of soup at her plate, so I don't think she knew what she was talking about. If you add the dressing to the individual soup bowls, you can make it dairy free. Oh, and before adding the peanut butter, I took out a bowl full and fed it to the baby. He didn't like it, but he was also overtired and only wanted mommy's milk and sleep. He'll get it tomorrow and hopefully like it, too.



Jack-a-Lantern Soup
aka Carrot Peanut Soup

Makes 8 half-cup servings

1 # carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
3 cups chicken broth
2 Tb smooth peanut butter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Ranch dressing

Place carrots, apples, and chicken broth in a saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, cover pan and simmer until carrots and apples are soft, about 10 minutes. Place soup in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade (a blender would work, too). Process until smooth. Pour soup back into the saucepan and stir in peanut butter until texture is smooth. Season to taste and gently reheat. Take ranch dressing and carefully pour out in soup bowls making jack-o-lantern face on top of soup. If your dressing doesn't have a spout, pour dressing into zip lock baggie, snip bottom corner and decorate soup with a jack-o-lantern face!