The Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Christine and i lived on the top floor of a house in West Philly, and usenet delivered to me a recipe about making soup in a pumpkin. I remember it fondly, although it was very very rich. Cream! French bread! Swiss cheese! One served the soup by scooping the baked pumpkin out with the cream soup.

Last night i took two of those little pie pumpkins, cut the tops off, scooped out the seeds (left them overnight in brine), and then the stringy innards. I filled each with a hunk of (frozen) French bread, seasoning (paprika, onion powder, nutmeg, pepper), shredded Swiss cheese, and whole milk. We'd bought the bread last week, and i froze what was needed for the soup, as i realized the pumpkins would keep while the poblano peppers needed prompt roasting. That casserole kept us in leftovers for a good while.

A recipe i found for a similar soup in a 4 lb pumpkin suggested it would take two hours to bake, but i found it just one hour at 375°F.  I'd guestimated the pumpkins at 4 lbs, or a bag of sugar, but maybe i was quite off.

It wasn't soup. It had gelled up, which is good because one of the pumpkins lost structural integrity. I am uncertain about the gel. Just slow cooked milk? The boundary between the pumpkin and the  "soup" had a browned skin. The bread kept its dimensions and clearly gelled up, too, but around the bread was the plain milk gel. There was a layer of the melted Swiss cheese. It was a delicious as an orange vegetable can get for me. Turns out a half a pie pumpkin was a serving, so another awaits today. I suspect i could never repeat this result. I meant to stir half way, but what was half way turned out to be the end. I did leave it in the other oven section to stay warm for an hour, so perhaps that hour of slow heat was the gelling function?

I'm happy with the recent soups: the harissa fig chickpea soup, the radish greens and potato soup, and now this pumpkin soup... er... custard? Christine says she would make it sweeter and more pie like.

Just a quick note to say that Bruno came out of the front room on his own several times yesterday. He may have spent a great deal of time under the couch but he roamed. And the third outing, in the evening, Marlowe did spend time glaring at him under the couch. Other than a resonant warning tone -- it wasn't exactly a growl -- they got on. This morning he came roaming around and got on the couch a few times. And he kept roaming, and he sauntered back to his room, not dashing across the open ground.

He's also standing up a little more to Marlowe's attacks.

I think the stress of trying to make sure they both get enough attention and Bruno feels safe without making Marlowe feel she's loosing anything has been very hard on Christine. (And it takes cycles for me, too.) I feel like i can imagine a January where we aren't managing which doors are open and closed.