Taste of Home Pumpkin Bisque with Smoked Gouda

As I've stated many times before, this is my favorite time if year. There are many things that I love about the fall, but the biggest is the food. Growing up my mother would go into a baking and cooking frenzy during the months leading up to Christmas. The smells were delicious and my mother would spend hours teaching me to cook the dishes she was making. Now that I have a family of my own I have continued the tradition of fall baking with my own family. My absolute favorite fall ingredient is pumpkin, I love it in just about everything. I was excited when the November issue of Taste of Home magazine had a recipe for Pumpkin Bisque with Smoked Gouda, which looked delicious and utilized my favorite fall ingredient, pumpkin.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It makes 9 servings and takes 15 minutes of prep and 35 minutes of cooking time. During the non-fall/winter months it is absolutely impossible to find pure pumpkin in my local stores, but this time of the year it is easily found. All the ingredients were basic and I had no problems finding any of them at my local grocery store. I made my own chicken broth from scratch. I prefer the taste of homemade broth, plus it is free of preservatives and sodium (I don't salt my broth, I salt the dish I prepare it with instead). I used thick-cut bacon, I love the taste and texture and use it frequently in my dishes.Make sure to adequately salt the soup, since I used homemade chicken broth which I don't salt when preparing I had to add a significant amount of salt for flavor. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

Pumpkin soup is delicious, and this recipe was no exception. I loved how quick this bisque went together and how few ingredients were needed. My two boys were impressed with this soup and ate their entire servings. The recipe states that this serves 9, but I found there was a significant amount of leftovers after feeding my family of four. Overall, a delicious and easy pumpkin soup recipe, perfect for the fall.

For the recipe go to Pumpkin Bisque with Smoked Gouda.