Foodie Fridays: Green Chile Pumpkin Soup with Sausage and Yuca

I did warn you to expect more recipes using our favorite flame roasted green chile, and here is the next one!  I also added a starchy vegetable that is new to me in this soup - yuca or cassava root.  I think that I have probably eaten it before in Puerto Rico, but I honestly do not remember what it tasted like (I tasted a lot of new-to-me starchy vegetables in Puerto Rico years ago but cannot remember what any of them were or how they tasted).  You could probably leave it out of this recipe or substitute potatoes, but if you want to try it be sure to read about it here and here before attempting to select, prepare, and use yuca.

One great discovery I made is that almond milk is a surprisingly good substitute for cream in soups.  It is so much healthier and lower in fat than cream and tastes much better than evaporated milk (another often suggested cream substitute).  I think that I will probably use almond milk in cream soups from now on.

We are in for at least a couple more months of wintry weather here in New Mexico, which to my mind means soup weather, so now you can expect to see more soup recipes from me in the near future as well!

Green Chile Pumpkin Soup with Sausage and Yuca

1-2 T. olive oil
1/2 white onion, diced
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. cumin
1 C. sausage crumbles (I used Jimmy Dean Fully Cooked Turkey Sausage Crumbles)
1 medium-sized yuca or cassava root, peeled, cored, and diced
1/4-1/2 tsp. salt
4 C. chicken stock
1 can (14 oz.) pumpkin purée
1/4 C. flame roasted green chile
1 C. milk or cream (I used almond milk)

Heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onion and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the garlic and cumin and heat one minute longer.  Remove from the heat and scrape into a bowl.  Heat a little more oil in the pan if needed, add the sausage crumbles, and heat through.  Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

Place the diced yuca in a medium-sized pot and add water to cover by about one inch.  Add 1/4-1/2 tsp. salt.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes until tender.  Drain and set aside in the same bowl as the onion mixture.

Rinse out the pot used to boil the yuca.  Add the chicken stock and pumpkin purée and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium, stir in the yuca/onion mixture, and heat through.  Remove from the heat and use an immersion blender to purée the soup.  Return to the heat and stir in the green chiles plus the sausage.  Taste for seasoning and add more salt, cumin, and/or green chile if needed.  Stir in the milk or cream and taste one more time for seasonings.  Serves 4-6.

Yuca or cassava root (from Swapfoods)