Pumpkin Guts, anyone?

When my friend/neighbor/running buddy told me that they were going to carve pumpkins this weekend, I asked if she would save me the guts. So today after church we picked them up on our way home! I had a recipe in mind. I made Pumpkin-Sweet Potato Soup.

Here it is in pictures...

After chopping one medium onion (with my trusty Pampered Chef chopper), I put it in this pot with 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-low heat. It cooked for about 5 minutes.

Then I chopped four carrots and two celery stalks and added them to sauteed onion.

I'm missing a couple of steps in pictures. After the chopping, I added vegetable broth (some chicken stock because I didn't have enough vegetable stock), spices, coconut milk, sliced up sweet potato and real pumpkin guts. (my take on that is that it was neat to use it, but until I learn that there is something wrong with canned pumpkin, I'm going to continue to use it. :)
The soup simmers for about 35 minutes on medium heat. Then I blended it in my blender. I could only fill the blender half way full, so this took three rounds. The blog suggests using an immersion blender. Then I poured the soup into a large dish. (My roast dish, actually).

The above pic is the finished product with two buttered slices of Ezekiel bread on the side.
Delish! It was time consuming, but cooking real food from scratch is very rewarding!
I will be enjoying this with a grilled cheese sandwich tomorrow!