Cleaning Out the Fridge Soup

This afternoon I truly became my mother in the kitchen! No recipes, random ingredients, no mixing, soup on the stove, beets in the oven, hummus in food processor on counter ..... I guess that is what cool fall days are for!

I had leftover pumpkin puree from a loaf I made last week and it was starting to annoy me everytime I opened the fridge. You know those ingredients that you buy for one dish but have no clue what to do with the rest of it?!?!

So I was making my typical hummus and decided to throw in 1/2 cup of the pumpkin puree to see what the flavour would be. Yum.... something different and good way to bump up the nutritional content of hummus. The orange colour was perfect for fall too :) So I still had 1 cup of the pumpkin AND I had half a jar of unsweetened applesauce left from the gluten-free brownies I just baked as well. I had one parsnip so I decided I'd make a soup (and try out my new dutch oven my parents got me for my birthday 2 weeks ago!) Apple and parsnip and pumpkin should go well together I thought....

A little olive oil, chopped onion, 2 celery ribs, 2 carrots, 1 parsnip and threw in some red chili flakes, and garlic. Then the pumpkin and applesauce went in with a bay leaf. I remembered I still had some chicken stock in the freezer so defrosted it and put it in and let it simmer for an hour. I had some strange looking oregano in the fridge that was on the verge of garbage so I put that in with some sea salt and pepper and ended up pureeing half of it.... So we'll have this tonight with a roast chicken that's in the oven and some leftover green beans. Random but healthy and delish!