Beyond promoting good skincare, we at cocokind believe in healthy living. That means both eating and applying good ingredients that promote in-and-out beauty.
The fact is — clean eating and drinking are arguably the MOST important factors to healthy skin. You cannot feed your body poorly and expect to make that up with ANY products applied externally. Healthy eating is the ultimate first step to glowy skin.
Keep in mind - we are not professional chefs! However, what we do know is how to make relatively easy yet creative meals for everyday life that are clean, nourishing, and healthy.
Since we just entered the fall season, we thought the best place to start is our delicious Pumpkin Curry Hearty Soup recipe. Pumpkin has so many nutritional benefits, including having a ton of fiber and being loaded with beta carotene (an antioxidant which helps protect the skin and get rid of free radicals). Eat up!
Pumpkin Curry Hearty Soup
Serves: 8-10 people
Materials needed: slow cooker (optional) and immersion blender
Total prep time: 40 minutes
Total cook time: 5 hours (if using slow cooker), or 1.5 hours if using stove
Ingredients:
-1 small to medium pumpkin
-1 can of organic pumpkin
-1 medium to large onion (chopped to medium slices)
-6 stalks of celery (diced)
-2 large garlic cloves (minced)
-1 diced tomato
-2 jalopeno peppers (optional – I like spicy spicy)
-1 can of corn
-1/2 large red bell pepper
-1/2 cup of frozen peas
-1 tbsp ghee or olive oil
-1/2 cup of almond milk
-1/2-3/4 can of coconut milk (depending on desired creaminess!)
-1 box of vegetable broth
-1 teas tumeric powder
-1 teas chili powder
-dash of nutmeg
-Red pepper flakes
-Pepper and salt
-2 tablespoon curry powder
Directions:
Start with carving out your pumpkin. Slice open the top and scrape out the seeds (save these for later!). My pumpkin had spaghetti squash texture, which I was not expecting. I used a large spoon to scrape as much of the pumpkin meat out, which resulted in around 1.5 cups of pumpkin meat.
Combine the fresh pumpkin meat with the can of organic pumpkin in a large pot (I used a slow cooker, but a stove pot works just as well). Also in the pot, add the chopped onion (small to medium slices), garlic, tomato, celery, 1 sliced jalopeno pepper, ghee or olive oil, veggie broth, almond milk, coconut milk, tumeric powder, chili powder, nutmeg, red pepper flakes, curry powder, and salt and pepper. I cooked this in the slow cooker for four hours. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can saute the ghee and onions, then throw this in a stove pot with all other ingredients and simmer for 45-60 minutes.
On the side, combine the corn, peas, 1 sliced jalapeno pepper, diced red bell pepper, and red pepper flakes in a pan and heat for ~5-10 minutes. Place on the side.
When the slow cooker or pot is ready, remove from heat and run an immersion blender (my favorite kitchen tool!) through the pot. You don’t have to over do it here if you like your soup chunky like I do. Just make sure you achieve a consistent texture through the pot.
Once you have blended the main pot, add the corn/pepper mixture to the soup and stir! Salt and season as desired. Pour back into the pumpkin for some major eye candy for your guests! If you want some extra extra credit, roast your leftover pumpkin seeds with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and paprika on some parchment paper for 30 minutes, and top your soup with some crunchiness! That’s it! You are now ready to enjoy every bit of this fall season.
We hope you enjoyed this Fall recipe!