Chipotle Pumpkin Lima Soup

If you have a cold, or just need some warming, make this soup now. It is spicy and smoky and buttery all at once.

The original recipe for this soup comes from Super Natural Cooking, but I found it posted here by Heidi at 101 Cookbooks. I've adapted it slightly, including my favorite little gord, pumpkin, leaving in the softened garlic, and changing some amounts. If you aren't into pumpkin, you could use chunks of slightly roasted butternut squash. And if you love the original simplicity of a brothy soup with 5 ingredients (excluding water), then follow Heidi's suggestions instead of mine.

1 pound dried baby limas (don't use canned for soups...they get too mushy)
1 whole head garlic
14 cups of water
2 yellow onions
Chipotle peppers canned in adobo sauce
Sea salt
2/3 cup pumpkin puree (be careful -- I almost bought the pumpkin pie puree, what a disaster that would be)
OR 1 cup of roasted chunks of butternut squash

Soak 1 pound of baby limas for a few hours. Rinse. Throw in a pot with 10 cups of water and an entire head of garlic. Don't peel the garlic, just slice the top off and strip away the loosest layers. Simmer this until the beans are ready.

Meanwhile thinly slice 2 yellow onions and heat a good amount of olive oil in a skillet (I used 4 tablespoons, and added some in later, too). Cook on high, then stir with 3 chipotle peppers that have been canned with adobo sauce. Add 3-4 teaspoons of adobo sauce. Toss this into the broth and add 3 teaspoons of sea salt.

Follow with 2/3 cup of pumpkin puree or 1 cup of slightly roasted chunks of butternut squash. Simmer for another half an hour. Remove the garlic head, but squeeze all of the soft garlic out into the soup.