Ingredients

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Spider Web Pumpkin Soup

• 1 cup diced onion

• ½ cup (1 stick) of Challenge Butter

• 8 ounces of Challenge Cream Cheese

• 4 cups of low sodium chicken broth

• 15 ounces of canned pumpkin

• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 1/2 cup milk

• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

• ½ cup of sour cream

 

Spider Bites

1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed according to package

6 thick slices of Black Forest ham deli meat

¾ cup of Whipped Challenge Cream Cheese

48 mini pretzels twists

24 capers

 

 

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

• In a large saucepan over medium heat, add butter and diced onions. Cook until onions have softened. Stir in cream cheese and stir until cheese has softened. Add chicken broth, pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, pepper and milk. Stir ingredients until well incorporated. Reduce temperature to low, and simmer soup for 20 minutes. Taste for salt, add the desired amount.

• To create Spider Bites, place puff pastry on a floured work surface. Using a 2 inch cookie cutter, cut out 16 circles. Arrange circles on a cookie sheet. Place into the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes or until pastry is baked through and the tops are golden.

• When cool enough to handle, cut circles in half.

• Place 1 tablespoon of cream on bottom portion of pastry. Using the same 2 inch cookie cutter that you used for the pastry, cut out 12 circles from the ham. Place a piece of lunch meat on top of cream cheese.

• Break rounded edges off of the pretzels to create 8 legs for each sandwich. Push “pretzel legs” through the lunch meat and cream cheese to anchor. Top sandwich with the top portion of the puff pastry circle. Use some cream cheese to adhere capers to sandwich to create eyes.

• Divide the soup among eight large soup bowls. Place sour cream into a squeeze bottle. Starting in the middle of the bowl, create a spiral by squeezing the sour cream on top of soup. With a knife, start in the middle of the swirl and pull out towards the edges of the soup bowl. Continue until you have created a spider web. Serve soup with Spider Bites.

 

Serves 8

 

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