It is hard not to love a sheet pan dinner, especially one with minimal chopping, but sheet pan soup? That just sounds messy!

This one works. With only a few ingredients and surprisingly little effort, you can have rich, creamy pumpkin soup.

Ingredients:

• 1 small pie pumpkin (or 1 small butternut squash)
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 slices bacon (optional) or 1 tsp smoked paprika and 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cups broth (chicken or vegetable)
• 1 tsp fresh sage or 1/2 tsp dried sage
• 1/8 tsp or a few grinds of fresh-ground pepper
• Salt to taste
• 1-2 tablespoons cream for garnishing

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees f
2. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper
3. Cut pumpkin in half or thirds, clean out the icky bits (but keep the seeds for roasted pumpkin seeds!)
4. Peel onion and slice in half
5. Arrange pumpkin pieces cut side down, onion and bacon (if using) on cookie sheet
6. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until bacon is done but not too crisp (if using)
7. Remove bacon from oven and set aside (if using)
8. Turn over onion and bake for additional 10-15 minutes, until pumpkin is very tender
9. Scoop cooked pumpkin flesh out of the skin
10. Here you can choose your own adventure. Do you:
    • Put the pumpkin, onion, bacon or olive oil and smoked paprika, broth and sage in a blender, then put it in a pot and bring it to a simmer before serving? or
    • Bring everything to a simmer in a pot and use a stick blender to blend everything together?
11. Whichever adventure you chose (and there are no wrong answers here), add pepper and add salt to taste
12. Serve into bowls and drizzle with a bit of cream