Chili is the perfect way to start off the Fall season. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to eat chili due to my interstitial cystitis and intolerance of inflammatory foods, which include tomatoes.

Last Fall, we harvested ample pumpkins from our garden which I then (tediously, pumpkin processing is very time consuming) puréed and froze in quart bags. I looked up a recipe for “pumpkin soup” a few days ago and voila! The pumpkin chili recipe looked very enticing. But of course I’m not always satisfied with or don’t have all ingredients for a recipe “on the fly” and since I had very little time, my kids were getting out of school in a few hours, etc, I knew I had to modify, which I did.

The recipe I adapted as follows.

15 ounces of pumpkin purée, cumin to taste, Instapot cooked shredded chicken, 2 cans of white beans, shredded carrots and sautéed onion, 2 cans chicken broth.

I omitted the dairy because I didn’t want it to be a higher calorie soup. It added cream to it as well.

First, I instant pot 2 breasts of chicken for 37 minutes i’m sure you could do the crockpot but this is much faster. Then I remove the chicken from the pot and put the carrots and onions to sauté in the instant pot. Once they’re cooked but not mushy, I put the chicken back in with the broth, pumpkin purée seasonings and beans. Then I warm it up and served mine with my homemade French bread. See my recipe in homemade French bread cheese sandwiches.