The Homestead Hobbyist

Here's another wonderful recipe!

At least, I say it's wonderful. We'll wait until you try it yourself to deem it tasty or not, but I'm pretty sure you'll absolutely love it! I hesitate to say I "stole" this recipe from the Soupergirl, because what I cook is not close to the same class as her soups, but she is where I got the idea for this Sweet Potato Et Cetera Soup Puree.

This is pretty much a "what do I have in my fridge that can be pureed?" type of soup. I had three smallish sweet potatoes, three turnips (two were tiny, one was quite big), a yellow onion, an apple, a bit of lemon zest, some cinnamon, a tiny touch of crushed red pepper, a bit of fresh-ground pepper, and some salt. I used the turnips only because they absolutely had to be eaten or they would have soon gone bad. The soup puree isn't overwhelmingly turnipy, but I would have used less given the option, and more sweet potato or apple.

Anyway, so after you chop everything up into itty bits, chuck 'em all into the pot of salted boiling water (which you started beforehand, of course, even though I haven't yet mentioned it). Add the cinnamon, lemon zest, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste (or whatever else you like, this is just what I had in the kitchen--nutmeg? I should buy some!). Cook for a few minutes; I think I boiled for 10 or 15 minutes, enough so that everything is pretty soft. Drain most of the water (leave about a 1/2 to 2/3 of a cup to make the pureeing process easier) and use a blender or somesuch to puree the mess. Garnish with a bit more cinnamon and zest, and you're good to go!

I used about 1/4 cup of apple cider that I had left from the farmers' market this weekend. I don't think it added a whollop of flavour, but instead of saving water that you boiled the veggies in, that's a wonderful alternative, or even a touch of orange juice would probably be nice.

This seriously takes only about 30 minutes and provides four bowls of soup (if your bowls are a tad smaller than my very generous helping!).



Post Scriptum: You might notice that my cropping skills leave a little to be desired... But I'm quite proud of the whole "invisible background" thing, so cropping can go to hell!

Besides... I tried for about an hour to retain the cute little steam wisps. Cropping doesn't work like that when you're taking your photos in your living room with the garden as a backdrop instead of a seamless solid color backdrop. Gah!