Gingered Sweet Potato Soup: making the most of what you’ve got

 

GINGERED CARROT SOUP

 

Sweet potato soup with ginger.

So, I promised I would share my Winter CSA adventure with you. In my first box I got:

Green leaf lettuce, Scallions, Baby bella mushrooms, Parsnips, Rutabaga, Acorn squash, Carrots, Apples, and the tiniest sweet potatoes ever.

I made vegetarian mushroom stroganoff with the mushrooms, used the scallions in some guacamole, the carrots I used in vegetarian faux chicken salad, the lettuce went into a salad at my brother’s one evening and the apples I made into escalloped apples. The parsnips, rutabaga and the acorn squash are all going to be roasted this weekend–that leaves the tiniest sweet potatoes ever. There were a lot of them, but they were little tiny and looked like they would be  a real pain to peel.  I decided to boil them with their skins on until they were soft–soft enough for those skins to slide off. My trick worked and I had about 4 cups of soft sweet potatoes, so I decided to make soup with them. Here’s the recipe I came up with.

Gingered Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

2 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
1/8 cup fresh ginger, minced
4 cups of sweet potatoes, cooked and peeled
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cups orange juice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon of honey or brown sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
Slivered almonds, toasted

How-to

  1. Boil sweet potatoes until soft and remove the skins.  Set aside.
  2. In a large pot, sauté onions and ginger in oil until soft.
  3. Add the sweet potatoes, vegetable broth and spices and reduce heat to medium. Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes.
  4. Add orange juice and honey (or brown sugar)..
  5. Working in small batches, and using a food processor or blender, process the soup until it is smooth and well-blended.
  6. Return to pot and add salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Top with the toasted almonds, serve and enjoy!