Spiced Apple & Sweet Potato Soup

What's this? A soup recipe so soon after making vegetable broth? What a surprise!

As previously mentioned, I have been craving soup for a long time and I finally chose this recipe for Butternut Squash and Apple Soup as my guide.

I made a few, minor changes, so I'll record the recipe I ended up making. The biggest change, I guess, was that I used sweet potato instead of squash...for no particular reason other than I love sweet potato and had some in my house...I also hate cutting butternut squash. I'm always afraid I'll cut off my hand. I skipped oiling my sweet potato when I baked it, because I didn't want the extra fat and it's so easy to just bake it in the skin. I used butter instead of oil and obviously used vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, along with a few changes in the instructions.

I weighed my ingredients as I went, and, of course, they are approximate and not very strict, so add more or less depending on your tastes!

Spiced Apple & Sweet Potato Soup
(adapted from Butternut Squash and Apple Soup)

Ingredients:

• 3 medium sized sweet potato (450-500 grams), baked in skin and peeled
• 4 (600-650 grams) medium sized apples, peeled, cored and chopped (I used a mix, but mostly Ambrosia)
• 1/3 cup (70-90 grams) onion, finely chopped
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 3/4 Tbsp cinnamon
• dash of nutmeg
• 3/4 Tbsp ground ginger
• 2-3 Tbsp curry powder (the original recipe calls for two, but I added more, so taste as you go)
• 4-6 cups of broth, depending on what thickness you prefer (guess what kind I used!)
• fine sea salt and pepper to taste
• 2 generous Tbsp plain yogurt, milk or half and half to taste (optional--I didn't add this to the soup; just a spoonful before eating it)

Instructions:

1. Prepare your ingredients (chop, slice, etc...)

For sweet potato:

• Wash sweet potato and poke holes through the skin with a fork or knife
• Bake at 375F for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until tender.
• Once cool enough to handle, peel skins (they should practically fall off)

2. Heat butter in a large saucepan until melted. Add onions and apples and cook until soft and brown. Add spices and sweet potato.

3. Add about 1 cup of broth, then transfer to a food processor or blender and process until smooth

4. Return mixture to saucepan, and stir in remaining broth. Taste your soup now and adjust your spices (I added more curry powder, salt and pepper), then bring to a boil and let simmer for a few minutes.

5. Remove from heat, stir in optional dairy, and enjoy!

This soup was delicious, though when I first tried it, it tasted like it was missing something. I added more curry powder, salt and pepper and let it sit to cool for a while. When I returned to eat and reheat it, I thought it tasted great.  Even better, I think, after it had been refrigerated for a day. Maybe it just needed time for the spices to really mix in or something? I added a spoonful of yogurt before eating and recommend it...yogurt can be so refreshing.

Feb. 9th/2011 UPDATE: I made this soup for the second time today. I weighed everything again, and they obviously differed, so I included the range of weight from my first batch to this batch.

This time I used less apple and more onion and found it did not require any added salt. I am not sure why. The only change to the process was that I cooked/simmered the apple, onion, spices and 1 cup of broth together for quite a bit longer than the first time. I also used a different batch of the vegetable broth, and more of it (5 cups rather than 4). All the same, both batches were delicious and I am in love with this soup.

A funny coincidence, but my mom also made this soup today and praised it. The only issue she had was that she found even 1 Tbsp of curry powder to be too much. She used curry powder from Farmboy, while mine is from Bulk Barn, so there might be a difference there, along with personal preference. In any case, I only note this to reinforce my suggestion that you taste as you go.