Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms

We had an abundance of sweet potatoes in the pantry. They are definitely one food item I need to figure out how to utilize efficiently. Too often, I end up tossing a moldy bag into the compost bin. I know I could easily roast them or dice them up and add them to a risotto. Lots of people just bake them the same way as a russet potato. I had, at one time, been working to find a good oven-baked sweet potato fries recipe but I have yet to perfect that recipe. Too often, sweet potato recipes often include ingredients like maple syrup or tiny marshmallows which are two things we don't care for much. Thus began my search for an acceptable way to use up the latest batch of sweet potatoes from our CSA box.

Since we had so many sweet potatoes, I decided to explore a soup figuring that I could put it into smaller containers and stick them in the freezer awaiting a nice, easy weeknight dinner. After searching for a bit, I finally settled on this soup from Vegetarian Times. Their title doesn't contain carrots but we thought the flavor of the carrots was present enough that they deserved being on the bill. Their version was also a bisque that contained heavy cream. I read that heavy cream doesn't freeze well (it's possible but it just takes more work than I wanted to put in). So I did an adaptation of the recipe (leaving out the heavy cream) knowing that the soup was destined for the freezer. I made a note on the containers about possibly adding cream after reheating but when we pulled out the first batch out of the freezer a few weeks later I opted not to add the cream and the soup was quite tasty without it.

Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• Sweet potatoes - 1 lb. peeled and cut into small chunks
• Carrots - 3 medium sized, peeled and diced
• Shiitake mushrooms - 5 oz. cleaned and diced
• Garlic - 2-3 cloves minced
• Yellow onion - 1 large, peeled and chopped
• Unsalted butter - 6 tbsp.
• Tomato puree - 1 cup
• White wine - 3/4 cup
• Vegetable stock - 4 cups
• Scallions - 6 trimmed and finely minced
• White pepper - 1/4 tsp.
• Cayenne pepper - 1/4 tsp.
• Salt and black pepper - to taste

Preparation:

• Prep the potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic
• Heat 4 tbsp. butter in a large saucepan over medium heat
• Add onions and carrots and slowly stir until onions are translucent
• Add minced garlic and let it cook until it releases its fragrance
• Add broth, wine, sweet potatoes, seasonings, and tomato puree and slowly bring to a boil
• Reduce heat, cover, and cook on low for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Let cool slightly and use an immersion blender to puree the soup

At this point, I took it off the heat and let it cool until I could ladle it into freezer containers. Now, come the day you take it out of the freezer and once you have it defrosted and are beginning to reheat it, you could elect to add 1/4 cup of heavy cream to make it into a bisque. But I decided to forego the extra calories. However, the garnish is worth making as it adds a nice earthy flavor contrast to the sweetness of the potato and carrot.

Topping Preparation:

• Heat 2 tbsp. butter in a skillet over medium heat
• Add diced Shiitake mushrooms and stir to cook until they begin to soften
• Add chopped scallions and cook until everything is tender 
• Remove from heat and spoon onto the center of the soup just before serving.

Serve soup with some crunchy bread and olive oil.

Sweet Potato & White Bean Soup

A long time ago, I picked up a slow cooker with the intention of trying to utilize it and take advantage of the convenience. I made a pretty good bean stew and promised to try more. But I haven't really done that and whenever I look at slow cooker cookbooks I always notice how meat-heavy they are.

While walking through the cookbook section of my local library (which I do every time I visit it), a cookbook caught my attention: The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester. I checked it out of the library, brought it home, and proceeded to page through it reading through the recipes. There were easily a dozen recipes that I wanted to try. No more needing to skip through entire chunks of the book to avoid the meat recipes.

With the author being vegan, there are parts of the book dedicated to workarounds particular to vegans. And some of the recipes looked a little bland; written perhaps with the entire country in mind. Here in California, we have so many exotic ingredients available to us. So I immediately noticed places where I could add some changes and upgrades.

I decided to start with this recipe because we had multiple bags of sweet potatoes delivered that needed to be used up. I doctored up the recipe a bit.

On this particular December day, I was able to come home for lunch and get all of the ingredients into the slow cooker. I had an after-work holiday event to attend so I knew I wouldn't be home until a few hours later than usual. So I set this up to be our late dinner.

It was nice to walk through the door and pick up the scent of the simmering soup. This is a great weeknight meal for cooler fall and winter nights. Some good bread and olive oil goes along nicely.

Sweet Potato and White Bean Soup

Ingredients:

• Sweet potato - About 3 medium to small potatoes, peeled and chopped into mostly equal-sized chunks
• Garlic - 3 cloves, minced
• Celery - 3 stalks, cleaned and chopped
• Diced tomatoes - 1 14 oz. can
• White beans - 1 14 oz. can of beans, drained and rinsed
• Veggie broth - 5 cups
• Greens - 1 15 oz. bag of prepared greens. I used a bag of baby kale leaves.
• Parsley - leaves of 2-3 sprigs, chopped
• Bay leaf - 1-2 leaves
• Parmesan cheese - grated
• White pepper - 1/4 tsp or more to taste
• Salt and papper - to taste
• Flour - 4 tbsp

Directions:

The night before:

• Prepare the celery and sweet potatoes and store in air-tight container in the refrigerator.

The day of:

• Add sweet potatoes, celery, herbs, beans, tomatoes, minced garlic, white pepper and broth to the slow cooker and heat on low for 6-8 hours until potatoes are softened. 
• Remove bay leaf and parsley sprigs. 
• Before serving put the flour in a bowl. Ladle some broth into the bowl. Whisk to dissolve the flour. Once it is fully dissolved add it all back to the slow cooker and stir to mix.
• About 20 minutes before serving add in greens and let them cook down.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Top with some cheese and garnish with chopped parsley leaves.
• Serves 4.