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Moroccan Sweet Potato Soup

Hi, I’m Stewart — It’s nice to meet you! Lauren wasn’t feeling well this evening, and when your wife is sick, you’re supposed to take care of her. You’re supposed to make sure that she has everything she needs. Failing that, however, you should at least make her dinner. So that’s what I did.

Walking home from work tonight, I had a plan. I knew that we had some leftover sourdough bread from last night, and I thought it was probably fairly crusty. Why not serve a thick soup with it? How about right on top of it? It would be some kind of, I don’t know, bread soup. I’m pretty sure I had something like that when I was a kid. Or maybe that was an open-faced sandwich. If you think about it, they’re on the same continuum. When I got home, though, I realized that I can’t just make a soup. Maybe you can; I know Lauren does it all the time. For a low-confidence cook like myself, however, soup isn’t something you play around with. It’s scary. You tell your friends, “I’m going to make soup,” and they laugh at you. Then they realize you’re actually serious, and they do their best to change your mind. “Peanut Butter and Jelly is good, too,” they tell you in a consoling voice. Actually, I don’t have any friends.

I decided to take the easy way out and make something from Vegan With a Vengeance. Isa doesn’t offer any bread soups, per se, but she does have something called “Moroccan Tagine with Spring Vegetables,” which looked pretty good. February isn’t such a good month for spring vegetables, though, so I had to alter the recipe significantly. The result:

Moroccan Sweet Potato Soup
Serves Two

1 Sweet Potato
2 Medium-Sized Carrots, diced
1/2 Small Onion, chopped
1 Lemon
1 cup Frozen Peas
1 cup Frozen Corn
1/4 cup Raisins
1 big handful Baby Spinach
2 tbsp Tomato Paste
1 Bay Leaf
1 Cinnamon Stick
1 1/2 cup Vegetable Stock
1 cup Water
1/2 tsp Salt.

Spices:
1/4 tsp Ginger
1/4 tsp Mushroom Stock Powder
1/4 tsp Cardamom
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Tumeric
1 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Cumin
Dash of Celery Salt
Sprinkle of Chili Flakes

Sauté your onion in a pan with some olive oil. Once the onion starts to brown, toss in your spices and let them cook in the oil for fifteen seconds or so. Then pour in the rest of the ingredients, except for the corn, peas, and spinach. Bring the liquid to a boil, and simmer until the carrots are soft enough for your taste. Chop your sweet potato into half-inch pieces while the soup is simmering, and sauté in some olive olive until soft. Be careful not to overcook them, though; they’re going into a bowl of soup, and you don’t want them to fall apart.

The soup and the sweet potatoes should finish about the same time, but it’s OK if they don’t. They’re both very patient. Set the sweet potatoes aside if they’re done first, or turn the soup’s burner to low if they’re not. When the carrots in your soup are the desired level of softness, add the peas and the corn and continue simmering for two or three minutes. Then add the baby spinach and stir it into the soup until wilted. Depending on what kind of vegetable stock you use, your soup may need some salt at this point. We use vegetable bouillon cubes, for convenience, and they have a decent amount of salt in them already. Definitely taste before you serve.

Ladle the soup into bowls and spoon the sweet potato bits on top of it. Make sure you take the cinnamon stick and the bay leaf out first. Isa and Terry recommend garnishing the original recipe with lemon slices, and even though I changed it quite a bit, I think it’s still a good idea. Crusty sourdough bread and Earth Balance is also highly recommended.

3 comments February 1st, 2007

Six Mushroom Ravioli

I started coming down with something yesterday, and today I awoke to a full-blown flu, right down to achy skin. I’m pretty useless (so useless I had toast for lunch, but for the record, it was really good toast) so today I’m going to treat you to a photo essay of sorts.

I made this ravioli about two years ago and found the images on a back-up hard drive recently. Unfortunately I didn’t seem to write down a recipe, but here are the steps in photos with as much commentary as I can squeeze out of my flu-addled brain.

Here we have 100% durum semolina flour. It’s mixed with some salt and has some olive oil in the well.

Slowly work the water into the dough with your fingers.

Knead for a few minutes, but don’t stress about it. It won’t be pretty yet.

Cover loosely with oiled saran wrap, then cover that with an inverted bowl to rest.

The dough should be smooth and elastic after the second kneading.

Cut the dough in chunks and dust with flour, this will help you roll it out.

You can certainly do this step by hand, but a pasta machine makes it fun and easy. Start with the largest setting.

Gradually decrease the width between the rollers to thin out the dough. When the dough becomes too long to work with, fold it in thirds to shorten it and continue rolling until it reaches the desired thickness.

I used six types of mushrooms in this ravioli. Clicking on the photo will tell you what’s what.

Finely chopped in a food processor, this became the base for my filling.

Here I have two sheets of pasta side-by-side. I used my ravioli cutter (it looks like a cookie cutter with a wooden handle) to lightly mark the dough so I could see where to place the filling.

Gently place the second sheet of dough on top of the filling, being careful not to rip it.

Center the filling in your cutter and press down on the dough to make individual raviolis.

Remove the excess dough, flour the ravioli, and let sit out to dry for a few minutes.

Boil until they float in the water. Remove them gently with a slotted spoon and serve.

2 comments February 1st, 2007