Sweet Potato Soup

In the second post in this week's "I make mushy baby foods," I made a creamy sweet potato soup. This recipe appealed to me for several reasons, but mainly because it seemed simple, included bacon, and was prominently featured in all its orange glory on the cover of the holiday cooking issue of Cooking Light.

I'm going to post the recipe as written, but I'll let you know why this didn't work out so well for me.

While it was great to do a shortcut by cooking the sweet potatoes in the microwave, I underestimated the power of my microwave so the potatoes became overdone, which made them difficult to peel, and just tough in texture. It's possible that the potatoes weren't the best to begin with as well, but the end result, while tasting fine, had a bizarre consistency. So I encourage you to try this out because the flavors are great, my execution was just poor. See? I'm not the perfect chef. :)

Sweet Potato Soup (serves 6)

Ingredients:

2 lbs sweet potatoes, halved lengthwise (about 2 large)

1/4 cup water

2 tsp olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

4 cups unsalted chicken stock

1/4 tsp salt

6 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled

1 oz fresh Parmesan cheese, shaved (about 1/4 cup)

2 TB flat-leaf parsley leaves 

Directions:

Place potatoes, cut sides down, in an 11 x 7-inch microwave-safe baking dish. Add 1/4 cup water; cover with plastic wrap. Microwave on high 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Cool slightly; discard potato skins.

Heat a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil; swirl to coat. Add onion; sauté 1 minute or until translucent. Stir in cumin and red pepper. Add stock to pan; bring to a boil.

Place half of sweet potato and half of stock mixture in a blender. Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender.

Pour pureed soup into a large bowl. Repeat procedure with remaining sweet potato and stock mixture. Stir in salt. Divide soup evenly among 6 bowls; sprinkle cooked bacon and Parmesan cheese evenly over top. Garnish with parsley.