Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup

I am a really, really awful blogger. I apologize for the long hiatus ... it's not like we've not been eating absolutely delicious food ... I just got tired of taking pictures while cooking. But, this looked so scrumptious and exciting and FALL-ish that I couldn't resist.

We've been getting gobs of sweet potatoes in our CSA (which, by the way, I ADORE), and I've been coming up with some pretty creative uses for them, thanks in part to Epicurious, and in part to Smitten Kitchen. Oh Deb, you are genius. This particular recipe, by chance, comes from both - originally posted on Epicurious, Deb posted it on HER blog a couple years ago. And I'm posting it again.

It's the perfect recipe for fall/winter, when the weather's getting colder and the leaves are changing and falling, and the perfect recipe for when you've just had dental work done, and your mouth hurts. There's not too much chewing involved, save the sausage.

So here we go.

What you'll need:
-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
-1 10- to 11-ounce fully cooked smoked Portuguese linguiƧa sausage or chorizo sausage, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices (I used chorizo)
-2 medium onions, chopped
-2 large garlic cloves, minced
-2 pounds red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams; about 2 large), peeled, quartered lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
-1 pound white-skinned potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
-6 cups low-salt chicken broth (I actually used just 4 cups, because I wanted more of a thick hearty stew than a soup...)
-1 9-ounce bag fresh spinach (And I didn't use this much spinach)

To Make:
Chop up all your veggies and sausage.


Then get a really big pot, and heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil over med-hi heat. 
Add the sausage, and brown, cooking for around 8-ish minutes. After it's nice and brown, transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. 
Then add the onions and garlic to the pot, and cook them till translucent, about 5 minutes. I personally had to add a bit of extra oil, since some of mine poured out onto the paper towels with the sausage.
Once the onions are translucent, then you add all the potatoes. It looks like a TON of potatoes, but it will cook down a bit. You cook them for about 12 minutes, until they're getting soft. It requires a lot of stirring and scraping.


Beautiful :)
Once those babies are nice and soft, add however much chicken broth you want - add more if you want a soup, add less if you want a thicker stew-like something.


Scrape the browned bits off the bottom of your pot, and then bring to a boil.
Once it's boiling, turn the heat down to med-low, cover your pot, and simmer simmer simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 


After it's done simmering away, mash some of the potatoes in the pot with a potato masher. 
Then add your sausage.


The original recipe doesn't say this, but I sort of let mine sit for a few minutes and get warm, and let the soup soak up some of that sausage-y taste.
Then add your spinach, stir it in, and let it simmer for another 5 minutes, or until the spinach just wilts.

And voila, you're done! You can add salt and pepper to taste, but I honestly didn't think this soup needed anything extra at all.

I had every intention of making cornbread to go with this, but I completely forgot about it until after the soup was done. I figure I'll whip up a batch tonight, because we'll be eating leftovers for several days anyway, plus some different soup later this week. It's a soup kind of week in the Skinner household.

Hope everyone enjoys - this is DELICIOUS!

2 comments:

  1. potatoes and sausage. yum
    i made split pea soup with red potatoes and spicy sausage this week.

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  2. OMGoodness April...this looks delicious...I must try it!

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