a roasted sweet potato soup, a recipe

And a very long piece about legacy, loss, and whatnow?

Before I dive in, why haven’t you checked out RecipeKick.tv? If you haven’t, well you can’t right now. BUT you can join the waiting list for our next LIVE free class. (Which will be SOON!)

This isn’t really a recipe post.  It’s actually a new way I am going to be treating this space going forward. Longer form, more intimate, and more…just a lot more. I’ll be offering first looks of books I am working on, thought pieces, audios of me reading things, a bunch of stuff will be coming. (I’ll write more after the recipe, and before the paywall)


So while no, it’s not a recipe post, it also…Is. It’s a recipe for a Curried Sweet Potato soup.

A recipe that I was inspired to write after eating something adjacent in the back country of Canada.  (When I say backcountry I literally mean the middle of literally nowhere.  Off-Grid in most ways.  And about 1000 miles north of Vancouver, and 1000 miles south of the Arctic Circle).  Half-way between civilisation and the end of the world.  I was there because I was Heliskiing, and no you don’t jump out of helicopters to go Heliskiing.  But I was riding in a helicopter every day, and skiing some untracked powder.  I ate a similar soup in the backcountry, with freezing toes in a snowstorm some 2500 meters above sea level, with 14 other questionably sane people from places as far-flung as Finland, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia.

So before you read a super long, only kind of related headnote, that is likely to inspire more memes about headnotes being too long, and how why won’t this writer just get to the damn recipe already. 

The recipe is available to free and paid subscribers.  The rest of the treatise about loss, fear, courage, and having a freaking midlife or third life or whatever crisis is behind the paywall.

I put it behind the paywall because…it’s pretty personal.  And also, I am going to be doing a lot more writing like this.

So if all you want is just a killer, almost ridiculously delicious soup recipe? Here you go. If you want the rest, scroll on down.

Turmeric Sweet Potato Soup with Spice Pack of Choice

(Photo not by me. It’s by Monika Grabkowska, because I still don’t have an easy place to photograph recipes because my life is under construction. FUN!)

Ingredients:

2-3 medium sweet potatoes, about 1 1/2 poudns

Olive Oil

1 yellow onion, minced (Need help cutting onions correctly?  We have a free video for that on RecipeKick.tv)

3 garlic cloves, microplaned

Leftover white or rosé wine, optional

3 - 4 cups vegetable stock or broth

Spice Pack of Choice: 1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder, or 1 tablespoon masala powder of choice and 2 teaspoons or so of turmeric (to taste), or 1 tablespoon mixed spices (cumin, mustard, fenugreek, corriander, ajwan, etc. Pick at least three ) with 2-3 teaspoons turmeric.

1 lime, optional (for juice and zest)

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Cream, optional

Garnish:
Cilantro leaves

Mango Pickle

Yogurt

Fresh herb of choice

Pepper, of choice

Approach:

You have two choices here:  Roasting the sweet potatoes or dicing and sautéeing. I far prefer roasting because you get better flavor, and there’s less prep.

I like to cut the potato in half, length-wise and roast it with a bit of olive oil and salt on the cut size. 400°F for about 40-45 minutes (depending on the potatoe size, and oven voracity)

While the ‘tater is roasting, do all the other good work:

Get your spice pack figured out. If using whole, mortar/pestle the spices. Set aside.

Dice the onion. In a saucepan (one less dish to clean, you can blend in the dang pan!) Sauté the onion in olive oil until transluscent (about 10 minutes), add in microplaned garlic and the spice pack, stir it all together. Give it about 3-5 more minutes to get yummy together.

Deglaze with wine (just a splash).

If potato is ready, scoop it into the saucepan with everything else and add stock. Let heat for a minute, and give it a taste. Season right now, add a bit more salt if needed. Add some pepper. Now get it simmering for about 10 minutes.

Blend your preferred way (I like in the pan with an immersion blender). Acidulate with the lime, or another acid of choice. (You’ll need about 1-2 teaspoons of an acid)

Scoop into bowls. Top with some fresh herbs (thyme or cilantro/coriander work wonders here). Crack on some pepper. Add a swirl of cream or yogurt or mango pickle (my favorite). And go to town.

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Now for the writing. It’s a lot. I am working on making most of my living by writing over the next few months, and letting other folks who are far more extroverted take the reins of leading trips, running the company, etc. Which by the way, my goal this year is to grow this mostly french page to to 30,000 free subscribers, and 1000 paid in 2024. You can help by referring a friend to the free or paid version.

OR help by becoming a paid member. It’s currently $7 a month, but will go up in May with the next ‘new version’ of this experience.

mostly french is officially now a long-form, once a month, multi-media blog. MEANING! Paid members will get a full-blown thing each month including, for sure:

* A recipe. That won’t be posted anywhere else. Here only. And maybe someday in a book.
* A longer piece of writing work.

And sometimes….
* a city guide (if relevant to my post)
* a never before seen video from the team or the show (we’ve got hundreds of hours of stuff we can share over the coming months!)
* a free cooking class from RecipeKick.tv
* other things no one else gets other than in-person La Peetch guests

Please note: The price is going up to $10 a month soon. So if you want to come in at $7 a month, now is the time. You’ll be locked in at that rate as long as you stay a member.

Fun fact? Each post so far is at least 5 hours of labor. Between recipe testing, and writing. Sometimes, like this one, more than 10 hours. Hence why it’s not free.

Below the paywall, is a very long post that is a look into the inner workings of my brain, the show getting not-renewed, and what the fuck does legacy mean anyhow.