More Adventures with Sweet Potatoes

In making the cupcakes I discovered that I just didn't need to buy 5 sweet potatoes.  Nonetheless, I had 4 more sweet potatoes and no idea what to do with them.  So I went on a search for sweet potato recipes and was torn between sweet potato fries and soup.  With the mass quantity of sweet potatoes I had, it was a better idea to make soup.

None of the recipes I found really had what I wanted so used two recipes for inspiration (Simply Recipes and Cook.com ) and winged it. The following is the tasty results.

Sweet Potato Bacon Leek Soup

 

Ingredients

4 medium Sweet Potatoes

4 cloves of Garlic

2 Tbsp Olive

4 slices of Bacon

2 Tbsp unsalted Butter

1 Onion chopped

1 medium Leek (white and pale green)

4 chopped Celery Stalks

1 Bay Leaf

1 ½ cups of dry White Wine

3-4 cups of Chicken Broth (Vegetable Broth also works)

1 ½ cup half and half

Salt and pepper to taste

Sour Cream

3-4 chopped Green Onions

The Step-By-Step

1. Pre Heat the oven to 400. Cut sweet potatoes in to ½ in cubes (or like French fries). Rough chop 3 garlic cloves. Place on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil to coat. Salt and pepper to taste. Put in oven for 10-15mins.  Roughly half way through baking mix the potatoes and garlic around on the baking sheet. Pull out potatoes when they are soft to touch but not cooked through yet.

2. While the Potatoes are baking, in a large heavy saucepan cook bacon on medium high.  Remove bacon to a side plate.  Add butter to the bacon grease. 

3. Add 1 minced Garlic clove, Onion, Leek, Celery and bay leaf.  Cook For 5-10 mins, until onions are opaque. Stir occasionally.

4. Add the White wine, Chicken broth, and roasted Potatoes and Garlic. Simmer for 10-20min until potatoes are VERY tender.

5. For the next step I used a standing blender and added the mixture in 1/3s to make sure that everything was blended.

6. Pour back into large pot (I used the same saucepan that I cooked in) and mix in the half and half.  Salt and Pepper to taste.

7. Pour in serving dish and garnish with chopped up bacon, green onions and a small dollop of sour cream. Enjoy!