Blue Cayenne

This is a recipe you might want to consider for your Thanksgiving table. It is pretty. It is different. It. Is. Delicious.

I’ve never roasted grapes before but I’m so glad I gave it a try. Roasted grapes, I found,  are absolutely wonderful. How is it possible that I missed this taste treat for all these years?  Now, I’m searching my mind for other ways I can use roasted grapes…other, of course, than the half cup of roasted grapes that I enjoyed one-by-one fresh from the oven. Also, I’ve  been kind of slow to incorporate goat cheese into my recipes but found the addition of a small amount of goat cheese to the mashed sweet potatoes in this dish to be pretty wonderful.

Recipe: Sweet Potatoes with Roasted Grapes, Goat Cheese and Honey

4 sweet potatoes

2 C. red, seedless grapes

1 t. grapeseed oil or canola

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

2 T honey (with extra to drizzle)

4 ounces goat cheese

Pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg

Directions:

Toss grapes in oil, sprinkle on a bit of salt and pepper and bake on a non-stick pan for 15-20 minutes at 450 degrees F.  Take grapes from the oven and let them cool.

Using a knife or the tines of a fork, poke a few holes in the sweet potatoes. Bake sweet potatoes (wrapped in aluminum foil)  in a medium oven until soft (about an hour). When sweet potatoes are cool enough to handle, make a slit down the center of each sweet potato and scoop the soft sweet potato flesh out of the skins. Using a fork,  whip sweet potatoes with goat cheese to mix. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, honey and salt and pepper to the mixture. Scoop sweet potato mixture into a pastry bag (or cake decorating bag)  fixed with a decorative tip and squeeze a rosette pattern onto each plate (or spoon the mixture back into sweet potato skins).

You can reheat the sweet potatoes briefly in a microwave if necessary at the time of serving.

Sprinkle crumbled goat cheese and roasted grapes over the sweet potato mixture. Drizzle with honey.

This recipe appears on the How Sweet It Is food blog. Here is the link to the original recipe: Roasted Grape+Goat Cheese+Honey Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Perhaps I should have named this blog Soup’s On.  I have posted a lot of soup recipes in this blog’s infancy. I confess that I always have been fascinated with the chemistry of soup. When the recipe is right, the flavors meld in an amazing way.

In any event, it is getting colder. What could be better to soothe your psyche on a cold day than a steaming bowl of soup? Add spice to that soup and you are in heaven. Add a glass of red wine…

This is a tortilla soup that caught my fancy. The original recipe came from a wonderful site called The Curvy Carrot. Here is my adaptation of their recipe.

Recipe: Vegetable Tortilla Soup 

Roasted Tomatoes

2 C. grape tomatoes, sliced lengthwise

1 T. extra virgin olive oil

Pinch of Salt

Directions for Roasted Tomatoes

Slice tomatoes lengthwise an toss with olive oil and salt. Roast in a shallow pan at 350 degrees F. for 35-40 minutes.

Soup

1 generous T. extra-virgin olive oil

4 minced cloves of garlic

1 large yellow onion, chopped

1 t. ground cumin

2 t. ground coriander

1 t. ground chipotle pepper

Pinch of cayenne pepper

1 can (14 ounce) crushed fire-roasted tomatoes

6 C. vegetable broth

Salt to your taste

Directions

Heat olive oil and saute garlic and onion until softened. Add ground cumin, ground coriander, ground chipotle pepper, and cayenne and stir. Add fire-roasted tomatoes. Stir again. Cook for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add one cup broth.  Using an immersion blender or regular blender, puree mixture until smooth. Add remaining five cups of broth and puree again. Return soup to medium heat and cook for  10-15 minutes. Mix in roasted tomatoes. Add salt to your taste.

Serve the soup garnished with a dollop of sour cream, sliced avocado, tortilla strips, and whatever else catches your fancy. I added chopped tomato, a slice of lime, chopped jalapeno, a few radish slices, and a few kernels of corn at the last moment. The soup was perfect to my taste and beautiful at the same time.

Enjoy.

Here is the link to the original recipe on The Curvy Carrot site:

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

It is fall in Southern California. Finally.

Every fall, when the air picks up the decided chill that signals our meagre change of seasons, my thoughts turn to the comfort of a bowl of hot soup.

For me, few soups rival the sheer delight of potato soup. Maybe it is because of my Irish background. I’ve never met a potato I didn’t like. Where other people eat chocolate to deal with stress, I’ve been known to whip up a very large bowl of mashed potatoes to drown my sorrows. Often.

Don’t even get me started about colcannon on an anxious day.

And, Kerrygold Irish butter… Stop!

I was/am a McGee after all.

My mother made a wonderful potato soup and I have happy childhood memories of dipping into a bowl of hot potato soup on a cold day after school. Unfortunately, I don’t have her recipe.

On a particularly melancholy day last year, I found myself reminiscing about my mother’s potato soup and went online in search of a recipe to buoy my spirits. I found this excellent recipe on the Whole Foods site: Cheddar, Corn and Potato Chowder.

Mine is an adaptation of their recipe.

Recipe: Cheddar, Corn and Potato Chowder

5 T. butter

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 T.flour

4 C. vegetable broth

2 3/4 C. diced Yukon Gold potatoes

2 C. frozen yellow corn kernels

2/3 C. milk

1 1/2 C. shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Chopped parsley

Shredded carrot

Pinch of cayenne pepper or paprika  (garnish)

Directions:

Melt butter in a large soup pot and saute onion until it is soft (about 5 minutes). Mix flour into butter and onion mixture.  Add vegetable broth and boil. Whisk broth mixture constantly until it is smooth. Reduce heat and add diced potatoes. Simmer for 20 minutes until potatoes are tender. Using a potato masher, slightly mash potatoes in broth. Add corn and milk. Cook for an additional five minutes and then remove soup from heat. Stir in shredded cheddar and stir until cheese is melted. Season with salt and pepper. Add chopped parsley and shredded carrot. Return to heat and continue cooking at medium heat for a few minutes until the carrot is cooked. Serve, garnished with cayenne or paprika and a sprig of parsley.

Cook’s Note: In reheating this soup, do not allow it to boil. I used Cabot Extra Sharp White Cheddar (available at Costco) in this soup with excellent results.