Millie Daily Happy -- Orange Soup

This has absolutely nothing to do with clothes, but it was entirely delicious so I thought I’d share (and also write it down so I don’t forget the approximate proportions). I measured nothing, and rarely do when cooking — recipes are guidelines, not rules, and besides with something like this eyeballing and tasting’s better than strict measurements. This made three large meal portions, and past variations freeze fabulously (and I’ve no reason to believe this wouldn’t). Leftovers are also excellent, and it keeps in the fridge for a few days.

This time, I used:

• 2 large yams
• 4 dodgy small potatoes (not minis, and the dodginess is not essential)
• half a sweet onion
• 1 apple (I used a Fuji apple, but granny smith’s ideal I think)
• 4 medium-large carrots
• several cloves of garlic (I forgot this, to my dismay, but garlic is never a bad idea)
• butter and olive oil

Peel and chop all the vegetables and apple up into pieces around an inch big. Toss with olive oil, drop in bits of butter, and roast (I used a 13×9 inch glass cake pan, and it all fit handily) until they’re all cooked. I put it at 400 F and it took around 50 minutes. Stir it periodically while roasting.

Then, haul out a food processor (I suspect a blender’d work too, but you’d have to do it in batches) and whiz all the roasted deliciousness (including the fluid in the pan) along with:

• 1 single serving size thing of plain yogurt (and none of that horrible metallic emulsified goop that gets marketed as yogurt! Get proper stuff if you at all can — it shouldn’t have more than a couple of ingredients. I like Liberty yogurt [and their Mediterranean yogurt is heavenly] but that might be a Canadian thing.)
• a few tablespoons of fresh chopped thyme (I’m guessing it was about 2 or 3 tablespoons?)
• a couple of chopped fresh basil leaves
• a cup or two of vegetable broth to thin the pulp to soup consistency (omnivores can use chicken or ham broth if you’re so inclined)
• a teaspoon or so each of cinnamon and nutmeg
• salt and pepper to taste

Whiz it all on progressively higher settings until it reaches a consistency you like, and serve. It should still be warm, but if you want to heat it up again go for it. Dish it up, then drop in a bit of either maple syrup* or brown sugar and some more thyme (if you’re feeling fancy).

It’s seriously delicious! (I did a butt dance when I taste-tested it.) The yogurt adds a nice tang to it (I’ve made it with cream before, and the tang was lacking), the potato adds body and the apple a sharpness. Squash is good in this too (canned pumpkin especially), and a friend of mine’s made a similar (and tasty!) soup with chickpeas too.

All told, it took about an hour and a half (maybe 2 hours?), but most of that was roasting time. Considering how much this can make (it’s easily doubled or halved depending on what you have and how many lunches you want next week) it’s well worth it — I have a couple of couple substantial lunches for the week, with no extra effort. (A. doesn’t like carrots, and was subsequently tepid about this, but that just means there’s more for me )

* It’s syrup season around here, the stuff’s everywhere! I’ve seen stalls around town doing the maple-syrup-on-ice-on-a-stick thing, much to my amusement. Yes, yes, quintessentially Canadian, whatever. The stuff’s seriously delicious and that’s what counts.

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