Betty effing Crocker

I've decided that in all my free time of under-employment I was going to try my hand at something that I really enjoyed...  cooking.  I guess the part I enjoy the most is the eating part BUT I also like making it because it gives me a sense of accomplishment and I am seriously lacking in that department these days.

Last night I decided to make Cream of Sweet Potato Soup.  I had three large sweet potatoes laying around that were begging to be eaten and no idea what I was going to do with them other than baking them.  NOTE: this is NOT a Pinterest recipe (you will see many of those in the future so I thought it would be best to clarify).  I went on my lonesome to the great big internet and googled sweet potato soup on AllRecipies because I have been dying to make a soup.  My boyfriend's son is with his mom this weekend and seeing as sweet potato soup is not really for the 4 year old palate (and making him eat this particular thing was not a battle I felt like having), I decided I'd make it last night.  My boyfriend?  Yeah, well he's gonna eat what I make regardless.  He's kind of a human garbage can.

SO I decided on this recipe because it called for exactly the number of potatoes I had, I like creamy soups and it seemed like the easiest method to turn the potatoes into soup.  Before I proceed, please let me add in here that I am a pretty, "liberal" cooker.  When I cook I usually make entirely too much food and I have a habit of swapping in and out for ingredients because one thing is healthier or I simply don't have it and don't feel like going to the store to get it, so bear with me.

The ingredients.

I used Herb Ox Chicken Bouillon Cubes and about 3 cups of water to make the chicken broth.  It's super easy and great if you can get past the fact that it's one cube per cup of water and each little cube carries 1100mgs of sodium which is 46% of your daily value in sodium for a 2000 calorie diet...  but aside from that, super great, right?

In a vain attempt to make up for the super unhealthy cubes, I opted to use 2% milk instead of heavy cream.  Yeah, I know what you're thinking from the picture, "She eats all this unhealthy stuff and yet she buys organic milk?"  I do and I do so with no guilt.  Sure it's a little more expensive but when I know farmers that buy organic milk, I have to start to wonder about the whole hormone theories of regular milk.  That, and if you've ever looked at the expiration dates, this lasts soooo much longer and since we were throwing a bunch of milk out (which annoys me more than anything) organic milk has solved that problem!

But I digress...  First, I "baked" the sweet potatoes in the microwave for about 20 minutes (10 minutes one side then rotate).  Then I peeled them (I just used my bare hands) and set them on a plate.  The next step is to puree the potatoes and the chicken broth.  Well here is another step where I had to improvise...  The closest thing I have to a food processor or even a blender is a mini chopper so I decided that I would use this and just do the puree-ing in small batches.  This is how I managed:

My mini chopper.

I discovered that I wasn't going to get a "perfect" puree because my chopper was so small, but I did the best that I could with what I had.  I also found out that mashing the potatoes with a fork before putting them in the chopper would make it a little smoother when it came out.

When I finished the puree step, I moved on to warming it in the pan and adding the spices and sugar.  All of those I added to taste, going particularly light on the peppers as I am not a huge fan of spicy food.  I estimate I added less than 1/4 tsp. of cayenne pepper and about the same amount of regular black pepper.  I added more than the recommended amount of brown sugar (about a 1/2 cup).  

Stirring in the spices and sugar.

And finally, in classic me fashion, I removed the soup and forgot to add the milk/cream which made my above rant about organic milk completely moot (I was writing part of this while I was waiting for the potatoes to soften).

So my recipe looked something like this:

3 Large potatoes

3 C. chicken broth

Cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt to taste

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 C. brown sugar

And my soup came out looking like this:

I think it needs a garnish...

All in all, I did enjoy it a lot (I do love sweet potatoes).  I think I would have preferred a smoother consistency, which I think I might have gotten if I had been able to put it in a food processor instead of a mini chopper or if I had used slightly smaller potatoes.  I took it to work today to get some more taste testers from my coworkers and everyone thought it tasted good and I only had one critique which was again about the consistency.  I'd make it again though.  I am also going to get the fitness instructor at my gym to test it out (she is a self proclaimed sweet potato connoisseur) but I'll get back to you on that review.

Try it out and let me know what you think!