Sweet Potato/cranberry Soup
By: Serena Norr
Published: Thursday, January 7, 2010 - 12:18pm

Ingredients




6 cups of water (2 cups of water for the cranberries)
1 cup of heavy cream (optional)
6 sweet potatoes
2 cups of fresh cranberries
1/2 yellow onion, chopped up
1 whole parsnip, chopped up
1 chunk of ginger, shelled of its skin and chopped into squares (does anyone know the correct terminology 
tablespoon approx. 1  of nutmeg
tablespoon approx. 1  of cloves
tablespoon approx. 1  of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of sugar
salt&pepper to taste

used for the cranberry and potato mixture

Preparation

1 Put water in a pot and set to a medium boil. Chop up the sweet potatoes, onion, parsnip, and ginger into squares and place in the slightly boiling pot of water for 30-45 minutes. In a separate and smaller pot, add 2 cups of water and add the cranberries (if using fresh). Set to a low flame and cover. The cranberries will start to pop as they open up, when this happens (about 5 minutes later) add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and some sugar. About 10 minutes later the seeds will be released and the water will turn red. This indicates that the cranberries are ready. Turn off the flame and set aside this mixture. Add the heavy cream, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, salt, and pepper to the sweet potato mixture. Cover for another 10 minutes

About


For the second installment of the Holiday Soup Redux series, I created a recipe that is my take on a traditional Christmas meal. However, figuring out exactly what makes a traditional Christmas meal can be rather daunting task, especially since every family has their own unique dishes, and those that are considered traditional (ham, fish, and turkey) didn't really inspire me nor could I choose which one was considered more traditional over the other. So, using Mel Torme's and Bob Well's 1944 classic "Christma's Song" and their famous opening line, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" as inspiration, I fell in love with the idea of doing something with chestnuts (what's more Christmas than chestnuts?!?)  However, this inspiration came to me the day before Christmas Eve and finding chestnuts the day before Christmas Eve proved to be yet another daunting task.  Moving on, I thought to myself, "what else just screams Christmas?"  Cranberries!  This resulted in a twist on a sweet potato soup that was infused with ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon to create a hearty and rather delicious soup that was also really quick and easy to make. Here's how to make this seriously soupy Christmas soup: