Vegetarian Harvest Soup

Jeremy has a certain disdain for vegetarians. I'm not quite sure what is at the heart of it, but much of it is his love for meat, and some of it is his observation that vegetarians are often not healthy. I do realize that it is possible to be a very healthy vegetarian, but being so requires a good deal of knowledge and thoughtfulness about diet.Fairly early in our relationship, I asked Jeremy what would have happened if I had been a vegetarian when we met. He said, without pausing, that that would have been a non-starter. So, being less than half a year out of a fifteen year relationship with a woman didn't give him pause, but being a vegetarian would have killed the deal. Good to know his priorities. I respect vegetarians a great deal. I think they have the moral high ground, and the more I know about the meat producing industry in our country, the more convinced I am that the world would be a better place if we all were vegetarians. I was a vegetarian for several years in college, but the truth is, meat tastes really good, so I'm not anymore. Now, whenever I get idealistic, Jeremy puts a thick grilled ribeye, just a scosh under medium rare, in front of me, and I am altruistic no more.

I do, occasionally, have altruistic friends, and sometimes I even cook for them. Such an occasion arose last weekend, when we threw a dinner party in honor of Keya, the newest member of the English department, and clearly a very, very good person. The kind of person who doesn't kill other animals that she may live. A vegetarian type of person. We did a largely Italian meal. Keya brought a wonderful mushroom pasta, and I made the chickpea and goat cheese crespelle that I described in an earlier post. This time around, I managed to not put any sauce on them, but I did drizzle them with a little truffle oil as they came out of the oven. Pretty darn tasty. We also had a super simple arugula salad, with thin sliced shallots, parmesan, olive oil and balsamic. Oh, and a little cured pork (in the form of prosciutt0) for the meat eaters.

I get pretty excited when I get to cook for people other than Jeremy, so I tend to go just a tad overboard with the dinner parties. I always think they are going to be casual, easy affairs, but then somehow, by the time people are here, there's truffle oil and table linens involved. Add to that my insecurity about cooking vegetarian -- how much food does one make when there is nothing that seems like a main course? -- and I decided to make a soup as well. It turned out to be overkill, but good overkill.

The initial thought was to do a ribollita, which is a great tuscan vegetable soup thickened with bread, but I was uninspired by the traditional verdura I found that day. Then I remembered, distantly, a recipe I had seen on Cooks Afield for an apple and rutabaga soup, so I went down that path. After I had cooked everything together, Jeremy and I agreed it still needed something. What actually happened is that I kept chasing him around the house with spoonfuls of soup with different additions, asking if it tasted good yet. We tried it with cream (good), toasted hazelnuts (oddly bad), basil (neither here nor there). The final winner: a coriander oil garnish. The extra fat gave it a better mouth feel, and the spice gave it a little more depth and interest. So, without further ado:

Fall Harvest Soup

One small onion, diced

One apple, diced

One sweet potato, diced

One rutabaga, diced

2 tbls maple syrup

Broth (I used vegetable, but chicken would work)

Olive oil

1 tbls whole coriander

1/4 tsp cayenne

salt and pepper

Sweat the onion in a tablespoon of olive oil until translucent and tender -- a little brown is fine, but you don't need to caramelize it. Add the apple, sweet potato, rutabaga, and stock to cover, and simmer until everything is very soft, about half an hour. Blend with an immersion blender (or whatever you use to make soup smooth), and add the maple syrup. If the soup is too think, add more broth; if it is too thin, simmer it uncovered until it is thicker. When you have the consistency where you want it, salt and pepper aggressively to taste.

About five minutes before you want to serve the soup, but the coriander seeds and cayenne in a small pan with about three tablespoons of olive oil. Heat gently, until the oil smells of coriander. Drizzle a spoonful of oil on the top of each bowl of soup. I left the seeds in for a little texture, but if you want the soup smooth, then avoid them.

I'm not even sure that this soup would benefit from bacon -- but, I might have to test that hunch at some point.

In two days, I'm off to Italy for a month, so look for some Italian food posts in the near future!