Sunshine Soup
Ladies and gentleman, children of all ages, it is finally soup weather! While we may be saying farewell (for now) to longer, light-filled evenings and picnic weather, we in the UK also know how to embrace the opportunity to be cozy and cuddle up with a bowl of soup, stew or whatever other comfort food tickles our fancy!
Eat the seasons
Autumn in many areas of the world is harvest season and is celebrated by way of festivals, traditions, and foods to commemorate and revel in the abundance of the season’s produce. There are so many benefits that come from eating along with the seasons, as best as possible. These benefits include lower food costs, higher quality produce, supporting the local economy, farmers and food producers, reducing food miles and carbon footprints, and the chance to tempt your taste buds with a whole new variety of seasonal dishes and recipes, like this one for ‘Sunshine Soup’ that you’ll find below.
What’s in season right now?
Wondering what you should be looking for at the local farmers market or grocery store? Though it will vary from year to year, here in the UK you can make the most of the following produce, now in season:
Apples, artichoke, beetroot, broccoli, butternut squash, celeriac, celery, chicory, chillies, elderberries, figs, fennel, garlic, grapes, horseradish, jerusalem artichoke, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce & salad leaves, marrow, medlar, parsnips, pears, potatoes, pumpkin, quince, radishes, rocket, runner beans, salsify, shallots, swede, sweetcorn, tomatoes, truffles, turnips, watercress and wild mushrooms
We highly recommend checking the labels and purchasing locally-grown produce as much as possible.
Let them eat soup!
This particular recipe was dubbed ‘sunshine soup’ for a variety of reasons; its sunny golden colour, its cold-fighting elixir of ingredients high in vitamin c and antioxidants (which help you to maintain that sunny disposition), and well, just plain child-friendly marketing to encourage them to try the stuff without (much) fuss.
Since its incarnation it has been tucked into thermoses and sent to school, given as gifts to teachers, dropped off as care packages to neighbours who were going through a hard time, and enjoyed alongside a loaf of crusty bread and good salted butter. All ways are welcome.
Adrienne Katz Kennedy
- Serves 4 people
Ingredients
- 2 shallots, peeled and finely diced
- 1 -2 large sweet potatoes, or 1 butternut squash, peeled and roughly diced
- 3-4 large carrots, peeled and cut roughly diced
- 2 large Bramley apples or other tart apple varieties, peeled and roughly diced
- 1/2 thumb ginger, grated or diced
- 1 heaped teaspoon ground turmeric
- 950ml or 4 cups water, vegetable or chicken stock
Instructions
- In a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot add 1-2 tbsp. oil and bring to a medium-high heat. Add in your shallots, ginger and turmeric cook until translucent and fragrant, approx. 4-5 minutes.
- Add in the peeled sweet potatoes (or squash), carrots and apples, then give your ingredients a good few stirs to combine and coat with the oil and aromatics. Cover and let cook for approx. 5 minutes, or until the apples start to break down ever so slightly- they shouldn’t take very long. You should already begin to smell the sweetness of the carrot and sweet potato.
- Add your water or stock to the pot, turn the heat down to a low/medium, and simmer away until everything is soft. Then blitz in the blender, smile and serve. You can always finish with a little pad of butter or splash of cream/milk for extra silkiness.
