Root Vegetable Potage

It is currently 33 degrees (F) in Chicago and miserable. For the last couple days we’ve had this non-stop snow/rain/slush that leaves you wet and cold after only a few minutes outside. Yay winter…

So what’s the perfect thing to help with the cold? Well…besides hot chocolate. Soup. Only I think we’ve all agreed from my previous posts that canned soup just isn’t going to cut it anymore. I was lucky enough to get a bag of root vegetables in my CSA delivery that I knew would do the trick.

To be completely honest, except for the carrots, I had no idea what the other vegetables were. Never seen them in my life. So I checked google. The cream colored ones at the far end are parsnips. The dark red are red turnips. The next are carrots (knew that one!) And finally the yellowish ones are rutabagas.

Ingredients:

• 2 parsnips
• 2 turnips
• 4 carrots
• 3 rutabagas
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 8 cups of vegetable broth
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil (or another cooking oil)

 In your soup pot, saute your chopped onion for a few minutes in olive oil until tender.

Add the chopped root vegetables. I wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to handle them, so I just peeled them lightly, chopped the ends off and then chopped them into  bite sized pieces.

Add the vegetable broth, bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to let it simmer. I left it for 45 minutes, uncovered. You want the root vegetables to be soft so check around 40 minutes with a knife. If it slides through easily, they’re ready. Now you have a few options. If you have an immersion blender, go ahead and use it to blend everything together. If you don’t, let the soup cool a bit and then blend it in a regular blender. Remember, hot liquids can shoot out the top of regular blenders, so start it out slow or let it cool down first.

The result is an incredibly creamy, a little sweet and extremely filling soup. Well actually, I learned it’s technically called a potage.

Potage (from Old French pottage; “potted dish”) is a category of thick soups, stews, or porridges, in some of which meat and vegetables are boiled together with water until they form into a thick mush.

Thanks Wikipedia.

I will definitely be making this one again.