Roasted Vegetable and Mushroom Soup

Everyone knows Kitchen Sink Soup. You just gather up all the vegetables you have that you have too little of to make a real meal or that are on their way out and you dump them into a giant vegetable soup. It's always yummy and perfect for those rainy days where it's too gloomy to consider leaving the house. Well, today was one of those days for me, but mon dieu, I had no such odds and ends veg-wise to make a Kitchen Sink Soup!

All I had were a sweet potato that began to sprout pretty little purple vines, a 12 oz. box of baby bella mushrooms, two scallions, a kohlrabi, and a golden beet. I also had froze some of my homemade vegetable stock that I made over the weekend (instructions coming soon!) I really wanted to try out the stock so I started to formulate an idea.

I roasted all the vegetables, threw in some seasoning, melted down the frozen bag of stock, and pureed them together into a soup, leaving the mushrooms whole. At the last minute, I threw in some spaghetti I had already cooked and kept in the fridge. I expected a meh soup. Nothing to write home about but still edible. When I was done, I was kind of shocked. This soup was actually good. I mean, really good. A nice complex flavor. One vegetable wasn't overpowering the others. Everything melded really well. Best of all, it tasted nice, cozy, and warm. Perfect for this gloomy August day. 

Now, let's hope that these rainy days we've been having this August isn't the norm. I've been angling for another beach day this weekend and the weather better cooperate!

Get together:

• 1 large sweet potato
• 1 large golden beet
• 1 alien-looking kohlrabi (purple or green, it doesn't matter)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup olive ol
• 2 scallions, coarsely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• A couple sprigs of oregano or 1/2 generous tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
• 1 to 1 and 1/2 quart of vegetable stock
• 1 12 oz. box of baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 mushroom bouillon cube (optional) 
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 a lime, juiced
• Enough spaghetti for 2, prepared

Now, to make 4 servings of soup:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
• Peel and coarsely chop the sweet potato, golden beet, and kohlrabi into 1/2" cubes. Add them to a large roasting pan, salt and pepper generously, and drizzle with olive oil. Roast for 35-40 minutes, tossing the vegetables halfway.
• Meanwhile, prepare and chop the scallions, garlic, and oregano. Set aside.
• Clean and slice the baby bella mushrooms.
• Add the scallions, garlic, and oregano to the roasted vegetables in the last 10 minutes of cooking, tossing well.
• Remove the roasting pan from the oven but do not turn it off.
• In a blender, add cilantro and all the vegetables, scraping every last bit out of the pan. Pour in about half a quart of vegetable stock or enough to cover the vegetables. 
• Move the mushrooms to the roasting pan, season lightly with salt, and drizzle with more oil if needed. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes.
• While the mushrooms are roasting, puree the vegetables in the blender. Pour the puree into a pot and add more stock to thin it out. Don't make it watery, just make it slightly thick enough to have texture.
• Add the mushroom bouillon cube and season with cumin, cayenne pepper, and salt. Bring up to a gentle boil over medium heat. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
• When the mushrooms are roasted, soft with slightly crispy edges, remove from the oven and add to the soup. Squeeze 1/2 a lime over it. My lime was particularly juicy so it was enough, yours may be stingy so use a whole lime if needed.
• Ladle into individual bowls and add spaghetti whole. Cut up the strands with your spoon and enjoy.

This is super easy to double up to have a larger pot. Even though it sounds labor intensive, it's really not. A short cut I did was roasting the mushrooms with the other vegetables and just picking them out when they were done. It allowed time for the vegetables to slightly cool so I could handle them in the blender. Alternatively, you could add the stock and the vegetables including the cilantro to the pot and use an immersion blender to puree. Then, add in the mushrooms and continue as directed. 

I know it sounds like a weird soup, but it's well worth it. The sweet potato's sweetness played really well with the kohlrabi's cabbagey turnipy flavor and the beet's earthiness. The roasted mushroom added that "final" punctuation that ends the play of flavors on your tongue. The spice from the cayenne pepper, the smokiness from the cumin, and the tang from the lime really helped bring it together. This is definitely a soup I'd make again!

Holy Kohlrabi!

I have heard of kohlrabi, seen kohlrabi, could probably likely identify it if needed to, but it never occurred to me to actually try it. So when I was at the Farmer's Market last week, I found myself in a talkative mood. Sometimes you just want to get in and get out and woe betide the one who tries to strike up a conversation with you. You don't get that? Maybe it's me.

I was looking for something unusual to bring home. Kale was stricken from the kitchen due to Guitar Boy, ("I don't like the texture," he wailed at me once,) and if I had to look at another zucchini, I might find myself ramming it down someone's throat. Tomatoes, well, yeah, tomatoes are nice, but tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. So my eyes alighted on a deep purple alien ball: "Kohlrabi, .50" as I was purchasing a pint of Italian plums. (You cannot get between me and my plums, so don't even try.)

"Oh, kohlrabi," I said outloud.

"Yes, kohlrabi, you'd love it, it's awesome." The lady at the stand jumped in.

"How do you eat it?"

"You peel it, then slice it thinly, and just sprinkle some salt on top. It's great, you'll love it." She snatched up a spiky royal-colored one and plopped it in my bag. 

"Oh, like a radish?" My moment of enlightenment.

"Yes! Try it and you'll be coming back for more."

"Er... okay, wow, thanks!" and I walked away.

So why wasn't I overly thrilled for being offered a kohlrabi? I have a mild dislike of radishes (understatement.) Being handed this enormous extraterrestrial vegetable that promised to be an oversized, probably more pungent, radish wasn't making me skip for joy.

I find radishes bland with a peppery aftertaste. There's no excitement there. Then, as they sit out, they become slightly rubbery which tended to happen in my household growing up. My mom harbored an unhealthy love for these red and white balls, serving them with buttered bread and salt. Sometimes, she'd throw them into salads. I ate around them, always. She would just have a bunch of slices lying around and nibble at them throughout the day, blech.

But my philosophy is, well, you can't say you hate something without even trying it. So, literally an entire week later, I finally remembered the kohlrabi in my crisper and brought it out to the counter. I stared at it, took a picture or two because, well, it's pretty and unusual so why not. Then, with a peeler, I attacked one side of it. I got the purple peel off, then continuing to use the peeler, I cut out ultra-thin slices. A sprinkle of salt. I ate a piece. Then, another. Then, another. Then I toasted a slice of bread, spread it with a dab of dijon mustard and a kiss of honey and piled loads and loads of sliced kohlrabi on top. Sprinkle of salt, dash of pepper, and a squeeze of lemon.

Holy Kohlrabi!

In my mind, this kohlrabi has proved itself far and beyond the lowly radish. I offer no sorrow for those pitiful things because... kohlrabi.

It turns out there's so much more you can do with kohlrabi other than thinly slice them and dress them with a dusting of salt. I don't know why you want to try because this is kind of perfection on its own, but like one gets sick of zucchini after the upteenth recipe, it's nice to have a backup. You can pickle them, roast them, shave them into salads, turn it into a ceviche, deep fry them, steam them, and probably throw them into a stew with much too thick gravy (guilty.) I can't picture things like cucumber or radishes being cooked (ew, limp, warm radishes,) but kohlrabi has a promise of releasing luscious sweet sugars to caramelize and send the vegetable to a whole new level of food.

I will get around to trying one of the cooked recipes for kohlrabi, but until then, I'm content with a slice of bread and salt. 

By the way, I did go back for more, just like she said.