Roasted Sweet Potato Soup

In early December my sister-in-law T gave birth to our very first nephew, J!  We have two older nieces, K and L, but this was the first boy.  We also have another nephew, N, who was born in late February.  About two weeks after J was born I was on vacation from work right before Christmas, so I drove out to my sister-in-law's house to spend the day with her, my niece L, and my new nephew J.  I also made them dinner and L helped me decorate a cake to within an inch of its life (she is 3 1/2 -- see the pictures below just for entertainment purposes, you can kind of make out some Christmas trees).

Anyhow, when I got to T's house we had lunch, which included Roasted Sweet Potato Soup that T's sister-in-law on her husband's side had made for her.  It was amazing.  We ate it with some pepper mixed in, which gave it a very mild kick to the sweetness.  This soup is very flavorful and reheats well.  We froze half the batch and I took it to work for lunch for about a week or so.  It's definitely filling with all the vegetables involved, and because it's water-based (as opposed to heavy cream) the calorie count is significantly lower.  I'm sure you could mix in some yogurt or cream if you wanted to thicken it up, but I don't think it needed it.


Roasted Sweet Potato Soup
modified from a recipe in Real Simple magazine
makes ~ 6 cups 

3 lb sweet potatoes / yams
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 apple - peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1 onion, diced
6 cups water
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup brown sugar (or to taste)

Prick potatoes with a fork and place on a baking sheet covered with foil.  Roast potatoes at 375 degrees for one hour, or until tender.  Remove from the oven, then peel and cut into large pieces or scoop out the flesh.

Heat oil in saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add apple, celery, and onion.  Saute until tender (about 10-12 minutes), stirring occasionally.  Add water, salt, pepper, and sweet potatoes and bring to a boil.  Then simmer about 10 minutes.
*For this step I ended up putting the water and other ingredients into a separate big pot and dumped in the sauteed ingredients.  I did this so that I could use the immersion blender more easily.

Puree the soup carefully in small batches using a regular blender, or use an immersion blender directly in the pot.  Mix in the brown sugar.

Season individual servings with salt and pepper to taste.