Soup Day in Malibu

Every Thursday a mom makes soup for all the kids at my son’s elementary school. I make sweet potato soup (see recipe below) which I thought would be a winner with the kids (not green, tastes like pie). It was my turn again last week and I was excited but I’ll tell you the day didn’t start out pretty, as I broke my baby toe at home that morning. Yay for me!

Now you might think a kitchen at a school in Malibu would be fully loaded with all the fancy stuff – but you’d be wrong. The school kitchen is super simple and industrial with just two burners and a smallish size oven. It actually reminds me a little bit of my elementary school kitchen from back in the day.

Most of the other moms do their soup duty solo, but my friend Amy and I teamed up to make it more fun (and hey, less work too!). This was my second go round at manning the ginormous soup pot and I was hoping this time would go better than the first. Last time there were no sweet potatoes (hello…the main ingredient!), so we had to run down to the market and buy 21 lovelies and rush back to peel, dice and cook them all in time for the first lunch rush. This time was a repeat except now I had a broken toe and was limping my way around Malibu lugging giant bags of sweet potatoes.

Happily, the soup was ready in time again and our efforts were rewarded by knowing that lots of little bellies were filled with warm soup. All in all a successful and fulfilling morning living the real life in Malibu.




SWEET POTATO SOUP
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup onion (chopped)
2 stalks celery (chopped)
1 leek (chopped, white and pale green parts only)
1 clove garlic (chopped)
3 sweet potatoes (peeled and cut unto 1 inch cubes)
4 cups chicken stock (or vegetable broth)
1 stick cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons maple syrup
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Melt the butter in a large sauce pan.
2. Add the onions and saute for 5 minutes.
3. Add the celery and leek and saute for 5 minutes.
4. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute.
5. Add the sweet potatoes, chicken stock, cinnamon and nutmeg and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce the head and simmer until the sweet potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.
7. Remove the cinnamon stick.
8. Puree the soup with a hand blender or in a blender or food processor in batches.
9. Add the milk and maple syrup and heat.
10. Season with salt and pepper to taste