Sweet Potato and Corn Soup

Fall is coming, and so is Michael Pollan, so here's a nice, mostly local dish to warm you up on an autumnal evening. I got this recipe from my Dad, but I'm not sure where he found it. Cayenne and jalapeños aren't his usual style.

Start off by peeling and chopping up half a dozen medium sweet potatoes and cutting the kernels off three ears of corn:


You'll also need to chop up one or two jalapeño peppers:

Now you're ready to get cooking. Start by sautéing a cup of chopped onions (I happened to have a white and a red onion lying around, but any old onion will do) and a tablespoon of diced garlic in a tablespoon of peanut oil for a few minutes.

Then add 8 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable stock, either way):

Toss in the sweet potatoes:

Bring it all to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes or so after that, or until the potatoes are nice and soft.

Take the soup off the heat, and (in the step voted most likely to result in a major kitchen disaster), puree the lot of it:

After cleaning up the mess and thinking how nice it would be to have an immersion blender, add the corn and peppers to the soup:

Finally, dump in a quarter cup of molasses (or maple syrup), along with a tablespoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon each of cayenne and ground black pepper, and a pinch or so of cinnamon for seasoning:

Bring it all back to a simmer, garnish with some chopped green onions, and serve with a chunk of nice bread (in this case, spicy cheese bread from the farmer's market).

Pretty good, despite the baptism of fire for my shiny new toaster. You haven't really been cooking if you don't have to clean stuff off the walls afterwards. Enjoy!