Soup

On the weekend I made some soup.  I'm a big fan of one pot meals and soup is such a great meal to keep in the fridge for the week for lunches or a quick dinner when I'm starving if I get home from yoga late.  Recently the latest 'Food and Drink' magazine published by the LCBO came out.  If you don't know about Food and Drink you have to get to the LCBO to pick it up.  It is published 'seasonally' about 6 or 8 times a year and it is great for inspiring meal ideas -- although admittedly some of the recipes can be a bit too labour intensive or contain ingredients that you might not normally have easy access to purchase.  Anyway ... all that aside.  I found a recipe for 'Jerusalem Artichoke and Bacon Chowder' and while the title wouldn't normally have caught my attention, the picture certainly did.  And except for the jerusalem artichokes (also known as sunchokes) I pretty much had everything on hand.  A quick trip to the fruit and vegetable market took care of everything I needed.
The soup is pretty easy to make and doesn't take long.  Cube about 1 cup of pemeal bacon and saute in a soup pot with some olive oil until the bacon is browned.  Add:  1 cup chopped onion, 1/2 cup chopped celery, 1lb peeled and choped jerusalem artichokes and 1 cup chopped potatoes.  Let the vegetables cook in the bacon fat until beginning to soften slightly - about 5 minutes.  Add 5 cups of chicken stock and 1 tblsp of fresh thyme and bring to a boil.  Turn heat down and simmer for at least 10 minutes until the veggies are soft.  Stir in 1/4 cup of whipping cream and 1 tsp of hot sauce.  Continue to simmer until ready to serve and then add 2 tblsp fresh chopped parsley.

If you compare the picture of my soup with the picture in Food and Drink you will notice that mine is MUCH darker; and in fact it looks like I used beef broth rather than chicken.  In fact, I kind of burned the bacon when I was frying it - which coloured my stock darker but didn't impact the flavour.

The soup is quite good and easy to make.  It is a mild soup and nice for spring because its warm but not too heavy.  If you are not familiar with jerusalem artichokes they are not really artichokes but rather root vegetables.  They sort of resemble ginger root in the raw.  They have a dark thin skin - very much like soft skin of fresh new potatoes.  I peeled them with a peeler but they are a little hard to manoeuver because of all the little arms sticking out.  They have a very soft, light mild buttery/nutty flavour - would say they are kind like a mix between a potato and a parsnip.  This was my first experience eating and cooking with them and I was very happy with the outcome and would definitely use them again.