BWW Cooks: An Orange Soup for the Fall Leaf Season

Fall is the time of root vegetables and gourds. Potatoes and sweet potatoes festoon holiday tables. Butternut, acorn, and pattypan squash abound and make delicious side dishes for seasonal tables. There are carrots aplenty, and even more parsnips, which should become your new best friend (cook them like carrots, roast them, and chop them in stews and vegetable soups).

It's also a great time for soups. Those who never make soup at other times of year cook huge pots of soups and stews during the fall and winter. And homemade soups can be particularly festive additions to holiday tables. A soup before the Thanksgiving turkey, Hanukkah brisket, or Christmas ham warms the souls of your guests and suggests abundance. Why waste those feelings on something from a can or a freezer pack when there are simple, delicious soups you can make with the beautiful produce currently in season?

Most of us are familiar with butternut squash soup, but a soup made with more seasonal vegetables will have more depth of flavor. Around two years ago, I discovered a recipe (by Miriam Szokovski, through Chabad.org) for "orange" soup. Orange refers to the color of the soup, not the ingredients, although a shot of orange juice in it might well lend interesting flavor to the soup without harming it at all (as long as you haven't added milk). My take on the soup is not exactly the original author's version, though all the variations I give will, like the original, be kosher (provided that your ingredients have been certified kosher). It's vegetarian in all forms, and can be vegan. If you're never sure what to serve your vegetarians at holiday tables, here's a major assist for you; if you make it rather like a stew, with chunks of vegetables in it, it can be served as a main course while others eat turkey or ham.

The basics of the soup are simple: butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. Onion should be in there, and the original calls for white potato and zucchini as well. The first time I made it, I did not have the recipe with me, and I used only the three orange fall vegetables and onion. It's a forgiving soup, and if made late in the season, well, zucchini isn't seasonal. Add, or replace, any vegetable with acorn squash. If you want, your grocer almost certainly has chunked butternut squash and chopped onion; one of my grocers also has diced sweet potatoes in season.

Fill your favorite generously sized pot with your vegetables, all three (or four, if you add acorn squash) orange vegetables, your onion, and whatever you would like to do with potatoes, leftover summer squash, or whatever roots or gourds you want to try sneaking in. Avoid celery, or anything with bitter notes. Turnips work. My own vote is to toss in a parsnip while you're at it; it's a delicious complement to the carrot. Add about a quart of water - at least three cups - and a little salt, and cook until all the vegetables are tender. It may take an hour. Once done, let everything cool.

Now we're ready to play. If you want chunks of vegetable in it, pull some aside. Otherwise - or whatever's left - blend smooth in a blender or with an immersion blender in the pot. I'm an immersion blender lover, but it's your choice. Or be funky, and just hit the whole pot of deliciousness with a potato masher for a slightly chunky consistency with a broth.

By the way, how did you season that? If you want to do a stew-type soup, or a chunky one, that's savory to match your bird or your roast, roasted garlic, a little white pepper, and some fresh thyme are your best friends. Or do you want it warmer and sweeter? Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice are all possibilities. If you're wild and crazy and love Moroccan flavors, cinnamon, ginger and garlic work well together. In that case, leave any hot spicing in a bottle of hot sauce for individual diners to handle.

Especially if you've put a white potato or two in, this can be a very thick soup and can thicken further on cooling. That allows thinning the soup with milk or cream. Even without the potato, try stirring in a cup of sour cream or cream fraiche for a beautifully orange and delightfully rich cream soup. Particularly if you've gone for warm, sweet spicing, you could thin with orange juice, or even pineapple juice, which would go wonderfully with the sweet potato. If you want to mix dairy and orange, be sure that you're using sour cream or nothing lower in fat than half and half, to avoid a curdling interaction that you won't appreciate. Without adding dairy products, this soup is vegan and kosher pareve, which can be served with meat at a Hanukkah dinner. Adding dairy makes it lacto-vegetarian, so check what your guests eat if you're feeding a vegetarian with this soup.

Other options for flavor include using vegetable stock rather than water as the simmering liquid for the vegetables, which is especially an idea if you want savory spicing for your soup. If you aren't feeding vegetarians, and you just have to, yes, you could use chicken broth - but this soup is a celebration of vegetables, and you'll appreciate them more without the ubiquitous chicken broth that everyone tosses in everything. Do, absolutely, let the vegetables speak for themselves in this soup.

If you haven't added any dairy to your soup, it should freeze well. In either event, it reheats well, if you're serving it again the next day for lunch. And that opens another array of options - you can serve the soup differently on the second day. If you've made it chunky, use your blender to puree it and serve it as a smooth soup. If it's smooth, cook a few extra pieces of vegetables for texture, or serve it with fresh croutons for crunch. (If you're serving the sweeter version, perhaps a broken ginger snap or two.)

Garnishes are simple, as well: a dollop of sour cream or crème fraiche. A few toasted pumpkin seeds. Carrot curls. Freshly chopped parsley, or a sprig of thyme, for the savory version, or a sprinkle of cinnamon on the sweeter version. Don't overdo the garniture; the soup is simple, and like a little black sheath dress, too much jewelry hides the effect. Here, allow the color to shine.

Approximate quantities: one butternut squash, two sweet potatoes, one white potato, four carrots, and two onions to just under a quart of water, along with any other vegetable roughly the size of a medium-to-large zucchini. (I'd suggest acorn squash, parsnip, turnip, rutabaga, or more sweet potato or butternut squash.) But this is an infinitely forgiving and adaptable soup, so if you don't use the white potato, or if you only have one sweet potato, or the carrots are smaller or larger than planned, there's no reason to be concerned. It will turn out fine anyway. You can even toss in leftover canned pumpkin if your pumpkin recipe didn't use the whole can. Don't be afraid to play with this soup - it's more a suggestion than an absolutely rigid recipe.

And don't fear feeding your vegan and vegetarian guests this holiday season. This is one dinner item that everyone can enjoy together. And everyone definitely will enjoy it!

Photo credit: Freeimages