What’s For Dinner?

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Mike shares one of my favorite recipes, “Curry Sweet Potato Soup,” Enjoy!

Two to three times a week my wife Debbie asks me what I think we should have for dinner. It’s usually on my drive home, usually after a long day at work, and usually when I’ve not committed a single brain cell to consider what I think we should have for dinner. Now some might think this is an odd predicament given how much I love to cook. And it’s true: I love to cook. But thinking about dinner is not something I typically do unless I’m really really hungry. Or sick.

The other day I woke up feeling washed out and not 100%. It was probably because I went out to dinner the night before with a friend and sat at a table near the front door where there was a constant flow of cold air from outside that kept me fairly chilled all evening long. Whatever the reason, the day after I didn’t feel 100% and actually did think about dinner since I needed something nourishing that would bring me back around and set me right.

Debbie had been telling me about these sweet potatoes we had that were just begging to be eaten. I was so washed out by the end of the day that I thought baking them and adding a little butter and salt would be just about perfect. But Debbie had been asking for a curried sweet potato soup that’s a real favorite of ours going back many years. In fact, soups in general are a big hit. Not only are they fairly easy to cook up, but they are nourishing and healing too, something I really needed both of at that moment.

So, as I drove home with my chef’s hat on, I was thinking about how I was going to prepare the soup. What follows is nothing short of a sheer culinary stroke of holistic cooking genius (all due to my wife’s incredible tutelage in all things holistic).

INGREDIENTS
Sweet Potatoes              3 — peeled, washed, and cubed
Garlic cloves                   3 — peeled, smashed, and minced
White Onion                   ¼—peeled and diced
Fresh Turmeric Root      1” — peeled and chopped
Fresh Ginger Root          1” — peeled and chopped
Astralagous Root            4-5 slivered (they look like  tongue depressors)
Curry                               1-2 Tbsp (or to taste)
Pink Himalayan salt         just a pinch
Ground Black Pepper      just a pinch
Soup stock                      2 quarts

Place all the ingredients in a pot filled half full of filtered water, half vegetable or chicken stock, and bring to a boil. After about 20 minutes of everything at a full boil, turn off heat and let soup settle down. Strain all the vegetables from the stock carefully (DO NOT allow any astralagous root to escape) and place in a Vita-Mix or Cuisinart food processor. Add a cup or two of the stock to the blend and blend at high speed until all ingredients are super smooth. Pour the blend back in to the pot with the remainder of the stock and replace the astralagous root. Add curry, salt, and pepper and gently mix with a whisk. Cook on medium heat for another 15-20 (to boil off excess water), add a little butter or milk to give it some richness; even a nice “melty” cheese will work.  Cook another 5 minutes and serve with a crusty bread.

If you’re vegan, vegetarian, gluten-sensitive, or dairy-sensitive, the butter, milk, and cheese can all be replaced with appropriate alternatives like cashew cheese or almond milk. And just omit the crusty bread. The great thing about soups (and I didn’t realize it until after I’d made this soup) is that, pretty much any combination of vegetables that you like can be made into a soup—just experiment. I’ve started thinking about my morning kale smoothies and wondering what they’d taste like with a soupy twist to them.

So, what’s for dinner? Why soup, and you’re invited.

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NOTE ABOUT GARLIC: allow to sit about 10 minutes after you’ve peeled and smashed/minced it so that healing properties of allicin can be fully released.

NOTE ABOUT ASTRALAGOUS: Do Not Eat It or blend it into the soup. It’s not toxic or bad for you (otherwise why would I suggest putting it into the soup?), but it will be a bit like eating bark mulch.

 

Ask and Ye Shall Receive.

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+Here’ are some great new insights from Mike Biltonen (my darling husband), about South Florida food choices. Mike is a passionate fruit farmer and serious about local food security.

A few weeks ago I wrote a guest blog for Debbie in which I stated that south Florida food options suck. However, since our Thanksgiving vacation (after I wrote that blog) I’ve come to learn that there are actually healthy food options in south Florida. And by healthy, I mean healthy nutritionally and morally.

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on November 24th, whereupon we went immediately to Holy Cross hospital to visit Debbie’s Mom who was recovering from hip surgery. We had myself, Debbie, Mathew, and Debbie’s father, Henry, in tow. After about an hour or so we all started to talk about what’s for dinner. Normally, we eat at franchise establishments like J. Marks, PF Changs, or smaller more quaint local establishments like La Veranda and Greek Islands Taverna. Since it had been over a year since I’d been in FLL and my eating habits had changed dramatically, I really needed to seek out a healthier option for everyone. Not to disparage those fine establishments I  mention above, they don’t really serve food that’s all that healthy and, quite honestly, is more like a Sysco truck backed up to the back of the restaurant. That is, to say, they are quite industrial!

So when the first questions about dinner started to crop up I hopped on the old iPhone, cranked up the Yelp! App, and searched for restaurants in Vegan/Vegetarian category. I didn’t know what would crop up – most actually were restaurants that had V/V options, but weren’t really V/V restaurants. Not that that was a bad thing; most restaurants actually have a veg option. But I was searching for a restaurant with a soul – and I found it, or so I thought at the time.

You see marketing is everything. McDonalds actually does a really good job of marketing itself as having healthy options, in spite of the truth. I’ve become quite the skeptic in the past few years and I often do not know what to believe. But during my searches that includes Yelp! and EatWell.org, I came across a restaurant calling itself Sublime. Now for those vocabularists out there, I don’t have to do more than remind you that sublime is defined as being “of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.” And Sublime was definitely nothing short of this. I read over the menu, looked over the web site, watched testimonial; videos of Paul McCartney singing the praises of Sublime – wait, did I say Sir Paul? – I politely, but firmly, suggested we needed to try the restaurant.

Nobody in our party was in a position to disagree. So we descended upon Sublime at 6PM on Sunday night.  What followed was south Florida culinary history. Needless to say the ambiance of the restaurant was lovely. The owner actually stopped by our table not once, but twice. Jimmy, our waiter, was extraordinarily gifted and obviously wasn’t there just for the paycheck. After a long day of traveling, we all found Sublime absolutely sublime. What were the highlights?

First, Mathew, our 9 year old son, the champion of extreme picky eaters, loved the Pesto-Polenta hors d’oeuvres. I had the Thai Red Chili, Debbie had the Mushroom Ravioli, Hank had the Portobello Stack and Mathew had the Mac ‘N’ Cheese. No desserts, but plenty of eye-opening culinary experiences. Well, based on this one experience we took Debbie’s Mom, always the culinary adventurer, to Sublime exactly one week later. In fact, we drove in a rainstorm from Boca Raton all the way to FLL in order to share this incredible experience with her. We had different dishes plus dessert and the experience didn’t disappoint. Debbie’s mom had the Vegetable Lasagna, Debbie had the Mushroom Risotto Cake dish, I had the Mushroom Ravioli (house specialty) and Mathew had the Veggie Burger (which he loved!!).

Ok, so we had great food, but where’s the morality? Well, as we found out during our visit, the restaurant itself is a funding source for the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF), an organization founded by the owner Nanci Alexander. I’ll let their web site speak for itself, so suffice it to say that Sublime is a 100% vegan restaurant owned and operated by people committed to a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and animal rights causes. We didn’t visit with Paul McCartney or see Pamela Anderson, but did enjoy some great food and realize that food isn’t, or have to be, all industrially-based crap-ola. And there are others for sure, but Sublime has lead the way. If you’re interested in vegan or vegetarian eating options I encourage you to visit any of the establishments featured here: Veg South Florida. Enjoy and rejoice in the fact the good CAN be found in south Florida!