Winter

As the New Year begins, it only seems right to offer a recipe for a soup that is chock full of vegetables and even a little bit of fruit. The creamy soup will incorporate nicely into a regime of healthful menus.

I’ve been making this soup for years. A long time ago, much longer than I’d like to admit, I joined a group of women once a month for a Sunday afternoon meal. We called it our Recipe Exchange Group. We would each prepare a part of the meal and bring along the recipe to share. Elsa, our friend from Argentina, brought this soup to one of those long-ago meals where we’d not only eat, but also chat about our kids, our husbands, and food. It was an appreciated outlet for all of us in this small group of moms who liked to cook.

If you have made a resolution to eat more fruits and vegetables each day, this soup will make it easy. There is a fair amount of chopping involved, but once that task has been accomplished, the soup will be ready to eat in no time.

Sweet potatoes are having their moment—at least according to my favorite New York Times reporter, Kim Severson. It seems their new fame is largely due to the popularity of sweet potato fries.

These fries (mostly deep-fried like regular potato fries) have popped up on both upscale and chain restaurant menus all over the country in the past couple of years. I am one of those willing victims who eats these things; but more often I roast them at home in the oven using the recipe I created for Fast, Fresh & Green.

But I’ve long been a fan of sweet potatoes cooked many different ways—especially any method that allows them to caramelize a bit, like slow-sautéing. So I thought this week I’d make some slow-sautéed sweet potatoes and share that recipe here, in honor of the humble tuber’s new (but hopefully not fleeting) fame.

Cornmeal is a staple foodstuff in the cuisines of many cultures throughout the world, cooked in nearly similar ways. It can be found in South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the South where it is known as grits. Cornmeal is made from the grinding of dried corn kernels that have had the husk and germ removed, which gives it greater shelf life.

Polenta, as cornmeal is known in Italy, came to popularity in Roman times when it was eaten as a basic porridge. Its origins as a peasant dish have now been displaced by its availability in high-end restaurants. It is very versatile and can be served alongside a variety of other foods, such as meats, stews, sauces, and fish.

With a nod toward tradition, in this recipe I serve the polenta with a mushroom ragù, a combination of two different varieties of mushrooms, oyster and cremini, sautéed and then simmered with mushroom broth from dried porcinis. But any available mushrooms can be used for this recipe.

Is there another name as fun to say as "kumquat"? Yes. Lemonquat, limequat, and orangequat (also called mandarinquat). I didn't make these up; they are citrus hybrids -- part kumquat and part lemon, lime, or orange, respectively.

A soft-spoken, affable farmer named George T. Schnurer, who owns and operates Betty B's Ranch in Ramona, California, sells a wide variety of cheerful citrus, including orangequats, lemonquats, and di rigeur Meyer lemons.

Though the juicy sweet-tart orangequats have a robust orange flavor that I love, I am positively smitten with the lemonquats. You might expect given their name that lemonquats are overly sour or acidic. They aren't. Like lemon drops, they're rather sweet with hints of tartness.

Lemonquats like kumquats are entirely edible. Though wonderful raw, they're simply amazing in baked goods. Despite their playful name and unique flavor, there aren't too many recipes for lemonquats, that is, except for hard drinks. Since this is G- rated blog, I figured I'd do something more wholesome, like cake.