Sunday Soup Day: Root vegetable soup

Celeriac, sunchokes, purple top turnips, sweet scarlet turnips, red carrots and rutabagas are vegetables that I never imagined eating, let alone cooking myself. However, after my new found love for parsnips, I thought I would try all of them. And I did, in my most recent soup - root vegetable soup.

I stumbled across a bag of organically grown root vegetables at the Whole Earth Co-op in River Falls and thought it was a perfect choice on a day that seemed like it might be the end of fall. These vegetables embraced all the colors of fall, and I suspected the taste would send fall out in style. Christmas is just around the corner and the weather will be changing very quickly, so the excitement of fall could very well be gone. I tried to end it with a bang.

I sauteed an onion in olive oil before adding the aforementioned root vegetables with eight cloves of garlic. I cooked the vegetables for fifteen minutes until the were soft and fragrant, then added vegetable stock. I brought it to a boil and let it simmer before I pureed it with an immersion blender. When the soup was a nice, smooth consistency, I stirred in 3/4 cup of half-n-half.

The soup had a very strong, rooty scent. The taste was very hard to explain. I think it had a nutty flavor, but I'm not sure. The flavor of the rutabaga and turnips really came through. I really liked the taste when I sampled it over and over in the pot, but once I had it in my bowl and took heaping spoonfuls, I didn't really enjoy what was taking place inside of my mouth. Again, it was very difficult to describe, but I had a sensation in my mouth that was similar to when I eat radishes. It left quite the after taste, too. I'm still puzzled.

Ingredients:
1 onion (chopped)
2 teaspoons olive oil
8 cloves garlic (minced)
1 bag root vegetable soup mix (three pounds)
6 cups vegetable stock
3/4 cup half-n-half

Music: Weezer - I Want You To
Weather: 34-degrees