Bacon and Sweet Potato Soup with Sage

Serves About 6
Meal type Apples, Bacon, Cinnamon
, Maple Syrup, Sweet Potato
Season Fall, Winter

Ingredients

  • 3 large sweet potatoes

  • 1 medium-sized apple, peeled and cored
  • 1 1/2 boxes of chicken stock
  • 6 slices of bacon
  • 2 tbs maple syrup
  • 1 tbs of cinnamon

  • A couple generous pinches of nutmeg

  • 1 sprig of fresh rosemary

  • A couple leaves of fresh sage, chopped
  • A sprinkling of gruyere cheese
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1 I start by baking the sweet potatoes in the oven at 400 until they just cooked through. Then I let them cool.
2 While the potatoes were cooling, I fried up some bacon into the soup pot and once it got crispy, I took it out and placed it on top of paper towels.
3 Next I blotted out about half of the bacon grease with a paper towel and left the rest in the pot to use for the soup.
4 Once the potatoes were cooled, they were peeled and cut into large chunks and thrown into the pot with the bacon fat. The apple pieces were added as well as one box of chicken stock.
5 Using an immersion blender, I pureed the sweet potatoes and the apple until velvety smooth and consistent in texture.
6 I gradually blended in the remaining half carton of stock and then added the maple syrup, rosemary (I just through the whole sprig in and then fished it out later) cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper.
7 Stir with a spoon, cover and let everything sit. Let this simmer for as long as you'd like (remember the flavor intensifies as it sits. I'd at least let this go for 30 minutes).
8 Give it a quick stir and then adjust the seasonings to your liking.
9 To serve, start by ladling the soup into a bowl.
10 Add the cheese and top with one piece of bacon that's crumbled up.
11 Finish with some fresh sage and toasted hazelnuts (unless you're like me and didn't have them on hand!)