Sweet Potato Madness Part II - Finally

Finally getting around to writing about the second night of Sweet Potato Madness week - a once ever event inspired by CW's purchase of like 5 pounds of sweet potatoes.  After the sweetly successful chicken and sweet potato bake, I was eager to do something different with the remaining potatoes.  I have made delicious butternut squash soups in the past, and the color and sweetness of the potatoes reminded me of that, inspiring me to find a soup recipe! 

So many of my searches lead me to allrecipes.com, and indeed it was there that I found a recipe for Harvest Sweet Potato Soup.  The recipe is very simple and easy to execute, but I had plans to jazz things up a bit with some crab meat and fresh corn, making a hearty meal of it.

Canned Crab Meat

Off to the store I went in search of lump crab meat.  I started at a high quality meat and seafood purveyor called Iowa Meat Farms.  I had previously bought some chicken and flank steaks there that had been excellent.  The store makes a point of sourcing their products from humanely and sustainably raised/caught sources, which has become more important to us as we've learned more about food production.  They did not have any fresh crab, but carried a canned pasteurized crab meat from Trade Winds.  In many cases, a high quality canned crab can be fresher than a supposedly "fresh" product - some of which are treated with preservatives to keep color or prevent contamination.  Reading the can, I learned that this crab meat is cooked right after capture, picked over, canned and pasteurized very quickly, and always refrigerated thereafter - resulting in a crab with minimal intervention and consequently a fresh, unaltered flavor.    The can also had a crab cake recipe on the back, (spoiler alert!), which would come in handy for the evening's appetizer.

After obtaining my crab meat, I stopped by the regular grocery store to pick up a couple of ears of corn and some fresh basil, which I was substituting for the dried basil the recipe calls for.  Then it was back to the kitchen for preppin' time.

Base Veggies

 At left you'll see the base veggies for the soup: 2 ears of cornm 2 onions, 2 celery stalks, and our remaining sweet potatoes (five of them).  The onions were diced, celery chopped into small pieces, and the sweet potatoes peeled.

After peeling, the sweet potatoes were diced .

Peeled Sweet Potatoes

The prepared vegetables were sauteed all together in a large pot to cook the onions through and soften the potatoes.  Then the stock was added along with the bay leaves and some cinnamon and allspice (LBW spontaneous additions!) to add depth of flavor.  This was brought to a boil and covered to simmer for 15-20 minutes, to get the potatoes very soft and ready for pureeing.

Simmering Stock and Potatoes

Once the potatoes were very soft I added in the fresh basil and transferred the whole pot to the food processor and pureed it until smooth.


The pureed soup was returned to the pot, and I added in the corn, which had been cut from the cobs.  This was left on low heat until service - plenty of time to cook the corn through.




A couple of cups of the pureed soup was put aside in a smaller pot with 8 ounces of the crab meat.  This would allow that crab meat to be brought up to serving temperature without being overly diluted by the huge pot of soup.  The crab would be added on top of the soup bowl when served, so that both CW and I would get a good portion of crab!

With Basil, before Pureeing

Fresh Corn

So the soup was done, but I had one more surprise up my sleeve.  While prepping the sweet potatoes I used by serrated peeler to cut some shoestring strips, which I wanted to deep fry into thin fries as a garnish to the soup.  I filled a pot with a couple cups of canola oil and put it over medium high heat.  I had no idea how hot the oil should be, and I don't own an oil thermometer - a purchase I would now recommend for anyone interested in deep frying at home.  My first batch of shoestring sweet potatoes was burnt to a crisp - but after lowering my heat, I was able to produce a passable looking bunch of sweet potato strips to garnish the soup with.

Take 2 - fried Sweet Potato Strings!

Burnt sweet potato strips

Sweet Potato Corn Soup with Crab Meat, Sweet Potato Shoestrings, and Fresh Basil

There you have it!  The completed soup with garnishes.  This was a very tasty meal, and a special treat for CW, who came home to a table set with candles.  Also, you may notice the soup bowl is china - the first time it has been used in three-plus years.  Sometimes you just need to make a random night special - otherwise china would never be used and registries never justified. 

Ah!  Almost forgot to mention the crab cake appetizer I made - as inspired by the recipe on the side of the can.  By now the can is recycled and I cannot find the recipe online, but I will try and remember it the best I can:

- 16 ounces crab meat

- one egg beaten

- 8 saltine crackers, crushed

- Old Bay Seasoning (forget how much - about 1 teaspoon)

- Dijon Mustard (again not sure how much - maybe 1 tablespoon)

- 1 Tablespoon Mayo

- Dash of Hot Sauce or Crushed Black pepper if you like some heat

Just take all the ingredients and mix them together thoroughly in a bowl - then form into 4-6 patties and refrigerate to firm them up (I put them in the freezer for about 20 minutes on a greased baking sheet) so they don't lose their shape when cooking.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a non-stick skillet and sautee the cakes until browned on each side (about 4 minutes per side).  Then place aside on paper towels to cook and serve with a lemon wedge.


I opted to serve the crab cake over a mixed-greens salad along with the lemon wedge.  The cake was incredibly flavorful given the simplicity and ease of the recipe.  It was a delicious, random, special night at home.

 That wraps up this entry.  Check back soon for more, including swordfish skewers, roast chicken breasts, and Asian stir-fry!  I will also eventually finish off my Portland Eats! series with days 3 and 4 of that trip. Thanks for your patience and viewership.