Sweet Potato and Crab Soup..the name may not hook you, but the photo will

This was a type of recipe I had never tried before, using an ingredient I knew nothing about. It was an interesting experience and defiantly an adventure! As usual the bowl is messy, I just didn't feel like cleaning it up for the pictures. (Sorry! I'll do better next time...maybe.) Before I jump into this recipe I want to caution that it does not taste anything like what you expect from a sweet potato. In fact, this soup isn't sweet at all. I actually think it was akin to a bisque than a soup. I think I may try a version with regular potatoes this week and maybe leave chunks of the potato instead of blending everything down. But, you won't know which version you like best until you try them all! So to make this dish you are going to need:

4 tablespoons of butter

2 leaks (You will only use the white portion)

Minced Garlic (The amount is up to you, I used about 3 cloves)

4 cups of sweet potato (Peeled and chopped/cubed)

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

5 cups of vegetable stock

2 cups of heavy whipping cream

4 teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves (I got so frustrated picking those teeny tiny leaves of the steam that I gave up and used some ground thyme I had in the pantry)

Lump crab meat (Most recipes I saw called for 12 oz. I used 18 because who doesn't want more crab)

Like any other soup I would make, I did this one in my dutch oven on the stove top. And of course I chopped up my veggies before I started as well. I finely chopped the leaks and (sorta kinda) cubed the sweet potato. Now lets talk about leaks..... I have NEVER cooked with them before. And actually, turns out the picture in my mind of what they looked like was wrong too.

At my grocery store you can only buy them organic and in groups of two. What I've come to decide is that they are basically giant green onions (I don't know if that's really true but either believe me, or fight me.) They smelled like green onions when I chopped them and they tasted liked it too. But I digress.....back to the cooking...

The first step is to heat 2 tablespoons of butter in your dutch oven and saute the leaks and garlic over medium heat. I did this for about 6-7 minutes, basically until the leaks began to get pretty soft.

Next you will want to add in your sweet potatoes, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, cinnamon and your cayenne pepper. Give everything a few really good stirs, you need to get all of these flavors combined well. Here's the thing, I almost quit cooking at this point. I don't know what it was but this just didn't smell right to me. I don't know if it was the fact that my brain couldn't quit get around the scent of the leaks and cinnamon together or what but I was confused. But, I had already started and this was an adventure after all so I kept cooking ( And I'm glad I did!).

Next you can add in your stock and raise the temperature to high to get the soup to a rolling boil. Then bring your temp back down to medium-low (I have no idea why everything always says to "bring to a boil and then reduce" confession...I rarely do so. I usually just pop the temp down to medium-low and sometimes add an extra minute or two to the cooking time) and then let this simmer for about 20 minutes. (Covered, uncovered you choose. I picked covered but I highly doubt it makes any difference)

After simmering for 23 minutes (because I had to finish my beer before I got back into cooking) the soup looked like this. So basically all the leaks just floated to the top. Again this looked strange to me, it looked super unappetizing, so I googled other peoples recipes and apparently it's supposed to look just like that at this point. So I opened another beer and cracked on.

The next step is to puree the hell out of the soup. You can do so with an immersion blender (Or hand blender as I call it) or you can let the soup cool down and use a traditional blender, though you would probably need to do it in batches. If you don't have an immersion blender I highly suggest you get one. You can pick up a really nice one at target for around 30 bucks. I am a KitchenAid fanatic and it works fantastic. It may take a few minutes to make sure you get all of the sweet potato pureed. I'm pretty sure I chased one sneaky potato chunk for a solid 10 minutes. (Don't judge me)

Now that you have everything all blended up smooth you can stir in your cream and 2 teaspoons of thyme. Here's the thing, I really tried to use the fresh stuff. But pulling off those teeny tiny leaves was just way too tedious. So I got a little bit in and then just used the ground thyme I had in the pantry. And that's OK guys, its part of the adventure.

You can see a few of those fresh thyme bits I managed to get in! Next you will want to leave your soup on low to simmer and cook up your crab. Lump crab is going to cook up super quick and easy. So in a skillet melt some butter, throw in your crab and some thyme (ground or fresh, whatever your heart desires.) and let that cook through for 4 or five minutes. Normally I would have a photo for that but I accidentally took a video and it is way too blurry. So just use your imagination! All you need to do then is add your crab to your soup. You can either add it to the pot or ladle out a bowl of soup and add the crab to the bowl. I opted to add to the bowl so I could control how much went in each portion. Then as I told my husband, throw some croutons in that sucker and enjoy.

This recipe was definitely different from anything I have ever cooked before. But I can tell you this, it is an adventure in the kitchen I won't ever forget.