Super Soup Series: Harvest Soup and Beer Bread
- Teaching and Living Out the Fruit of the Spirit at Home - February 15, 2019
- Enough: Seeing Past the Guilt - November 28, 2018
- Souls Informed by Truth - November 14, 2018
This harvest soup recipe came to life when I was desperately needing a good dinner and I had to play Chopped in my own kitchen. Menu planning fail. We’ve all been there, ha!
Harvest Soup is so great during the fall but it is a total comfort food for me all winter long. I love this recipe because it is very forgiving and ingredients are easy to sub out if you need to clean out your pantry (I’ll make some suggestions below.).
Essentially, this is a beef vegetable stew that uses pumpkin puree instead of canned tomatoes and broth. Stay with me, I know it sounds weird but it works. I am terrible at measuring when I’m cooking, so please adjust below for your own taste. I love to serve this with warm beer bread, and that recipe is also below.
What you need:
1 lb ground beef
1 tsp salt
ground black pepper to taste
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can of pumpkin puree (not sweetened pie filling, plain puree)
1/2 cup of diced onion (red or yellow vidalia is best, but can be any kind)
1-2 Tbs of dried Herbs de Provence (or use dried thyme, rosemary, tarragon, basil, marjoram, etc)
1 Tbsp butter
Olive oil
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced (I often substitute for 2 Yukon golds as seen in the picture for this post, but the sweet potato really is best in this soup)
1 cup of frozen sweet corn or 1 can of sweet corn, rinsed and drained)
1/2 cup of carrots, diced
1 cup(ish)of white wine (You can also use broth–I usually have broth ready to add to this anyway if I need to bring up the liquid level without diminishing the flavor)
1 cup of milk (plus more if needed), or half-and-half
For soup:
*Note: I’ve made this with leftover roasted sweet potatoes and it was delicious. If you have time to roast them ahead of time to get great caramelization on them, it’s delicious. If they are pre-cooked, then add them toward the end of cooking to avoid them becoming too mushy.
Begin to brown the beef with salt and pepper and about 1/2 Tbsp of the dried herbs. Next, add the onion and saute until tender. Add garlic and saute for about 30 seconds to 1 minute more; then remove all from pan into a bowl and set aside. Drain the extra grease.
Return pot to burner and add 2 Tbsp butter and a drizzle of olive oil. Add potato and carrots and saute until potato begins to brown on the outside or soften slightly. Deglaze pan with white wine (scrape up all the brown bits). Put beef mixture back in pot, then stir in the pumpkin puree thoroughly until well combined. If it’s very thick, add broth until it can combine smoothly. Pour milk in slowly along with the rest of the dried Herbs de Provence. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer until potatoes and carrots are cooked through. Season to taste and add corn in the last 5 minutes of cooking. If it reduces too much and becomes too thick, add more wine or broth until you like the consistency.
Again, I love to serve this with beer bread!
Here is a super easy, versatile beer bread recipe:
3 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup brown sugar, loosely packed OR white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 ounces of your favorite beer (I prefer malty beers. I also tend to think IPAs leave a hoppy aftertaste that I don’t love in this bread.)
3 Tbsp melted butter
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a standard size bread pan or line with parchment.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Carefully pour over beer of choice and mix gently just until combined. Don’t overmix–the dough should be light and sticky. Place in a bread pan and form it gently into place. Pour melted butter right on top and pop it in the oven for about 50 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. You can smell when it’s done. 🙂 It is delicious with a pat of butter on a warm slice.
Hope you enjoy this meal!
Let your taste buds enjoy these delicious soups as well!
