Soup, soup, soup, soup, SOOOOOP. I’ve been waiting for seasonally-appropriate weather for at least six weeks, largely to take the edge off the panic induced by a 70-degree Christmas Day in Ohio, but also to fully sink into winter grub. Winter grub includes soup. And thus we have here a tale of two soups.

The first is a variation on the carrot soup Shannon shared a month or two back. In this version, she braised the carrots in soy sauce before putting them in the food processor, replaced the onions with garlic, and added ginger and sesame oil. Boom. I have nothing against carrots, but I do get tired of the aggression of their sheer profusion these months. I could not get enough of this soup, though. I mean, some kind of lovely chemical in my brain drained away when Shannon told me there was no more. I didn’t care what Slippin’ Jimmy was dealing with in Better Call Saul. I sat there and secretly wished Shannon would give me some of hers.

Which she did on her own volition! “No, no,” I said, “you finish your soup; I’m okay.”

“I sampled a lot while making it; I’m full,” she said.

And so I destroyed the few tablespoons left.

And thus inspired, I decided to do my part to work our way through our stockpile of root vegetables by inventing another soup that would satisfy a craving that I realized was significantly a craving for sesame oil.

So I worked up what I’ll call Wasabi-Soy Sweet Potato with Ginger-Kale Chowder.

• 2 large sweet potatoes
• 1 turnip (or any other loitering root vegetable)
• 1 large onion
• 1 big handful of a durable mushroom of your choice
• 1 bulb of garlic, cloves crushed
• 1 large piece of ginger peeled and finely chopped
• 1 bullion cube or other source of soup stock
• 1 bunch of kale stripped from the stem and chopped
• sesame oil, soy sauce, salt & pepper, wasabi paste, red wine or rice wine vinegar

First, chop the sweet potatoes and its root cousin of choice into 1/4″-square pieces.  I wouldn’t bother to peel the potato given how healthy the skin is and how the skin helps it keep its shape in the soup.  Just cut off any gnarly looking parts, just like you would a potato.  Mix in a mug 2 tlbs of sesame oil, 2 tlbs of “regular” vegetable oil, and soy sauce, and wasabi.  We have had in our cabinet a bag of individual sushi-to-go soy sauce packets for so long that I forget which job I had when I saved them from being wasted in the trash after some meeting or another.  I probably used five of those packets, and I’ll go ahead and guess that that comes to six or seven nice dashes from a bottle.  Add the wasabi to taste.

Stir the sauce together, stir it into the chopped veggies, and roast on 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.  Next, in a big soup pot, get the garlic and ginger going over low heat in 2 tlbs of sesame oil.  After 5 minutes or so – before the garlic has browned – turn the heat to medium and stir in the kale.  After two or three minutes, add a few dashes of soy sauce and a few of vinegar.  Then add four cups of stock or water with the bullion cube added.  Slice the onions into rings, and add those plus the mushrooms cut to bite-sized pieces.  Simmer on medium-low heat.  Once the roasting vegetables are done, add them to the soup, add salt and pepper to taste, and, if you’re really on-point, add some sesame seeds you’ve browned in a skillet.