Roasted Beet Soup and Beet Chips

This week I decided to try some brand new food I've never cooked with or eaten much before - beets and turnips. They just looked intreguing at the grocery store. I did a little research and found some recipes that looked good, did some tweaks to make them my own, and came up with turnip chips that were good but not necessarily a favorite, beet chips that were really good, and some very beautiful and very tasty bright pink soup that delighted the kids with its color and most of them liked its sweet and pleasing taste as well. Plus I made some yummy beet chips (figured that as long as the oven was on, might as well make something else using the oven and the beets).

Here are the turnip fries, ready to roast (just clean the turnips, cut them in strips, toss with a little olive oil and salt, spread on a baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees until soft inside and slightly brown and crisp on the edges - about 20 minutes)

Here are the beet chips (just wedges tossed in a little olive oil and salt) and half beets plus turnips ready to roast.


Here's the finished soup which really was delicious.

(It was sort of dark so you can't quite see how pretty the beets really are inside or how vibrant and gorgeous the color of the soup was in these photos. Some day maybe I'll get a real camera and figure out how to use it...)

Roasted Beet Soup with Creme Fraiche

4 large beets, washed and cut in half
4 medium cloves garlic
1 good-sized sweet yellow onion, minced
1 tsp olive oil
4-5 cups chicken broth (less if you want a really thick soup, more if you want a thinner soup)
1/2 cup whipping cream (optional but it sure makes it good!)
1-2 tsp salt (to taste)
1/2 tsp pepper (to taste)
1-2 bay leaves (optional)

Put take papery outer skins off garlic cloves, place on backing sheet, spray with olive oil spray or canola oil spray. Put beets cut side down on same cooking tray. Cook beets and garlic for about 1 hour at 400 degrees (or until beets are soft and can be cut pretty easily with a fork).

When beets are done, set aside and brown onions in oil in a stock/soup pot.

Cut cooked beets into smaller pieces (to help them blend well) and put them in a blender along with the roasted garlic, cooked onions and 2 cups of chicken broth. Blend until smooth. (If your blender is sort of small, you'll want to blend in batches - I've got a VitaMix and it all fits at once in that container.)

Put blended mixture in stock pot and stir in remaining 2 cups of chicken broth, a little at a time, until smooth. Add bay leaves (optional). Let simmer for about 20 minutes (not necessary but makes it yummier). Just before serving, add the cream and stir it in, setting aside a little cream to drizzle on top when serving. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve drizzled with a little cream on top (or a little sour cream is good also). Great with warm crusty bread and butter.