An across the hall neighbor dropped off some root vegetables and a bit of fresh sage before heading out of town. A quick text to my roommate confirmed that the enormous butternut squash in our pantry was open game. A glance at the fridge and I pulled out a can of extremely mediocre Jordanian beer and two empty yogurt containersfull of pre-chopped sweet potatoes.

Come As You Are Autumn Soup

This is really more of a soup method than a soup recipe, so feel free to play with it.

I used, vegetable-wise:

6 turnips
1 potato
2 sweet potatoes
1 enormous butternut squash
1 large onion

Herbs and spices and miscellany:

Half a can of beer
About a dozen small leaves of sage
Generous amounts of salt, pepper, cumin, ras al hanut, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon
A bullion cube
Some milk
Some lebneh (substitute plain yogurt)
Some olive oil

First parboil the potatoes, sweet potatoes, and turnips (the turnips take longer than the other two; the smaller you chop them, the faster they go. Cook till fork-tender) and roast the squash in the oven (again, chop into bits, roast with a bit of olive oil brushed over them till fork-tender).

Then sautee the onion, sliced thinly, in olive oil in a large pot till translucent. Toss in all the pre-cooked root vegetables and stir to coat everything with oil; cook everything together for a few minutes.

Next, blend everything in batches (adding sage at this point) with a little milk and water – just enough to liquefy.

Next return vegetables to heat in the pot and start seasoning. First and most important thing is your salt (and bullion, if you’re using it), which you need just enough of in order for you to taste anything, but not so much that it tastes too salty (obviously). Then you add the other spices as you wish, plus of course the beer (this is important) and lebneh/yogurt.

Then you eat several bowls and feel much better about the state of the world.