Vegetable personalities

I just made this soup and it's magically awesome. If you like sweet potatoes, try it!!!!

Sweet Potato and Peanut Soup (from Jeanne Lemlin's Simple Vegetarian Pleasures)

2 T olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 T minced ginger root
3 large onions, diced
2 T dry-roasted unsalted peanuts, plus finely chopped peanuts for garnish
1/2 t ground (powdered) ginger
6 c vegetable stock (I like Kitchen Basics, it's low sodium)
3 large sweet potatoes (2 1/2 lbs), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 T brown sugar
Pinch cinnamon
1 t salt
Generous seasoning freshly ground black pepper

1. In a large stockpot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, ginger root, onions and peanuts. Saute, stirring often, until the onions begin to brown, about 10 min. Sprinkle on the ground ginger, toss and cook 1 min.
2. Stir in the stock, sweet potatoes, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Partially cover the pot. Cook the soup until the sweet potatoes are soft, about 20 min.
3. Let the soup cool slightly, then remove about 2 c of it and set that portion aside. Puree the soup in a few batches and return it to the pot. Stir in the reserved soup. Reheat the soup. Serve in bowls and garnish with some chopped peanuts.

During this recipe, I realized that my food processor has expired. Soup kept gushing out of its bottom and I realized it had a leak. Aaa! So I used my blender instead.

Also, here's a meme it occurred to me to do. Feel free to do this! I think it is a groovy way to find out about each other's reading tastes.

You pick a shelf in your bookcase and write down all the books on it. I was torn between the second and third shelf and I'll go with the second, just randomly.

The Secret Life of Bees (S. Monk Kidd)
In Her Shoes (J. Weiner)
Timbuktu (P. Auster)
For Kings and Planets (E. Canin)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (M. Kundera)
Range of Motion (E. Berg)
Men and other Mammals (J. Keeble)
Stuart Little (E.B. White)
The Progress of Love (Alice Munro)
The Vegan Guide to New York City
Plainsong (Haruf)
Lying Awake (Salzman)
Milkrun (Mylnowski)
Joy School (Berg)
Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh)
Asking for Trouble (Young)
A Promising Man (Young)
Anil's Ghost (Ondaatje)
Speaking with the Angel (ed. Hornby)
Pink Slip (Ciresi)
Durable Goods (Berg)
Man and Boy (Parsons)
Travels with Charley (Steinbeck)
Amsterdam (McEwan)
Fortune's Daughter (Hoffman)
Water Witches (Bohjalian)
In the Pond (Jin)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
The Beggar Maid (Munro)
My Little Blue Dress (Maddox)
Meeting Luciano (Esaki-Smith)
Our Mutual Friend (Dickens)
Fifth Business (Davies)
Simply Divine (Holden)
The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
The Angel Book (Goldman)
Dubliners (Joyce)
Asleep (Yoshimoto)
Ralph's Party (Jewell)
Can You Keep a Secret? (Kinsella)
Monkey Beach (Robinson)
Rachel's Holiday (Keyes)
Dating without Novocaine (Cach)
Amanda's Wedding (Colgan)
Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married (Keyes)
Don't You Want Me? (Knight)
New York Stories from the New Yorker
Quentin's (Binchy)
A Girl's Best Friend (Young)
Irish Girls About Town (Binchy, Keyes, Kelly)
Wanderlust (Dyer)
Talking to Addison (Colgan)
The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Dahl)
In a Sunburned Country (Bryson)
The Essential Charlotte (Schmais)
Sloppy Firsts (McCafferty)
Second Helpings (McCafferty)
Angels (Keyes)
The Accidental Tourist (Tyler)
Scarlet Feather (Binchy)
Looking for Andrew McCarthy (Colgan)
New York Stories: The Best of the City Section of the NY Times
Someone Like You (Kelly)