golden soup

i like to think of myself as solar powered, generating my greatest amounts of energy while being active outdoors and powering my daily transportation simply with strong legs that i fuel with a plant-based diet. if the world revolved around me, my schedule would revolve around the sun – waking with sunrise, and winding down my day after sunset. but working a consistent 40-hour work week for the first time is a terrible wrench in my schedule. damn adulthood. it boggles my mind how everyone seems to put up with this their whole lives. 

on the winter solstice last month, the sun rose at 7:55 am, and set at 4:20 pm. i am peddling to work an hour before the sunrise, and cruising down the hill to my home while the sun sets. lucky for me, i basically sit all day in a solarium, soaking up whatever little sunshine we get in seattle. i view this as the one benefit to working in a building that is pretty much ‘off the grid’ – it may be chilly, but i get almost as much natural light as if i were working outdoors. now if only i could set up my food photography at work! instead, i literally have zero hours of daylight at home during the workweek.

i’ll fully admit to relying heavily on natural light for my photography. sure, i could set up lighting for a shot. but this one-woman-show typically just wants to eat the food i've created as soon as possible. can you blame me? pausing to take a photo even just for a minute can be a challenge of willpower. so my opportunities for blogging have dwindled down to saturdays this winter. this so happens to be my one day off with my guy. a boy who lives to climb outdoors at every possible opportunity. so instead of spending my saturdays in kitchen cooking and photographing and blogging on my saturday afternoon, i've been bringing my camera outdoors and tagging along to places like this:

anywho, i apologize for the hiatus in posts. but don't fret! i resolved after the new year to not let the lack of daylight stop me from blogging. so to start the new year in the drum beets kitchen, i made a sunny soup for a dim lit evening.

golden soup ~ serves 8-10

1 large yellow onion, diced

3 tablespoons olive or grape seed oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 large golden sweet potato, peeled and cut into small bite-sized cubes

4 medium carrots, halved and chopped

4 stalks celery, chopped

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sumac

½ teaspoon chili flakes or aleppo pepper

¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

2 cups yellow split peas

vegetable broth

once all vegetables are prepped, heat oil in a large soup pot. sauté onions at medium low temperature until translucent. then add remaining vegetables, garlic, ginger and spices. sauté for 3 more minutes without browning the vegetables. finally add split peas and enough broth to completely submerge all other ingredients. bring to a simmer and cook until split peas start to dissolve slightly and vegetables are tender, about 35-45 minutes.