Last weekend the weather in Seattle turned cold and wet, ending a long and beautiful Indian summer, and, in my mind, signaling an important change in diet. Time for soup!

I can remember exactly the first time I ever had a ginger carrot soup, how delicious it was, and how long I struggled to recreate it. I think I’ve got some mastery of the process now, so I thought I’d share it.

Most of the cooking is actually done in a frying pan, which allows things to carmelize and soften up without being boiled to death. The first time I fried things first before adding them to broth, I felt like I had discovered an important culinary secret. Now I cook a lot of soup ingredients in the frying pan or oven before I get them wet, and get richer flavors. So start with your frying pan, and save the soup pot for last!

As far as ingredients, you’ll need

• five or six carrots
• a mediumish sweet potato
• a potato (I’m fond of Yukon golds)
• one onion
• a 1 inch hunk of ginger root
• two fat garlic cloves
• curry powder, salt, and ras el-hanout if you can get it or make it…

I made my own vegetable broth in tandem this time, but a good broth adds a lot of depth of flavor to a soup, so if you’ve got it on hand, use it!

First, clean up all the ingredients. Peel everything.

If you’re making broth, put everything except the ginger skins into a frying pan, without any oil, and let them blacken a little bit. Add water and salt to these, and set them to simmer on a back burner while you’re working on everything else.

Get your spices set up…

…and get chopping! The first round in the frying pan after the spices will be onion, ginger, and garlic. If you want to pull it out later,  chop the ginger into bigger pieces.

Spices in the pan…

…followed by onion & co., which soften up while you’re chopping up the carrots, potato and sweet potato (which might technically be a yam?) and the broth is brothing, too.

Now we add the pretty colored things and let them fry up for a bit.

When the carrots and everything else are soft and well cooked, strain the sold bits out of the broth, and combine the liquid with the cooked carrots & co. in the blender. Blend until smooth.

Taste, adjust the seasonings, and serve. My taller half likes a little cayenne sprinkled on top for extra oomph, and I made some biscuits to dunk in the soup as well.

What’s your favorite autumn soup?