Love Soup for Valentine's Day

Feed your soul on Valentine’s Day. Love it, hate it, regardless it would be nice to dive into a bowl of silky smooth beet soup. This is my take on borscht, a traditional beet soup. This particular bowl is rich, smooth, silky, and incredibly energizing... you may feel like you could just go all night. Perhaps it's from the niacin, promoting your blood to flow, or it simply raises your HDLs along with that coconut oil. Anyway, you are bound to feel good and filled with love.

Ingredients

• Coconut Oil - 2 tbsp
• Sweet Onion - 1 large sliced
• Red Onion - 1/2 large sliced
• Garlic - 5 cloves
• Celery - 4 stalks sliced
• Red Beets - 5 medium each medium dice
• Fennel - 1 bulb sliced
• Chicken or Vegetable Stock - 1.5 quarts
• Dried Dill - 3 tbsp
• Fresh Dill - 1/2 cup - chopped reserve some plushes for garnish
• Spiced Pepitas
• Pumpkin Seeds - 1/2 cup
• Sweet Smoked Paprika - 2 tsp
• Cayenne - 1/8 tsp
• Maple Syrup - 2 tsp
• Salt - a few pinches to tasteCultured Creme
• Greek Yogurt 2% - 1/2 cup
• Heavy Cream - 2 tbsp
• Water - 2 tbsp
• Salt - to taste

Method
In a large sauce pot slowly sweat those sweet juicy onions and garlic over medium. As they begin to sweat, slice the celery and fennel and add the pot. When they are translucent turn up the heat and add the beets and some salt. Cook over medium heat and beets will begin to slowly caramelize, then add the stock and dried dill and simmer until beets are very tender. Pull off the heat, add the fresh dill and some more coconut oil or butter if you choose, and blend until smooth.

When you are blending, make sure that you start with the solids and then add the liquids until it is the right consistency.

For the Pepitas
Heat a cast iron pan and add pumpkin seeds and begin to toast, when they start to get golden, add the smoked paprika, cayenne and maple and salt and stir until it starts to caramelize. Take out the pan onto a plate.

Cultured Crème
Whisk ingredients together. The mix should be able to drizzle but hold together. Season with salt. Pour into a squeeze bottle.

To Finish
Ladle or gently pour the silky smooth soup into the bowl. Shake the squeeze bottle and do dots of creme at the tip of an equilateral triangle. Drag a toothpick through the circle to make a heart. Then sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and drizzle with olive oil and fresh dill pieces.

Reviewed by Gabe Kennedy

Co-Founder of Plant People, Gabe Kennedy is an acclaimed chef and entrepreneur. Growing up in a house of healers and herbalists, he is passionate about the power of food as a tool for health, and actualized this passion and belief system into his company, Plant People. Named to Forbes 30 under 30 Gabe has shaped menus and cooked his way around the world with his mission to promote a more communal, green and healthy world.

Gabe is a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America and Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. You can learn more about his work at his website.