Bleh, bleh bleh HELP on the Sweet Potato-Grapefruit soup

[babeak]

I just made this and it is so bitter from the grapefruit. I have tried sweetening it with coconut nectar to no avail. I blended in basil thinking that would help, but not much. I have tried a couple of spice combinations on the side to test and nothing is coming out good. I hate to chuck it, but I am coming pretty close to doing so.

This would be the first raw recipe that I would chuck the entire contents. That is so disappointing. My DD won't have anything to do with it and I don't want to consume 64 oz. of this either.

I hate to keep throwing nectar after it and wasting that too.

Ideas? Same problems? Unfortunately, this is the first of Alissa's recipes that I have made. Ergh.

[ReneeH]

Girl, WHAT ***IS*** ya doin'!!! :eek:

I *KNOW* this sounds insane, but trust Alissa!!!! Do the recipe as written. I don't remember all those ingredients in there! (though it's not in front of me...). But, I DO remember that the Jalapeno cuts the bitter taste...

Have you been on myvthread with the recipes from the new book? I made this about a week or do ago and it is good!!! Trust ya Mama 'Nee!!! Try it again! :)

Here's my 8 yr old enjoying it...

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u336/Pioneerspiritnee/Raw%20Food%20for%20Everyone%20PHOTOS/1000000418.jpg

Let me know how you like it the 2nd time you do it! :D

[babeak]

I did, but only put in 1 jalapeño for 3yro to be able to consume without mouth burning and only bought one. Since it called for basil, I thought well lets see if that will help. When that didn't work, I put some sweetner in it, but only marginally helped....since in the coconut family that should be okay. Seems like a reasonable course of action when one is looking at chucking the whole thing and not having any dinner. DD ate something else and I had some, but did not like it one bit.

I talked to another friend and she concurred to make it spicier. I think that I am going to try mixing a little on the side with some chipotle powder and some with cayenne. If either of those turns out then hoorah. Even if they make it marginally better, maybe I can make it into a cracker of some sort.

If making it spicer does not work, then I am sorry that I don't think that I am going to try this again. I only did it because I had heard great things about it and it sounded interesting. I have some super bitter grapefruit that I did not enjoy eating plain, so I thought that it was great to find a recipe to use them in.

Furthermore, I am a bit confused by this recipe as it calls for juicing sweet potatoes and then for cut up sweet potatoes, when it seems like you could just forget the juicing step altogether as just plain extra work. However, I did follow directions except for only 1 jalapeño. Perhaps that is where I did wrong. Usually making a dish less spicy is okay.

I also don't like bitter foods in general, so that probably does not help. DD does not either.

I will report back on how the heat helps. I am not doing it tonight though.

[Shona]

I don't have the book, so I don't know whether the recipe specifies a particular type of grapefruit. Pink grapefruit is generally sweeter than white grapefruit. As you mentioned that your grapefruit is quite tart, I am assuming it's white? Maybe the soup would be nicer with pink grapefruit.

[January Noir]

I don't have the book, so I don't know whether the recipe specifies a particular type of grapefruit. Pink grapefruit is generally sweeter than white grapefruit. As you mentioned that your grapefruit is quite tart, I am assuming it's white? Maybe the soup would be nicer with pink grapefruit.

I was thinking the same thing!

[babeak]

I used pink. These were supposed to be some kind of ruby, but nowhere near the sweetness of ruby's that my uncle used to bring us from S. Texas. I bought these through a coop and I thought that they would be the real ruby grapefruit. Nope, in fact they are the most bitter that I think that I have had in a grapefruit. That was also disappointing. In fact, I had not eaten them like I normally would and that is why when I saw the recipe I thought that was my opportunity to eat them.

So, perhaps the rule of thumb for this recipe is to use grapefruit that are really yummy all by themselves before putting them in this recipe :D

[ReneeH]

Believe me, I thought exactly as you did about the Jalapeno... I thought putting the required amount in would be too spicy, but the total opposite happened... The Jalapeno cuts the bitterness and makes it delicious...not really spicy at all! I didn't want it spicy for my kids, so I originally left it out and they didn't like it. They only ate it when I put in the required amount of Jalapeno....

I hope you try it again! It really IS good! :)

[babeak]

I tried adding heat with cayenne and chipotle. Neither worked. Blech, blech, blech. It was plenty spicy, but it just did not work. It was really inedible today....worse than when I made it yesterday. I threw the whole thing down the drain. :( Now I have to fix something else.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[ReneeH]

But the recipe doesn't call for Chipole or Cayenne... It calls for Jalapeno for a reason. It's not to spice it up....Jalapeno cuts the bitterness while not making it spicy. Substitutions just won't work in this case... As a matter of fact, I'll make it again tonight....

I hope Alissa chimes in... :)

[babeak]

Since I did not have another fresh jalapeño, I tried chipotle...smoke dried jalapeño. Yeh, I know that it is different, but it did not quite cut the grapefruit taste. I just needed to see if that would do it. Oh well. I am moving on. When I have a recipe fail that miserably, I am not that inclined to try it again. However, I can see you point. I did make a Thai soup one time and it was awesome and the next time I made it, it was not too good because of 1 too many kamfir leaves, so point well taken. I should make it again. However, I will wait until I have better grapefruit.:D

In the meantime, I am going to try a different recipe next time. I am thinking about the enchiladas.

[janicejourney]

Sorry you didn't like this. I loved it so much I have already made it twice. I think it was your grapefruit. If you like sweet potatoes and grapefruit normally then you would like this recipe, unless you had yucky grapefruit... bummage... :(

[Conscious Midwife]

If you haven't thrown out the soup yet continue loading it with garlic and falx seed and then dehydrating form a tangy sort of cracker which should taste awesome with slice avocado.

Just throw the flax in the soup with the garlic let soak a few hours to moisten flax and thicken soup and then spread on tray.

I've always made flax crackers or smoothies out of questionable recipies, better than wastinga ll those good ingredients

[ReneeH]

Ok..... I just had an INTERESTING discovery about my Soup.... The recipe calls for "Coconut Milk" and didn't have a page number by it, so when I made it a couple of weeks ago, I assumed it was FRESH THAI COCONUT water mixed with the "meat" from the Coconut (which is how I make my Coconut "milk"....

I just made another recipe that calls for Alissa's Coconut recipe on page 108... I'm wondering if THAT'S why I loved the Sweet Potato Grapefruit Soup!!!!!! Tasting Alissa's recipe, it's good, but not as "rich" as using fresh Thai Coconut "Milk"...

If you haven't given up on making this, try it with the fresh Coconut and see if you like it...but, keep everything else in the recipe as written... :)