sweet potato, apple, and ancho soup

There is a recipe for a similar soup in this month's Food and Wine, which I had planned to make, but I was late getting off work and had to stop at the grocery store without benefit of the recipe. Here's my improvised soup, which turned out to be good enough for me to bring home an empty pot.

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon, diced fresh ginger
1 dried ancho chile, chopped

Heat the oil in the pot and add the onion, garlic, ginger, and chile; heat until onion is translucent and the mixture is aromatic. Add

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large sweet apple (Honeycrisp or Fuji)

and continue to cook until apples soften up a bit. Add

1 large bottle Newcastle Brown Ale

and bring to a boil. After a couple of minutes, add

4 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup honey
salt and pepper

Bring mixture to a boil once more, stirring occasionally.Lower heat and let simmer until potatoes are soft. Use a wand blender or a food processor and puree the mixture. If it's not sween enough, add some brown sugar. Once it's pureed, bring back up to bubbling and let reduce for a few minutes.

You can serve this with sour cream to cut the chile-heat, if you like. You can also use less ancho in the mix. If you want a significantly thicker soup, use one more sweet potato and one more apple and the same amount of liquid.

Peace,
Milton