I made this soup up on the fly because I wanted something full of vegetables to balance out the bean & rice dishes I'm making this week. The basic technique for this is from "Aloo-Tamatar Soup" from New Indian Home Cooking, which is a curried potato and tomato soup that I've made enough times that I no longer follow the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 T olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
• A half-thumb sized knob of ginger, sliced in strips
• 2 large carrots, sliced in rounds
• 4 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1" pieces
• 3 T tomato paste
• 1½ T tandoori masala
• Salt & black pepper, to taste
• ¼ t garam masala
• ½ lb 'Lacinato' kale, roughly chopped

Method:

• Heat olive oil in large pot over medium heat. Add onion and ginger, sauté until fragrant.
• Add carrot, sweet potato, tomato paste, tandoori masala, salt, and black pepper, stirring to coat vegetables with spices. Cook about 5 minutes until fragrant.
• Add water to cover vegetables. Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer. Cook until carrots and sweet potatoes are just barely soft, about 15 minutes.
• Add garam masala and kale, and simmer until kale has brightened in color and is barely cooked.

Notes:

• Flavor: mellow and autumnal, has a complex sweetness
• It could stand something acidic/bitter or nutty/salty as an add-in or side dish
• Because the soup is mostly water/vegetables, it really needs something else as a side to make a meal that'll keep you going longer than an hour
• Ingredients to Add Next Time: lemon juice at end, cilantro if available
• Possible Pairings: halva; cheese and crackers; really good flatbreads; toasted pepitas, sesame, cashews, or hazelnuts for a topping; cilantro chutney; mango chutney; a yogurt dish or sauce
• Substitutions: fresh or canned crushed tomatoes would be fine, I just happened to have leftover tomato paste from making goulash; turnips, beets, or parsnips would all be interesting as an added veggie in the soup or in a side salad; this seems like one of those soups people would puree (minus the kale); you could probably get away with adding dal to this if you wanted more protein

(Thanks to my partner for flavor feedback.)