Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup

What It Is: A very good soup, probably unlike most things you have ever had. Broth bursting with flavor to compete with the best Thai and Vietnamese soups, although this hails from Spain. There is one ingredient that makes this dish work, so it should not be done without it. Make something else if you don't have:

1 string Palacios Spanish Hot Chorizo sausage

Authentic Spanish chorizo is made from the same acorn fed (up to 30 pounds per day) Iberian pork that becomes jamón Ibérico. Ground pork is seasoned with paprika, garlic, salt and sherry and the sausage smoked over a period of months. The result is a sausage unlike you have tasted before, and an incredible improvement on the fresh chorizo available in the supermarket. Slice the sausage into thin rounds, and maybe eat one or two slices. Meanwhile, in a soup pot, saute

2 chopped onions
3 chopped garlic cloves

with a little olive oil. Add

1-2 peeled, cubed yams
1-2 small, peeled, cubed potatoes

And cook until starting to brown, about 10 minutes. Add

6 cups of decent chicken broth

And let simmer until potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes. At this point, taste the soup. It will be boring. Not to worry. In a small amount of olive oil, saute the sliced sausage until they brown, about 8 minutes. This will produce a good amount of seasoned oil, which you can use later, or save for some fried eggs in the morning. When the soup is ready, add the sausage and let that simmer for a little bit. We let the soup sit for a half hour, which helped to spread the sausage flavor around. At the last moment, add

Several large handfuls of fresh spinach

to the pot, and stir until wilted. Serve with crusty bread.