I don’t know if it’s maybe just me, but there comes a
time each year where I start to really crave soup for my breakfast lunch and dinner (complete with home-made
seeded and all together wholesome bread). Perhaps it is the temperature, that
smell of autumn in the air, or even just the idea of a warm and very easy meal.
I have been a really keen soup maker for about 4 years
now. During my time working in a cafe, I would cover the chefs’ days off and
have to make three big batches of soup a day. I tweaked each recipe to my satisfaction-
I only served what I would like to eat myself!
What I have learned over that time is that improvising is
really fun and can result in a gorgeous tasting end product to be proud of. (I
also learned that celery is the special ingredient in ANY soup)
This soup was so random. I found what was in my cupboard
and went ahead. So here is my recipe.
For a big batch that serves approx. 7
-Half a cup of lentils (not essential)
-Two large sweet potatoes (or 4 if no lentils)
-One branch of celery
- Three Knorr vegetable stock cubes
- Two white onions
- Half a red chili pepper
-Three table spoons of coconut milk
-Two cloves of garlic
I started the soup by softening the onions with a little
light oil cooking spray. Once soft I then added the garlic, which I had
flattened and cut up into little pieces. It is important not to burn the
garlic! I then added the lentils and celery followed immediately by some freshly
boiled water (personal preference how much to use, but I add gradually as to
prevent the soup being too thin and runny). I then grated my sweet potato onto
a plate. I grate it because it takes far less time to soften and cook and
grating is easier than cutting it (for me anyway). After this I added two of
the stock cubes. I add these gradually as well because there is nothing worse
than an overly stocky soup!! Then I cut up half the chili and added. After about ten minutes I blended, added
another stock cube as well as the coconut milk. I blended again and there we had the finished soup in
as little as 15-20 minutes!
Bon apetit!
