Thai Sweet Potato Soup

Fall is, by far, my favorite season to cook in. Crock pot meals and stews and roasts and soups.  I absolutely love soups.

I made this one the other night because I had two sweet potatoes that were pushing the limits of viability. Now, full disclosure, my preschooler hates sweet potatoes passionately, so he ate frozen chicken nuggets for dinner.

But I had two bowls of this soup and then ate more of it for lunch the next day.

Thai Sweet Potato Soup 

(Slightly adapted from this Washington Post recipe)

(Reading material optional, I haven’t made it past the half way point of that one.)

Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon butter/olive oil
• 2 small/medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 2-inch (ish) chunks
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 1-inch long piece of fresh ginger, finely diced
• 3 cups of vegetable stock/broth
• 1/2-1 1/2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste
• Juice of 1 lime
• Cream (optional)
• Toasted pumpkin seeds (optional and not thematically appropriate, but quite delicious)

Instructions:

In a large stock pot or dutch oven, warm the butter or oil over medium high heat. Sauté the onion for 5 or so minutes, then add the garlic and ginger and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Add the vegetable broth (if I’d had it, I would have also added some coconut milk, but alas, I was all out!) and bring to a boil. Add the sweet potatoes, reduce to a simmer, and cook covered for about 20 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are soft.

Either use your blender to blend in batches (be sure to take the center of the lid out to let the steam escape!), or be lazy like me and use an immersion blender and puree the soup. Add the lime juice and curry paste to taste (I used a lot of both, but then again, I knew that Xander wasn’t going to eat it). The lime juice is really the key ingredient, here, as it brightens all the flavors.

Pour into bowls, and add a swirl of cream (or be healthy and use milk, but that’s just kind of boring, really). I also added toasted pumpkin seeds because I like to add toasted pumpkin seeds to just about everything.  Enjoy with a salad, some crusty bread , or just on its own. Feel virtuous about eating a healthy, vegetarian meal, and reward yourself with a very large brownie.