Sweet Potato And Carrot Soup
Rainy days make me want to curl up on the couch with a book and a bowl of piping hot soup.
Always.
Regardless of whether it’s summer or winter, I crave a bowl of light soup when the sky breaks. It’s been quite a cloudy, muggy week in Johannesburg recently. It’s usually the case but I love it. Rain makes me think of home and my mother sitting at the table with her Knorr diet cup-of-soup. I dislike them all but when I studied in Durban I used to drink them a lot. I went through a phase when I was trying to lose weight where I started drinking them again. What I know now is that they are loaded with salt and that makes you retain water.
This soup is delicious but also freezer worthy. I usually buy sweet potato’s in bulk when they go on special and make a large pot and freeze the rest for days when books lure me to the couch and snores are so easily achieved.
Ingredients
4-5 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
6-8 carrots, peeled and chopped
a R5 coin worth of ginger, grated
3 garlic, crushed
1 1/2 L vegetable stock
2 medium onions
paprika
black pepper
handful of fresh thyme and rosemary
3 tbsp of olive oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Toss potatoes and carrots in 2 tbsp of oil on a baking sheet. Don’t add salt.
Press in herbs around the tray and bake for nearly 1 hour until the vegetables caramelize. Give it all a toss every 20 minutes.
While the vegetables bake, heat the remaining 1 tbsp of oil in a deep pot.
Fry onions for 10 minutes on a medium heat - cover the pot with the lid and don’t stress if some of the onions start getting black.
Add garlic and ginger and fry for just 30 seconds before adding vegetable stock to the pot. Switch the stove off and let the mixture stand.
When your vegetables are ready, remove the herbs.
Add the potato and carrots to your broth and let the mixture cool completely.
Blend smooth with a handheld blender. Alternatively, put your entire broth and vegetables in a blender.
Add more water to the pot if you want a smoother consistency, and garnish your dish with paprika and pepper.
