Jackie Vetter’s Kitchen

I was sitting at my computer doing what I usually do, reading food blogs, when I came across a gold mine of recipes! Soup recipes! It was the blog of “Lisa’s Kitchen“. Lisa, along with her friend, Holler, host a monthly soup recipe contest called “No Crouton’s Required“! What a lovely idea.

You all know I love soups, so I was enthralled for hours with all these recipes!

This month is a spicy soup, so I am submitting my Sweet Potato/Butternut Squash Soup. You can puree this soup, or you can leave it chunky. I’ve made it both ways and love them both. These pictures are of the chunky variety.

SWEET POTATO AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 medium onion
2 medium - large sized sweet potatoes
1 small butternut squash
4 cups vegetable broth
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon ground cumin (more if you like a strong cumin taste, I use 2 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 1/2 teaspoon red curry paste (or more if you like it spicier. I do, so I use 2 - 3 heaped up teaspoons)
1-14 oz. can lite coconut milk

Preparation:
Place olive oil in heavy bottom soup pot and heat. Chop onion and add to pan. Peel and chop sweet potatoes and butternut squash and allow to sauté, about 8 minutes, stirring quite often. Add vegetable broth and let cook, covered, until potatoes and squash are fork tender. Now you can choose to do either a puree soup here or a chunky soup. If you desire a pureed soup, place the ingredients in the soup pot into a blender and puree. (Be careful doing this as hot liquid could squirt out of your blender. I always cover the top of the blender with a folded dish towel for safety.) Once you have pureed the soup, return it to the soup pot and add: salt, cumin, allspice, red curry paste and coconut milk. Stir and allow to heat up again. If you choose to do a chunky soup, just add all the spices and coconut milk and allow to heat through. Serve with hot, fresh, homemade bread. The Pumpkin Bread recipe on my site is delicious with this.

TIP: You really need to make sure the red curry paste dissolves throughout the soup, so one thing I have found, that really helps, is to use a small saucepan and heat the coconut milk to a small simmer and add the curry paste to it. Keep stirring until the curry paste has dissolved and then add it to the soup mixture. Works very well.

Well, life happened, and I just realized that I missed the cutoff date for this month’s recipe, so I’ll get it next month. There are a lot of soups in my repertoire! You all get the benefit of getting this recipe anyway!

I enjoy soups all year long, so you will see soup recipes on here quite often.

Happy, Health Eating,

Jackie V.