Sweet Potato Soup

Has anyone ever heard of Thug Kitchen? They take delicious cooking to the next level by eloquently inserting harsh curse words into otherwise innocent recipes. For example:

Here's what Thug Kitchen has to say about soup: "It’s getting colder outside and you feel the urge for soup. But that sodium soaked, store-bought condensed can of crap you’ve been eating since you were a kid? That shit is just fancy salt water. Take charge of dinner and make yourself a big bowl of this fall-flavored motherfucker. It’s fat free, low in salt, and easy as hell to make. Save the store-bought canned bullshit for when you get snowed in and don’t want to eat cat food. It’s the only excuse to have that shit in your pantry."

I LOVE IT. This is exactly how I feel about canned soup, especially since I've learned how easy it is to make your own yummy soup at home. This is a recipe I whipped up last night for a fairly quick weeknight meal. I was haphazardly adding spices, so you can take out what you want and experiment with your own combinations. My measurements below are definitely approximate, too! We had this soup with some sauteed kale seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice, and Slap Ya Mama cajun seasoning, which has recently become my favorite add-to-everything seasoning instead of sriracha (Gasp! Blasphemy.). 

Sweet Potato Basil Soup

ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 4 gloves garlic, minced
• 4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 2 tablespoons dried basil
• 1 tablespoon powdered ginger
• tiny pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon garam masala (spice blend)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• Himalayan sea salt and black pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon each or more to your liking)
• 1 13.5 oz. can of full-fat coconut milk

method:

1. Heat oil in medium stock pot over medium-high heat. Saute onions until translucent and add garlic, sauteing about 1 more minute.
2. Add spices (basil, ginger, cayenne, garam masala, cinnamon, coriander, s & p) and stir to coat onions and garlic. Deglaze with a splash of water to keep mixture from sticking.
3. Add sweet potatoes and stir for a minute or so to combine with onion mixture. 
4. Add broth. Liquid should be almost covering all of the sweet potatoes, so if there's not enough you can add more broth or water.
5. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium to simmer for about 20 minutes or until sweet potatoes fall apart when poked with a fork.
6. In batches, puree soup in a food processor or blender until smooth.
7. Return to stock pot and stir in coconut milk. 
8. Salt and pepper to taste, and serve it up! 

I'm proud of my dirty stove top. It means I use it!

*note: I like to use the "better than bouillon" soup base (that small jar in the above photo) because it's way cheaper than buying cartons of broth and more convenient since it will last for several batches of soup. You just add 1 teaspoon of the paste-like stuff to 1 cup of hot water to make a cup of broth. It probably has more sodium and sugar than necessary, but it does the trick!