Yesterday evening, as I drove home, my head was spinning. I had sooo much on my mind and all of it was work-related. Not now work, but future work. As in, where am I going to be working in a few weeks? What is going to drive my decision? What am I going to decide?
I don’t have all of the information I need yet to make the decision, so it’s completely unproductive to stew over this. But stewing is my nature, so stewing I did.
Brad and I decided to take the night off from running. Our training run was supposed to be three miles so it wasn’t one of our “major” runs. To be honest, four times a week is probably more realistic for me than five runs a week. I’m kind of treating Tuesday and Thursday as floating freebies during this particular marathon training plan. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to stay sane and take time for yourself, you know?
Since I didn’t spend time running, I had time to make the soup I’ve been dreaming of since my Tropical Traditions Coconut Peanut Butter arrived.
By looking through Tropical Tradition’s recipes, I found this recipe (last recipe on the page) and immediately wanted to try it because it reminded me of my very favorite soup. Of course, I am completely unable to follow a recipe to the “T” so I made this recipe my own by making a few substitutions.
Spiced Nutty Sweet Potato Soup
2 cups baked sweet potato (removed from skins)
4 cups vegetable stock
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced or 1/2 clove of elephant garlic
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/3 cup Tropical Traditions coconut peanut butter* (my last! :()
2 tsp. salt
fresh ground pepper
extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
Coat a large pot with a tablespoon of EVOO or use a Misto. Add onion and garlic and cook on medium high until onion starts to slightly brown. Add sweet potato and vegetable stock and stir until thoroughly mixed. Blend content of pot with an immersion blender, regular blender, or food processor. Transfer soup back to pot. Add spices and peanut butter. Stir until peanut butter is thoroughly melted and mixed into the soup. Allow to simmer on low for 15-20 minutes.
Top with a dollop of Greek yogurt if desired.
*Can substitute 1/3 cup regular creamy peanut butter and 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes.
YUM is all I can say. Brad and I decided that we both love this soup as much as we love Ellie Krieger’s sweet potato soup that has been my long-standing favorite. Something that made this soup super easy: I baked a bunch of sweet potatoes about a month ago, removed them from their skins, measured them into 1 cup amounts, put them in Ziploc bags, and froze them. To use them, I removed them from their bags and put them in a bowl in the microwave for two minutes. Sooo much easier than baking the sweet potatoes immediatly before making the soup!
I also sauteed some zucchini on my grill pan after cutting it into thin strips. This went perfectly with an orange bell pepper and sliced fennel bulb I roasted in the oven. Oh my gosh, roasted fennel is so good! It might be my new favorite vegetable.
Trader Joe’s has had it for several weeks now in their refrigerated produce section and I finally bought some. You have to try it. It’s kind of like an onion without the bite, but it’s sweeter. Fennel and ketchup sound like a heavenly combination. Can you see the wheels spinning in my head?
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You still have plenty of time to enter to win my Tropical Traditions Coconut Flour giveaway. For those of you who are scared to death of baking, I encourage you to step outside of your comfort zone and enter to win. I promise I’ll post plenty of super easy recipes you can try with your coconut flour. Plus, coconut flour can be used as a thickening agent in soups and stews so there’s plenty of other things you can do with it as well. You still have until Saturday morning at 9 am!
