Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

Soups are one of the most comforting foods in my opinion, especially pureed soups. The weather here in Toronto has been anything but spring like to me. Hello! It's April! When is this spring weather coming?!? Canadian winters are too long, and sometimes I think I live in the wrong country. In my ideal world it would only snow for 1 day of the year, and that day would be Christmas. After Christmas all the snow would melt, and the frosty cold winter would be done and over with...The weather would warm up, and resemble the climate of the caribbean. What a dream that would be.

Unfortunately the weather is anything but tropical here, so I decided to bring a touch of the tropics to my kitchen with my sweet potato and coconut soup. Coconut brings back memories of lounging on caribbean beaches and sipping coconut water. I love coconut! I really love sweet potatoes too! They are my favourite root vegetable. I love them because they are inexpensive, delicious. and nutritious. They contain a higher fibre content than regular potatoes. They're also packed with vitamin C, beta carotene (which is great for your skin), iron, and vitamin D. 

This soup was so comforting, healthy and delicious!  I made a really big batch, because I like to share my food with the people I love. I also love freezing soups for days that I don't have the time to cook. I like clean eating and eating foods made from scratch, so this system works well for me. You can garnish this soup with chives, plain greek yogurt, coconut cream, diced red pepper, crostini, bread, sweet potato chips, croutons, or parsley. I enjoyed my soup plain because I was famished, and so excited to get this soup in my belly!

This soup was also my lunch the next day. I had it with Romaine lettuce wraps, with hummus, cuccumber, shredded carrot, red onion and avocado.

Ingredients

3 medium onions

5 cloves garlic

1 red pepper

1/2 bunch celery (5-6stalks)

2 carrots

5 medium sweet potatoes

6 cups vegetable stock or water

1 can unsweetened coconut milk

1 tbsp coconut oil

salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Wash, peel and cut all vegetables

2. In a large stock pot, melt coconut oil

3. Add onions, sweat them out

4. Add celery, carrots, and garlic sweat them out also (by sweat I mean cook until you can smell the vegetable's aroma)

5. Add sweet potato, red pepper, vegetable stock, and coconut milk

6. Simmer about 20-30 minutes until the vegetable in the soup are cooked

7. Once all vegetables are cooked, puree the soup with a hand blender or blender until smooth

8. Taste the soup, and season with salt and pepper to taste

Enjoy!

Alexandra