Chaos and Soup


If you’re looking for my life, you can find it on my Google Drive.

There lives the shared wedding folder with a list of viable photographers, venue contracts and—my least favorite—The Budget. Then there are the dog documents with lists of spunky and lovable doggy names and—another non-favorite—The Doggy Budget.

It’s organized yet happy chaos.

I found the same happy chaos in the kitchen with my brother a few weeks ago. We were making sweet potato peanut soup—a recipe similar to a dish we tried at the Kenyan restaurant in Pennsylvania (R.I.P. Alando’s Cuisine). I was saving a similar recipe I had found for when he visited me again. Really, I was too afraid to make it by myself.

At first, nothing is chaotic. Diced onions and chunks of sweet potato simmer together. Then you start adding what sounds less like a soup recipe and more like my doggy name and doggy prep documents—ginger and peanut butter.

The combination of the sweet potatoes and peanut butter had the both of us real unsure. Then of course you have to find a way to gracefully puree hot soup. If that’s not the physical definition of chaotic, I don’t know what is.

And the result?
SO yum.

It’s creamy without any dairy. It’s hearty without any meat. It’s rich with a Thai-like flavor from the ginger and peanut butter and slightly sweet from the sweet potatoes. Much like my Google Drive—it’ll make you keep coming back for more.

Sweet Potato Peanut Soup
Adapted from Girl Gone Child

Ingredients
2 T coconut oil (use canola if you don’t have coconut on hand)
½ a sweet or white onion, chopped
1 large sweet potato—pealed and chopped into ½ inch cubes
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon minced ginger
½ teaspoon chili flakes
4 cups (or 32 oz) vegetable stock
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes in juice
¾ cup creamy peanut butter
1 tablespoon salt
chopped cilantro leaves

Directions
1. Heat oil in a skillet. Add onions and sweet potatoes. Cook for 6 minutes, until the onions are translucent and potato starts to soften.
2. Add the garlic, ginger and chili flakes. Cook for another 3 minutes.
3. Add vegetable stock, tomatoes, peanut butter and salt.
4. Bring the mixture to a bowl, reduce heat and cook for another 20 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and allow the soup to cool. Either blend using an immersion blender or in batches in the blender.
6. Serve with chopped cilantro.

Notes: Here are some tips for blending hot liquid. But yo, be careful!

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