Sweet Potato and Roast Cashew Soup

I have always wanted to make a really tasty spiced soup. I have tried before, but haven't got the balance right, generally shrinking away from making it too spicy at the cost of flavour. This recipe is care of Mr A's SIL, but where she got it from, I do not know. She made it for us the night we arrived in Adelaide and it was wonderful, spicy and welcoming. It claims to be a wonderfully filling African soup, and it is indeed wonderful.



500g Sweet potato sliced
1 litre vegetable stock
25g butter
1 tsp chopped red chillies (I couldn't get fresh so used flakes)
1 tbs chopped root ginger
1 tbs chopped garlic (about 4 or 5 cloves)
175 g carrots sliced (about 3 medium)
175 g onions, sliced (1 medium)
50 g plain flour
3 tbs soy sauce
175 ml coconut nut milk
A hand full of coriander, plus extra for garnish
Salt and white pepper
250 g Cashew nuts.

Put the sweet potatoes and vegetable stock in a pan and boil for 15 minutes (or until soft). Melt the butter in a large pan, add the chillies, ginger, carrots and onions and fry over moderate heat until soft. Mix in the flour with a wooden spoon.

Add the onion mix to the sweet potato and whiz with a stick blender until smooth (or put in the food processor, but that is too much washing up). Cook on a low heat for 15 minutes, adding half the soy sauce, all the coconut milk at some stage during this time and the coriander roughly chopped, and seasoning to taste at the last minute. (I only added a little pepper, as the cashews covered in soy sauce along with the soy were salty enough.

Preheat the oven to 200'c/180'c. Pour remaining soy sauce over the cashews in a shallow bowl, mix thoroughly until they are all coated. Bake for about 10 minutes, turning them occasionally to ensure they are browned evenly and don't stick together.

Serve the soup with a garnish of coriander leaves and the cashews sprinkled on top.

Serves 4



HH

Zucchinni and Mint Fritters

In a break with tradition, my title is not a quote from Jane Austen, as I really don't have a lot to say that relates to Jane Austen, but am mainly posting because of the delicious lunch/dinner that I made myself today!

I am still in the throws of marking, though the end is nigh, sort of. Mr A is off to Paris for the Bank Holiday weekend, so I am very jealous and wish, more than ever, that I could be there too! Perhaps next year.

Back to food. I came home from work hungry as I normally do on a Saturday as I work 8-2.30 without lunch. I wanted something substantial but light at the same time, as well as being quick and easy, also making use of the zucchini's I had the the fridge. I picked up some goats cheese feta and some labneh on my way home, and decided that Zucchini and mint fritters were the order of the day. The recipe is based on one that a friend, P from mdw, posted ages ago and it has since been languishing in my "recipes I must try" folder. Today was its day.

4 small zucchini's (about 400g, grated
150 g feta, crumbled (or goats cheese, as I said I used goats cheese feta, so the best of both worlds)
Small handful grated Parmesan
Small handful of mint, finely chopped
Half an onion, grated finely
2 eggs
about 90 g plain flour
A generous amount of cracked black pepper

Combine grated zucchini with the cheeses, mint and black pepper.
Beat the eggs and add to the mix along with the flour. Mix well.

Heat oil in pan. Add heaped dessert spoon dollops of the mixture into the pan, flatten and cook about 2 minutes each side until golden.

Serve with labneh and more pepper, or they are great on their own. Freshly squeezed lemon would not go astray.
Makes 12-15 fritters.




HH

"A faithful promise! "

I seem to open all my posts with a disclaimer about what a slack blogger I have been and promises to improve greatly in the near future. This hopefully will be true this time as Semester (thankfully) draws to a close.

Things have been busy and tiring lately, but good. I am enjoying tutoring for the most part, and (legitimately) got to talk about Nelson in class a few weeks ago. I stopped at pulling out my Nelson figurine and placing him on the desk next to my 'nothing says "hello, sailor" quite like ruby red lipstick' pencil case. I am hoping to maintain some semblance of sanity so that the students can't claim special consideration on the grounds that I am mad.

It is annual review time this week, so while I am nervous I had a pep talk from my supervisor on Thursday and I am hoping the positive reinforcement lasts until Thursday this week.

I have incidentally been spending a lot of time on the Internet, procrastinating, but also just to give me little breaks in between marking and the like. I have therefore been reading every one's blogs, and as such was inspired today by Foodycat's most recent post to make something delicious for dinner. Out of the ingredients in the recipe I only had Haloumi, which didn't stop me. I had zucchini as a replacement for sausages and eggplant and grape tomatoes for peppers. I laid them all on the tray with two cloves of sliced garlic, a little olive oil and a good crack of black pepper. I let it all roast away for 15 minutes or so and then ate (ashamedly most of it!) with a good squeeze of lemon. Lovely!


HH