Spicy sweet potato, leek & coconut soup

I love soup, I love making it and eating it!! It's such a simple, delicious way to up your intake of nutritious veggies and anyone who knows me knows that I promote the eating of copious amounts of veggies, of all types and colours, for optimum health!
The other brilliant thing about soup are the endless possibilities of flavours and textures.  This particular soup recipe came into being last Sunday night when Jenna ( my lovely vegan daughter and awesome cook!) had a look in the fridge and cupboards to see what was left to use up, since we realised that we had nothing much for packed lunches on the Monday.  Soup features highly for lunch at our house and we quite literally make soup every day, especially when the weather turns colder.
So back to the soup! This one has leeks, frozen peas and sweet potato as its base with flavour and nutritional benefits added by turmeric, garlic, creamed coconut and Thai Green Curry Paste. You could easily add some spinach at the end to up the benefits. So although this soup has bags of flavour, there isn’t much chopping of onions, fresh herbs, chilli or ginger or grinding of spices, just add a spoonful of Thai Green Curry Paste! Doesn’t get much easier than that!
I’m always amazed at how delicious soup can be with relatively simple ingredients though in my opinion everything benefits from the addition of coconut. In this instance it’s Creamed Coconut which comes in a 200g block, which most supermarkets sell. It’s a great store cupboard ingredient and keeps for ages so I’d definitely recommend buying a few!
So here is the recipe, please leave a comment if you try it!

Ingredients
2 leeks, washed, and finely sliced, include the green bits too!
3 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped
2 cups of frozen peas
2 small or 1 medium sweet potato, scrubbed and chopped into small dice
1 stock cube ( I use Kallo Organic Vegetable Stock Cubes)
100g creamed coconut
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 or 3 tablespoons Thai Green Curry Paste
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon coconut or rapeseed oil
 
Method

1. Heat the oil in a large pan and add the sliced leeks and a good pinch of sea salt. Put the lid on and gently sweat the leeks on a relatively low heat for 10 minutes. This brings out the natural sweetness of the leeks and gives the soup a delicious base flavour.
2. Add 3 chopped cloves of garlic, the chopped sweet potato, coconut, turmeric and stock cube. Cover with water and bring to a gentle simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Add the frozen peas, Thai Curry Paste and simmer for a further 10 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are soft.
4. Blend with a hand blender, check the seasoning and add more water or stock if it’s too thick.
5. Enjoy!!

Like any soup, this will freeze well !

​....your health in your hands.........