A Little Bowl Of Sunshine

I have been eating a lot of sweet potato. I mean, a lot of sweet potato. Sweet potato wedges, sweet potato mash, sweet potato in my burritos (another thing I have been eating far too much of), you name it, sweet potato will be in it. But I thought I'd give something else a go. I'm trying to eat a bit cleaner, get rid of the winter blubber, feel good on the inside, so a gave a soup experiment a go - and it was a roaring success!

Here is how to make my sweet potato, ginger, lime and chilli soup:

Ingredients

3 medium sweet potatoes

1 medium/2 small onions

4 garlic cloves

2 tbsp oil (I used sunflower)

2 vegetable stock cubes

1 litre water

1 lime (juiced)

1 thumb sized piece of ginger

1 red chilli (or more if you like it hot!)

Method

Heat the oil and sweat the onions and garlic until soft

Add the water and stock cubes to the pan

Once the stock is boiling add in the sweet potatoes and allow to simmer

After 10 minutes add the ginger, chilli and lime juice

Simmer until the sweet potato is soft

Blitz, blitz, blitz until smooth!

Vintage Vegetarianism.

Frequent and long standing readers of this 'ere ramblings might remember that last year I gave up meat for lent. Well, I've done the same again this year. It's day one, I'm ill and there is left over chicken pizza in the fridge - it's torture! Anyway, onto the purpose of this post...

I've decided to do a bit more research into vegetarianism this year, and try to expand my food palette from veggie sausages (they are delicious though) and bland risottos. With a little tap into Google I've discovered a whole world of vintage vegetarian recipes! The best seem to come from the website called 'Vintage Recipes' (Imaginative, I know) although some digging has revealed quite a few have meat in, naughty naughty! They date from 1672 (how to boil samphire, and how to fry pompion - whatever that is!) to the 1920s. A lot of these recipes appear to be just how to prepare and cook vegetables, hardly enough for an entire meal! I will attempt to recreate some of them though, and share with you my successes - or failures!

Glancing down the list these seem to be my favourites:

Brighton Stew (1892) - a haricot bean based stew, yum yum yum!

Croquettes of Salsify and Celeriac (1898) - Although apparently I need a fire for this, gas hob will probably do!

Flan of Vegetables (no date) - This sounds like a good one hot for dinner and then cold for lunch

German Lentil Curry (1915) - Sounds like a dhal curry to me, not sure if I have to use German lentils (what are they?), so might substitute for chickpeas instead.

Legume Loaf (1918) - This is from the book 'Foods That Will Win The War & How To Cook Them' and sounds like a nice, nutty bread.

Minestra (1915) - Vegetabley, ricey dish mmm

Nut and Pepper Croquettes (1920) - I'm sensing a croquettey kinda Lent

Savoury Pie (1915) - Another beany, eggy recipe

I managed it last year, I'm sure I'll do it this year! What are you giving up/taking up for Lent? Do you have any favourite vegetarian dishes?