Vegetarian West African Soup
"This appeared in Cooking Light two or three years ago."
photo by *Parsley*
- Ready In:
- 45mins
- Ingredients:
- 11
- Serves:
-
8
ingredients
- 2⁄3 cup roasted peanuts
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- 2 cups chopped onions
- 6 cups sweet potatoes, peeled & cut in 1 " cubes
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
- 2 (15 1/2 ounce) cans chickpeas, drained
- 2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans vegetable broth
- 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
- 1 sprig flat leaf parsley (optional)
directions
- To make peanut butter, process peanuts in food processor about 2 minutes until smooth, scraping the bowl at least once.
- In a Dutch oven over medium heat, sauté onion in oil about 7 minutes until lightly browned.
- Add peanut butter plus sweet potato through tomatoes.
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, about 30 minutes until sweet potato is tender.
- Serve garnished with parsley.
Questions & Replies
-
Where is the original West African vegetable soup on Food Network. It was about half the amount of this recipe without the peanuts. Does anybody have it.
Reviews
-
Fantastic! If you want to break away from the same old veggie soup, this is the recipe to try! Very easy and oh sooooooooo yummy! Even my three year old gobbled it up and said "YUM!" I used 1/2 cup natural chunky peanut butter instead of the roasted peanuts. I tasted the soup prior to adding cumin, and the taste was fabulous. I wanted to avoid making the soup taste like chili, so I only added a pinch of cumin, just until I could barely taste it. We opted to cut the sweet potatoes into smaller chunks, but made no other changes. Perfect on a cool winter day. -
This soup is delicious! I used natural peanut butter (it's just salt and nuts) instead of grinding the peanuts myself. It saved some time and cleanup. It was very thick and very filling. I think it would be good with a little more broth, but my husband said he wouldn't change a thing. This is a great balance of flavors and next time I might add something a little spicy--perhaps some cayenne or a minced jalapeno. This recipe went together so quickly it will be great for weeknight meals. This will definitely go in to my keeper file. Thanks for a terrific recipe! -
Have to agree with the other two reviewers that this was more of a stew. Whatever, it had an awesome taste! I found myself taking a bite of sweet potato, then a bite of chickpeas and tomato. Real nice contrast of sweet and savory. I only ground up the peanuts for a few seconds so it gave the soup a crunchy texture. What I also liked was that it was very easy to prepare and I could pretty much leave it alone while I took care of other things:D I can't decide whether to put this into my quick & easy or favorites cookbook. I guess I'll just have to put it into both. Thanks! P.S. BF wanted me to say he gave this 5 stars too. -
Wow! This is a very tasty, thick, chunky soup (more like a stew). I used store-bought peanut butter, so I'm sure it was sweeter than if I had ground the peanuts......BUT, I think that slightly sweeter pb worked VERY well with the cumin! I'll make this again; thanx for sharing! -
Absolutely delicious. I really really enjoyed this recipe, and especially liked how well the flavour of the cumin worked. I ended up with more of a thick stew than a soup. I think it would need half as much stock again if it were to be eaten as a soup.
see 4 more reviews
Tweaks
-
Fantastic! If you want to break away from the same old veggie soup, this is the recipe to try! Very easy and oh sooooooooo yummy! Even my three year old gobbled it up and said "YUM!" I used 1/2 cup natural chunky peanut butter instead of the roasted peanuts. I tasted the soup prior to adding cumin, and the taste was fabulous. I wanted to avoid making the soup taste like chili, so I only added a pinch of cumin, just until I could barely taste it. We opted to cut the sweet potatoes into smaller chunks, but made no other changes. Perfect on a cool winter day.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
echo echo
Phippsburg, Maine
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In 2004, I moved home to New England after many years living in the South. Often I go walking in the morning with my sister, who lives near me on the Maine coast--we truly live in a beautiful place. I share a love of ACC basketball with my brother in upstate New York. Nowadays, I rely heavily on Kitty Rosati's Heal Your Heart book (lots of low-sodium recipes) and Donald Gazzaniga's No-Salt, Lowest-Sodium Cookbook. Other cookbooks I frequently use are Weil & Daley's The Healthy Kitchen and Cooking Light's Five-Star Recipes cookbook.
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In January-February 2007, the Chefs of 1-2-3 Hit Wonders hosted a Cook-a-Thon for veteran Zaar member Sharon123 while she was undergoing chemotherapy at Duke University. The entire group of recipes tagged, cooked and reviewed for the Cook-a-Thon are contained in:
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<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/27685">Edible Flowers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33443">Honey Honey You`ve got me wanting you!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33123">Recipes I named after zaar chefs</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33325">Menopause</a></li>
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<a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/133174">PaulaG</a>'s own recipes are a well I go back to again and again--I've made tons of her dishes, with great results. Cookbooks of hers I find especially handy include:
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<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/45020">Then There Were 2</a></li>
As I mentioned above, while I love the cuisines of all regions of the world, my favorite is Greek, and the following from <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/49168">Cookiegirlandi</a> is chockful of great Greek recipes:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/30983">It's All Greek</a></li>
(Another great way to find Greek recipes is to go cirectly to evelyn/athens' <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes.php?chef=80353">recipe list</a> and then sift for Cuisine-->European__>Southern-->Greek. She currently has 142.)
UPDATE: <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/80353">evelyn/athens</a>, host of the Greek Cooking Forum and Greek food expert extraordinaire has a cookbook of her own Greek fecipes that could be the only reference you'll ever need for Greek cuisine:
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I'm not a vegetarian, but I do eat meatless meals a fair amount of the time. I've observed that <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/37449">Sharon123</a> is a great one for cooking fare that's healthy and tastes great, which is why I trust and turn to her:
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If I want to cook something to eat with my friends, the go-to person is <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/6258">Miss Annie</a>:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/26048">Recipes for Entertaining</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/26046">Pot Luck /Picnic Recipes</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=31052">Second Chance</a> - a generous list of Zaar recipes that received a low-to-mediocre rating but may deserve a second look
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The only freezer I have is the one on top of my fridge, so I don't have room to do once a MONTH cooking, but I generally like to have a dish or 2 stowed away there to cut down on last minute rushing. <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/3288">Tish</a>'s complete library of OAMC cookbooks are the reason I have bookmarked her entire <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/browse/getchef.zsp?id=3288">homepage</a> for easy reference.
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