Weird Soup: Sweet potato, carrot and lettuce. Yes, lettuce.

Yesterday, Cowboy and I bought a bed. A real one. A new one! It's king size, we can barely open the bathroom door now, but by golly did we sleep well last night. No more lumpy, bumpy, tipping-us-out-of-bed futon. Thank goodness.

The best part is that we bought the bed from Goodwill, and the whole set up - frame, box springs and mattress - was just $550. It's nothing special, but it will tide us over until we have saved up for a good bed.

I made weird soup today. Here's how it goes (and sorry for the awful quality photos, taken on my iPhone with zero good lighting in my teeny tiny kitchen):

Catch a serious cold from your cowboy boyfriend (fiance... psh, details), and crave soup with curry and and orange colour to it.

Find two sweet potatoes and four carrots in your fridge. Perfect! Soften half a big onion in some butter in a big pan while you chunk up the carrots and sweet potatoes.

Find a romaine lettuce in your fridge that has seen better days, and blame the cold medicine while you chop that up and throw it in the pan too. What on earth was I thinking?

Fry everything for a few minutes to get the juices going. Wonder what just possessed you to put lettuce in soup.

Add a good twist of black pepper, a generous shake of curry powder, and for whatever reason, I also threw in a bit of nutmeg - probably out of habit.

Cook the spices for a moment, then add some chicken stock because you don't have anything else to hand. I used just enough to cover all of the vegetables and get them all cooked through.

Make a cup of tea and watch the cat play with a wasp for a while. He really is getting big these days.

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Cut yourself a generous piece of red velvet cake and discover that Netflix now has The Pioneer Woman's cooking show. Sit down on your sofa and forget about your soup completely.

Remember the soup about twenty five minutes later.

Remove it from the heat and blend it up, whilst saying a small prayer to the household gods of soup that it doesn't come out green, or worse, brown. I just bought a hand held Kitchenaid stick blender at Costco yesterday for a bargainous $24. I love Costco.

Say thanks to the household gods that the soup has come out a lovely golden orange colour. Wish that you had added more curry, and some cumin when you'd started, and add those things. It also needed salt and more black pepper. Say another thank you to the household gods that the soup doesn't taste of lettuce at all, it just tastes delicious and sweet and spicy and warm and happy.


Success!

Apologise to Cowboy when he comes home just as you've finished cooking and gets hit with the smell of curry, which he doesn't appreciate. At least it covers up the smell of infected feet that he has brought home after going shoeing.

I am excited to eat this soup later with some crusty bread. I hope you are excited too!



Here's the short form:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes
4 carrots
1 romaine lettuce
1/2 large onion
1 tbl butter
Approx 1 pint chicken stock
1 tsp cumin
1-2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste

Slice up the onion and soften in the butter. Cube up the carrots, peel and cube the sweet potatoes, and chop up the lettuce, and add them all to the pan. Stir to coat with butter and allow to fry for a few minutes. Add the cumin, curry and nutmeg, and salt and pepper. Cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Add chicken stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the root vegetables are soft. Remove from the heat and blend. Season to taste.