Skip to main content

Ground Nut Soup



In 2013, I went to Sierra Leone, West Africa. It was an amazingly humbling trip where I got to see awe-inspiring landscapes and witness how God provides abundantly. It was also an incredibly difficult trip physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It sounds ridiculous but one of the most difficult things for me while I was there was eating rice for almost every meal. Rice has never been my favorite food, and after five weeks of eating rice, I swore I would never touch it again. However, there was one food that we ate there that I remember loving, and every now and then, I crave it like crazy. In Sierra Leone, it is called Ground Nut Soup.

A few weeks ago, I  started craving it, so I started googling. I am a total hypocrite for admitting this, but one of my pet-peeves is when I have to scroll through pages and pages of someone's blog just to get to a recipe. Every time a recipe blog has. "jump straight to recipe" button, I click it. However, I found myself reading about "West African Peanut Soup" on Feel Good Foodie and saw that the writer starts by explaining that she grew up in West Africa. Her credibility immediately skyrocketed for me and THEN I jumped straight to the recipe.

Here's the great thing about this soup, and why I picked to write about it for this blog: it can be made with less than 10 ingredients, all of the ingredients can be stored for long periods of time, and it can also easily be a vegetarian meal if you want. 
After looking at a few recipes and what we had on hand, here is the recipe I used:
1 T. canola oil
2 large onions (finely chopped)
1 T. fresh ginger
3 oz. tomato paste
2 sweet potatoes (peeled and chopped)
6 cups vegetable broth, chicken broth, or water
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cayenne pepper (do less if you don't like things super spicy!)
1 cup peanut butter
8 oz. shredded chicken

You can leave out the chicken and use water or vegetable broth if you want to make this a vegetarian meal. You can also add 1 cup of spinach or kale if you want to add some vegetables to it. I love (ironically) to eat this soup over rice, but that doesn't have to happen either. 

Here is what you do:
1. Heat your oil in a large pot, add onions and ginger and cook them for 5-10 minutes (you want the onions  to be translucent)
2. Mix in the tomato paste
3. Add your sweet potatoes, salt, and cayenne pepper to the pot
4. Pour in your broth or water, stirring it all together. Bring the mixture to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer and let it cook for 20 minutes (Check to make sure the sweet potatoes are cooked)
5. Stir in the peanut butter and add in the chicken or spinach if you want them
6. Pour it over white rice and enjoy!

This is enough to make at least 6 serving and it takes less than an hour to make!







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meal Planning for the Win! (With two late in the meal planning calendar recipes)

One of the things I've been most thankful for in this time, is the skill of meal planning. Meal planning, like any other skill is something that is practiced. For some people it is easier, and for some people it's more difficult, but we can all always be getting better at it. I wanted to share what meal planning looks like for me, especially right now. 1) Find recipes. I do this in a variety of ways, through cookbooks, past recipes, magazines, but mostly through pinterest.  If you have not tried pinterest, it is worth it-just for the recipes it is worth it. But, hopefully you'll be able to find some recipes on here too! Look for recipes that sound good! Try to find some that have the same ingredients. Try to find variety, not just all pastas or all rice bowls or all pizza, pay attention to how much time each one takes and try to add some variety in there too. Try to find recipes that stretch-these often are things like rice bowls, pasta, quinoa, gnocchi, lentils, or tons o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Food is a funny thing

Food is a funny thing. It can be a source of comfort, or a source of stress. A source of joy or a source of sadness. It can be something we obsess over, or something we don't think about enough. I am someone who usually enjoys cooking, and I especially love finding and trying new recipes. I usually meal plan for at least two weeks at a time, and I've been playing around with more vegetarian recipes. I was raised by a momma who had no problem getting creative in the kitchen, doctoring recipes however she wanted-subbing in ingredients, adding new ones, or leaving some out, it just wasn't a problem. Because this was the model I grew up with, this is also how I cook. So, although it's irritating not to find everything I might think of at the store, I can roll with it. However, I'm aware that this is not how a lot of people interact with recipes. Many people aren't used to meal planning. Many people aren't used to limiting the amount of times you go to the st...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pork shoulder #2 - Greek pulled pork pitas

In my last post I mentioned that we cut it in half and smoked the bone-in portion. With the other half, we love to use a recipe from the sweet and lovely Rachel and Polly at Thriving Home . These ladies are amazing and I want to be like them when I grow up. ;) I had the privilege of being on the recipe test team for their latest cookbook, From Freezer to Cooker , which released in January 2020. The cook book offers delicious recipes in numerous categories and with each one teaches how you can cook it from fresh, freeze it for later, and cook from frozen. Cooking instructions include both slow cooker and Instant Pot, so however you roll, you can figure out how to put their recipes on your table. As soon as this recipe came across my email, I ran to the store to get all the ingredients. We have been making this at least once a month ever since. Now, I did promise them that I wouldn't share those recipes as part of the testing team, but since then their cook book has been rele...
Post a Comment
Read more