Food, food, food . . .

Hmm . . . recipes. First off, I love to cook. Love it. But it's VERY tricky during the week, to fit it around football practice and Tae Kwon Do and swimming lessons and homework and . . . well, you get the picture. I'm sure the details of your list is different, but it's every bit as long.

So the following recipe is perfect for me. First off, it's fast, just over half an hour, most of the time unattended. It's pretty good for you, it's relatively cheap, it dirties just one pot, and it's made with stuff I almost always have around in the house, at least in the fall. Plus it's not quite the same old-same old. While I'm not a big fan of sweet potatoes, the rest of the crew is, and I don't mind them at all in this:

WEST AFRICAN SWEET POTATO AND PEANUT SOUP.

You'll need:

2 tbsp. butter (I use less without any ill effects)
1 medium onion, minced (it's okay - the soup gets pureed, so my kids don't know there are actual onions in it.)
1 tsp light brown sugar
salt
3 minced garlic cloves
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/8 - 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 1/2 cups chicken broth (if you don't have low sodium, you might pull back on the salt a bit. I like salt, though.)
2 cups water
2 pounds sweet potatoes (about 3 medium) peeled, quartered lengthwise, and sliced thin
3 tbsp peanut butter
ground black pepper
1 tbsp. fresh cilantro

1: melt the butter in a pot over med-high heat. Cook the onion, brown sugar, and 1 tsp salt until onion is softened, 5-7 minutes. Add garlic, coriander, and cayenne and cook 30 seconds.

2) Add the broth, water, sweet potatoes, and peanut butter. Bring to a boil over high heat, turn heat to low and cook, partially covered, until the sweet potatoes are very soft, 25-30 minutes.

Puree the whole darn thing. You can do it in batches in a blender, but for me this is the perfect time to pull out that immersion blender that you bought when you were doing Body for Life and were going to live on protein shakes but haven't used in years. Finally, the perfect use for it! So whir away.

Season with S & P. Here's where you should stir in the cilantro, but if you have heathen children like mine who do not properly appreciate the wonders of cilantro, serve as is and pile the green stuff on your bowl.

This is from Cook's Illustrated THE BEST INTERNATIONAL RECIPE cookbook, btw. And if you don't know the whole Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/Cooks Country group, you should. I have by far the most "wow, Mom, this is the best thing you've made in ages" hits in cooking from those books/magazines/website than any other.

Enjoy!

Susie