fitlife 
We are having colder than usual weather, so I thought I’d make a soup. Split pea soup always turns out well, and I had the idea of making a dhal with chunks of sweet potato. Then, on further reflection, I thought I’d blend sweet potato into the dhal. Here is what I did.
Ingredients
- About 2 cups of cooked sweet potato
- 1 cup yellow (or green) split peas (1:3 8-10m)
- 3 cups water
- 1 1/3 cups potato cut into approx. 3/8″ cubes (I used a small Russet potato)
- 2 cups carrots cut into approx. 3/8″ thick slices (2 medium carrots)
- 2 leaves kale, stems excepted, roughly hand torn into approximately 1″ squares
- 1t finely (1/8″) diced ginger
- 1/8 t turmeric
- 1/2 t ground cumin
- 1/4 t garlic granules (or powder)
- 1/2 cup onion cut into 3/8″ cubes (I used half red onion and half sweet onion)
- Juice of 1/2 Meyer lemon (or lemon or lime); if organic, as mine was, then use the peel as well
- Additional cup of water
Process
- I first prepared the sweet potato. I had 3 or 4 small (maybe 3/4″ thick by maybe 5″ long) locally grown sweet potatoes that would cook quickly; I pressure steamed for 10 minutes (the sweet potato was quite soft and could have cooked in 7-8 minutes I bet), along with one medium purple sweet potato that I had first cut into chunks maybe 1 1/2 ” long.
- Split peas cook in a 1:3 ratio to water for 8-10 minutes. I usually like this to be thick, but with my experiment with the soup, I thought I’d go with just 8 minutes of pressure. I put the split peas, water, potato, carrot, kale, ginger, turmeric, cumin, and garlic powder into my Instant Pot and cooked for 8 minutes.
- After the cooking was done, I waited a few minutes and gently released pressure, then mixed in the onion, lemon juice, and salt.
- I reserved about 1/4 of the soup and put the rest in a blender, along with the lemon peel, and blended for maybe 15-20 seconds till homogenized. (I also blended in the extra cup of water as the soup thickened.)
- I combined the blended soup with the reserved portion, then served, along with salad, and tomato-topped crusty bread.
Results
Ideas for the future
The soup was thicker than I had thought it might be, but that’s okay – it has a “stick to the ribs” warmth, good for cooling temperatures. I wasn’t so happy with the color and wonder if I could make it more vibrant with perhaps a dollop of my homemade soy yogurt and, for adults, a slice of red jalapeno, perhaps. I might also experiment with similar soups, but with more chunkiness. I hope to make more blended soups!
Labels: Instant Pot, Kale, No Added Fat, Soup, Sweet Potato, Vitamix
