Soup of the Week!

This delicious soup was inspired by a trip to the freezer where I found a bag of squash taken from Giddy Nibbles co-founder Tracy's squash harvest. Last summer she had a glut of enormous (and amusingly shaped) butternut squash, and each one weighed near a kilogram. I peeled and cubed one of the monsters, and divided it into six freezer bags. Each bag was useful for those moments when you need something extra for a stew, veggie lasagne, or, like here, a soup. Blitzed with lentils and spiked with chilli and fennel, the soup is really filling but surprisingly sophisticated - when we're allowed to entertain again I might even serve it at a dinner party.

A ray-of-sunshine soup: Sweet potato, squash, lentil, fennel & chilli

Sweet Potato, Squash, Red Lentil, Chilli and Fennel Soup

Serves 2/3

INGREDIENTS

1.5ltrs chicken or vegetable stock. Any will do - from a cube, homemade, a gel pot

200g squash, peeled and cubed

1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed

80g red lentils

1 onion, roughly chopped

1tbsp, heaped, tomato puree

1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1/4 tsp chilli flakes

METHOD

Gently fry the roughly chopped onion in olive oil until it goes translucent (about 5 minutes).

Add the fennel seeds and chilli flakes and stir for 1 minute

Add the sweet potato and after 2 minutes add the squash and stir a few times before adding the tomato puree. Mix everything to combine

Mix in the red lentils

Pour over the 1.5ltrs of stock and bring to the boil

Turn down the heat and simmer for 15/20 minutes, until the red lentils have broken down

Blitz smooth with a handheld mixer, and serve with a few fennel seeds on the top

I ate this for lunch with Cheddar & Fennel Giddy Nibbles, and it felt like a real treat. :)

The ingredients - the squash from Tracy's garden is shown at the bag of the pic, cubed in a freezer bag