Sweet potato soup with carrot, ginger and giant beans

Sweet potato is a fantastic and versatile vegetable. You can boil it, puree it, mash it, fry it, or bake it in the oven. Truly delicious! In this recipe, you cut the sweet potato into blocks and cook them first with the carrot in coconut oil, together with the ginger and some garlic. Afterwards, you boil it in the bouillon until it’s soft enough to puree. You cook the giant beans in some butter until they start to colour and add them to the soup as a finishing touch.

Recipe serves 4 people
Preparation time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

Oven-roasted vegetables with lemongrass, soy, mustard and capers

You can roast or grill any vegetable in the oven, but the best way is to use vegetables that complement each other. This is especially true for carrot, parsnips, sweet potato and pumpkin. Mix these with good olive oil, salt, pepper, stalks of lemongrass, halved bulbs of garlic and oil. After leaving them in the oven for a bit, pour some tasty soy-mustard vinaigrette over them and serve them with, for example, homemade potato puree and a large portion of lettuce. 

Recipe serves 4 people
Preparation time: 15 minutes, then 60 minutes in the oven

Ingredients for vegetables

• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into bars 1 cm thick and 4 cm long
• 2 large parsnips, cut the same size as the potato
• 6 thin slices of ginger, with the peel still on
• 1 large stalk of lemongrass, cut cross-wise and in 4 cm pieces
• 2 large carrots, peeled and cut in the same size and shape as the lemongrass
• 500 g pumpkin, peeled and cut in the same size and shape as the lemongrass and carrots
• 2-3 bulbs of garlic, cut cross-wise
• 50 ml mild olive oil
• 1 tsp salt and freshly ground black pepper

Ingredients for vinaigrette

• 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 2 large tbs capers
• 1 large tsp mustard
• 1 tsp salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees
2. Cover a large oven dish with baking paper. Put the cut vegetables in it and mix them with the mild olive oil, pepper and salt. Lay the halved bulbs of garlic in the dish, trying your best to keep them intact. Sprinkle them with olive oil and some salt and pepper.
3. Bake the vegetables for around 60 minutes until done, or until the carrot is al dente. Stir them around a little every 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the vinaigrette by mixing all of the ingredients for it together.
5. Remove the vegetables from the oven and pour the vinaigrette over them.

Savoury pumpkin pie with berbere spices

One of the things that makes this dish so special is the berbere spices. This is a mix of different spices—very simple--but you need to know which ones to use. The recipe requires you to first cook the pumpkin with the onion and berbere spices, mix in the Cannellini beans and put these together with the egg mixture in a large cake pan with a circumference of around 24 cm. The bottom is made with puff pastry.

Recipe serve 6 to 8 people
Preparation time: 15 minutes plus 60 minutes in the oven.

Ingredients for berbere spice mix

(once prepared, you can keep this in a closed jar)

• 2 tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp turmeric
• ½ tsp cardamom powder
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground fenugreek
• ½ tsp ground cayenne pepper
• ½ tsp ground coriander seeds
• 1 tsp dried chili pepper flakes
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tbs paprika powder

Ingredients for the quiche

• Large roll of puff pastry to cover a cake pan with around a 24 cm circumference.
• 4 tbs mild olive oil
• 1 large red onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
• 3 tbs ginger, finely chopped
• 400 g peeled potatoes, cut into blocks of about 1.5 cm
• 550 g of pumpkin, peeled and also cut into block of about 1.5 cm
• 2 tbs berbere spices
• 1 tsp salt

Ingredients for the egg mix

• 6 eggs
• 100 ml cream
• 200 g grated cheese
• 1 tsp salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

1. First prepare the spice mix.
2. Line the cake pan with puff pastry
3. Heat the olive oil in a pan and cook the onions until they are translucent, around 5 minutes.
4. Add the blocks of potato and pumpkin, mix it vigorously on high heat, then turn the heat down, add the berbere spices and stir for around 5 minutes until all the flavours are well-mixed.
5. Put the vegetables in the puff pastry-covered pan, then blend the egg mix with a hand blender. Pour this evenly over the vegetables.
6. Bake the quiche for 60 minutes until done.

3 types of hummus: beet hummus, broccoli hummus and spicy carrot hummus

Hummus is originally made with chickpeas. As delicious as they are, other beans and legumes are just as suitable for pureeing and making a dip. Especially in combination with another vegetable! The beet hummus contains red lentils, the broccoli hummus uses peas and the carrot hummus requires Cannellini beans. Apart from those differences, these different types of hummus are made the usual way: with some good olive oil, lemon juice, spices, garlic, pepper and salt.

Broccoli hummus

Ingredients

• 150 g broccoli
• 150 g frozen garden peas
• 1 small handful of fresh mint
• 1 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 clove of garlic
• 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 2 tbs grated parmesan cheese

Preparation

Blanch the broccoli and garden peas for 2 minutes in boiling water, drain them, and then mix them with the other ingredients until they become a nice, even consistency. Sprinkle a bit of extra virgin olive oil over it with some grated lime zest.

Carrot hummus

Ingredients

• 200 g carrot cut into pieces
• 150 g Cannellini beans, from a jar, drained
• 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• juice from a ½ lime
• 1 tsp salt
• leaves from a large sprig of fresh rosemary

Preparation

1. Boil the pieces of carrot for 10 minutes until they are al dente. Drain them.
2. Mix them with the rest of the ingredients using a hand blender until it becomes a nice, smooth consistency.

Red beet hummus

Ingredients

• 125 g red lentils
• 2 pre-boiled red beets, peeled and cut into blocks
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tsp salt, freshly ground pepper
• 25 ml extra virgin olive oil
• ½ tsp chili flakes

Preparation

1. Boil the lentils for about 9 minutes until they are al dente. Drain them.
2. Mix them with the rest of the ingredients until it becomes a nice, red hummus.

Great to serve with large pieces of country bread, breadsticks, or crudité.