It has been a long day. There was nothing of any note to report on but between the greyness and hormones it has dragged impressively. Soup can be helpful in such instances and so I bring you sweet potato, chili and lime soup.

There is only so much baked sweet potato I can handle so this soup offers a welcome break and this genuinely classifies as a healthy recipe by the way. I was advised to eat more sweet potatoes in place of the standard not sweet ones. They’re low G. I. and everything. Throw in onions and spices and you’ll get healthier just thinking about it.

From start to finish this takes about 40mins but a lot of that is passive cooking time. I, being uncharacteristically organised at the moment, chose to freeze some too. Soup freezes very well and you can feel virtuous that you made fresh soup and had the where with all to plan ahead.

Oven temperature 180 Celsius

Sweet potatoes               700g

Onion                               1

Butter                               1 large lump

Ground ginger                1 teaspoon

Ground cumin                1 teaspoon

Ground coriander          1 teaspoon

Red chili                           1

Lime                                  1

Chicken stock                  quite a lot

Preheat the oven. For the most actively time consuming part peel the sweet potatoes and dice them. 2cm cubes should suffice. Spread them evenly on a baking tray, season well and pour in a glug of flavourless oil. Toss them all around so they’re evenly oiled and then pop the tray in the oven.

They’ll take about 30mins.

About 20mins into that cooking time dice the onion and put it into a large saucepan with a generous lump o’ butter over a medium heat.

Sprinkle in the spices and throw in the chili. I kept the chili whole because I’m a wuss when it comes to spice and in any case the whole chili gives quite a satisfactory heat to the soup.

Cut the lime in half and put one whole half in with the onions.

Whatever stock you’re using, heat it up.

When the potatoes have had there 30mins empty them into the onion pan.

Pour in enough stock to cover the potatoes and onions. Let the pan simmer away for about 5mins by which time the potatoes should be super soft.

Remove from the heat, take out the chili and lime. Squeeze in the juice from the very hot lime and then blend the mixture. I prefer a stick blender but use whatever you have. You will almost inevitably need to add more stock to thin the soup down but I’ll leave that up to you. Just keep adding in stock, in small enough quantities, until you get the thickness you’re after. Add more lime if you want more tang.

I went well classy and garnished with creme fraiche and lime zest.