Lentils and Sweet Potatoes Soup with Spinach and Fish

Ingredients:

Hearty and healthy for a cold winter's day

• 1 cup red lentils

• 2 lbs sweet potatoes (about 3 medium)

• 7 to 8 cups chicken or vegetable broth

• 1 lb white fish (tilapia, cod, halibut)

• 3 cups packed spinach

• 1 medium onion

• 3 garlic cloves

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

• 1 tsp cumin

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp black pepper

• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

• 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley

• 2 tsp finely chopped oregano

• salt and pepper for fish

Coarsely chop onion and mince garlic. Pick over lentils, wash and drain thoroughly. Heat a soup pot on medium heat. Add oil and saute onion for 3 minutes. Add lentils, cook 2 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, salt, black pepper, pepper flakes, cayenne and cook for 1 minute, stirring. Pour in stock and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 15 to 20 minutes.

While lentils are cooking, cut potatoes into chunks. Wash, dry and lightly season fish with salt and pepper. Add potatoes to pot, return to boil, reduce heat and cook 8 minutes. Place spinach in pot and put fish on top. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Serve.

Notes & Tips:

• There is nothing like a steaming, hearty and delicious bowl of soup on a cold winter's day. I love making soup as it is truly an art you can paint outside the lines.

• Sweet potatoes cook quickly, do not cut too small as you'd like them to stay whole.

• I used red lentils, but brown or green works just as well.

• This soup can also be pureed after the potatoes are cooked. Using an immersion blender, puree for 3 - 4 minutes. Then add spinach and fish and simmer 5 minutes.

• I toasted cumin seeds before grounding it in a mortar and pestle. It is more aromatic and flavorful than plain ground cumin.

• To toast cumin seeds, heat a pan on medium low, add a few tablespoons of seeds to hot pan. Keep moving the seeds around the pan either with a spatula or by swirling the pan until the seeds turn darker in color and begin to pop. Remove from heat and place in mortar and grind to a powder with pestle. Store in a glass jar with a tightly fitted lid.