Sensational Soup for Dinner {Gail}

It was time tonight for me to make my first soup from 300 Sensational Soups by Deeds and Snyder as part of Samantha’s and my project to make all the soups from the book … over the next 3 years. That’s a lot of soup, but we all love soup!



African Peanut Soup,
just a bit spicy to battle the winter chill.
... and no, this picture isn't that creative, but
I love using my snowflake dishes during the cold months!


How is making soup about creativity, you say? I say, how is following a recipe for a new combination of ingredients any different from following a pattern for a crocheted scarf? We love to make things by hand and from scratch, and whether we get guidance or total direction from a pattern or a recipe, or think up something totally original ourselves, we are sure to put our creative twist on it in some way.




Since these recipes are so seemingly … perfect (!) we will get creative with side dishes, presentations, and 2^nd-go adaptations. You can’t keep the Creative down in we2!

And don’t worry about us for the summer months – this book has dessert soups, fruit soups, cold soups, plus our summers here in Western Washington State are anything but long heated months of sun. We usually have spells of nice balmy weather during July, August and most of September though, so that’s when we’ll take advantage of those cold refreshing soups. (Plus we can cook, sample, and freeze for winter meals.) Right now, we are appreciating these hearty warming choices in our typical 40 degrees and rain monotony (with rare snowstorms) of October through March.

After I received this book in the mail, before I even did more than flip the pages, I handed it to my husband and said, “Pick one to make next week.” He wandered up to me a few minutes later and handed me the open book. If I’d seen this title before I gave him the book, I could have predicted it would be his choice! He picked African Peanut Soup.

He has a love for a local restaurant’s African Peanut Soup, but it is different from this recipe. I thought he’d be disappointed once we got this made because does not have rice but sweet potatoes; that’s a big difference.

Just a few of the tasty ingredients in African Peanut Soup.
Also: ground turkey, chunky peanut butter, ginger, tomatoes.
I'm not sure what makes Muchi curry powder unique, but it tasted great in this recipe!

Hubby chopped and measured. I stood at the stove and called for ingredients like a good master chef ;) Our package of ground turkey was 1.25 lbs, and the recipe only called for 1 lb but we put it all in anyway. We got this soup put together pretty quickly – I love family teamwork! It doesn’t take long at the stove – about 10 minutes of browning and sautéing, then waiting to turn down the heat after most of the ingredients come to a simmer; about 10 minutes later you add the rest of everything and simmer for another 20 minutes. 

Half a pot of African Peanut Soup left
for the freezer, or for sharing!

 Well, hubby loved it and so did we! Since there are only three of us to cook for in this house anymore :( we still have plenty of leftovers. I may send some to Sam (in the same bowl I brought some of her salmon soup home for her dad last week – this may become a well-traveled bowl!)


You could put this together easily after a busy day if you took 15 minutes ahead of time to measure spices and chop sweet potato, onion, garlic and ginger. Set the 2 canned ingredients beside the can opener, collect everything else in one spot in the frig, and set out the pan on the stove. Ready!

Did I mention that this soup is full of nice lean ground turkey? Do you know that sweet potatoes are full of antioxidants and healthy fiber? This soup is not only delicious; it is good for you, too! Perfect…

So tasty!

Our opinions of this cookbook are our own and unsolicited, just so you know. Still, we feel everyone who likes soup would appreciate this cookbook!

Gail