By Melissa Baird

Recipe – Curried spinach, fennel and coriander soup

With thanks to Harvest of Hope

I have been enjoying my box of locally grown produce that Harvest of Hope delivers on a weekly basis and have been super impressed by the quality of the vegetables as well as the abundance of the harvest. Fennel has not been on my menu for an age so when the huge fresh bulbs of fennel started arriving with the weekly delivery I decided to try out this recipe that was also sent with my last order. I tried it and it is a sensational dish if you like spicy flavours and lots of texture and want to make a soup in under 30 minutes. I decided not to blend the soup because my blender is broken but I found that having it unblended gave more flavour to the individual ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs butter or ghee

2 onions sliced ( I used spring onions and they were yummy)

1 large fennel bulb

2 cloves garlic ( I didn’t use garlic in my version of the soup)

15 cm ginger root – grated or chopped

2 Tbs good quality curry powder (choose non –irradiated spices)

2 Tbs garam masala

250 g spinach (wash all your veges thoroughly)

15 grams coriander (freshly chopped for the garnish)

3 cups vegetable stock (make sure yours is free from MSG)

Half 250 ml can of coconut milk

Himalayan salt – to taste

Method

Wash all veges and chop the onion and fennel, crush the garlic and grate the ginger. Saute’ all these ingredients in the butter or ghee and once the onion and fennel are almost translucent – add the curry powder and garam masala and saute’ for a further minute or so. Add spinach leave and cook until they just wilt Add vegetable stock and coconut milk and simmer for about 10-15 minutes.

That’s it – serve up and enjoy.

www.harvestofhope.co.za