14 October - sweet potato soup and monkfish with cardamom and vanilla

I'm realising that I really overdid it with the root vegetables in last week's vegbox! For lunch today I cooked up some sweet potato and red lentil soup - another Sophie Grigson recipe from Vegetables.

• Sweat a large sweet potato peeled and cut into chunks, together with a chopped onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, some peeled and chopped fresh ginger, a star anise and a glug of sunflower oil over a low heat with the lid on.
• Add a blob of tomato puree, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and about 75g red lentils, cover just under a litre of water and bring to the boil.
• Simmer until tender (20 mins or so), remove the star anise and blend.
• Return to the pan to reheat gently, season with salt and the juice of a lime.
• Serve with a blob of soured cream and a little fresh mint.

I'd been looking for a savoury recipe to use some of the vanilla we brought back from Madgascar. I found a recipe for monkfish with creamy vanilla and cardamom sauce on the Waitrose website. It was quite a faff and I ended up with not quite enough fish and a rather runny sauce that I wasn't completely convinced about. Oh well, you've got to try these things.