Sweet Potato and Bacon Soup with Almond Butter

This is possibly my new favourite soup. It's my boyfriend's speciality at the moment - he found the recipe in one of Marcus Wareing's cookbooks, and it is packed full of flavour and goodness. The soup is rammed full of sweet potato and bacon flavour, and topping with a dollop of homemade almond butter makes this a really satisfying meal. This recipe is very similar to Marcus', but with a few little tweaks.

My boyfriend always makes this with his favourite bread - a cottage loaf. He wrote a guest post a few months ago about it (see here).

This recipe makes around 6 big bowls but would be a very easy recipe to double up.

Ingredients:

• 1.6kg (3-4 big) sweet potatoes
• 2 medium onions
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 celery sticks
• 2 litres (8 cups) chicken stock
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 200g (7/8 cup) smoked bacon rashers
• 100g (1 cup & 1 tbsp) toasted flaked almonds (bake flaked almonds at 200c (180c fan)/390f for 8-10 mins, until golden and smelling toasty)
• 3 tbsp olive oil (we've also used walnut oil previously, which worked really well)
• 250ml (1 cup) skimmed milk
• A few sprigs of thyme, to serve
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Peel, and chop the sweet potatoes into chunks, around 2cm (around 1 inch) in size. Roughly chop one of the onions and the celery sticks, and then tip the sweet potato, chopped onion, celery, bay leaves and stock in a large saucepan.

2. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and leave to simmer for around 20 minutes, until the sweet potato is soft and easy to cut through.

3. Finely slice the remaining onion, and dice the bacon into 1cm (around 1/2 inch) cubes. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan, and tip in the onion and bacon. Keep the pan on a medium to low heat and stir frequently for 15 minutes, until golden.

4. Pour the toasted flaked into a food processor, along with the olive oil and pulse until the almond butter is the consistency of crunchy peanut butter. Season well.

5. Once the sweet potatoes are soft, fish out the bay leaves and then blitz the mixture until it is completely smooth. Whisk in the milk.

6. Add three quarters of the fried bacon and onion to the soup, and bring the soup slowly back to a simmer. Taste and season (it needs a good amount of black pepper).

7. When ready to serve, ladle into bowls and top with some of the reserved fried bacon and onion, a few thyme leaves, and a tablespoon of the almond butter. This soup is amazing served with a crusty bread, but is filling on its own.

8. Enjoy!