Holiday-Spiced Sweet Potato Soup

Since the colder weather has settled in, I've been making lots of hearty, healthy soups.

This recipe is very quick and easy to make, and tastes wonderfully festive with the combination of sweet potato and subtle cinnamon spice. It's a lovely option for entertaining over the holidays. And for added convenience, it's a great recipe to make-ahead and freeze.

Ingredients

3 sweet potatoes
5 carrots
2-3 onions
2 cloves of garlic
6 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable stock for vegans)
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: pumpkin seeds to garnish

Method

Set the stock in a pot to boil.
Peel, wash and roughly chop the carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic.
Add all the vegetables to the pot of boiling stock, along with the cinnamon stick and bay leaves.
Reduce the heat, and simmer the vegetables until they are very tender. Around 20-25 minutes.
Remove the cinnamon stick and bay leaves, and puree the remaining soup in batches in a tabletop blender, or in the pot using an immersion blender. Voila!

Notes

This recipe doesn't require exact quantities of each vegetable, so there's no need to measure or weigh them. I used the proportions as photographed.
If you'd like a thinner soup (mine was very thick and unctuous), feel free to add more stock at the point that you are pureeing the mixture.
Whilst I do think the spicing of this recipe is particularly lovely and subtle, if you don't have a cinnamon stick on hand you could substitute with 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and get a similar effect.
I loved the texture that the pumpkin seeds added as a garnish, but other delicious toppings would include a sprinkling of fresh herbs, or a dollop of yogurt.