Sunday 13 October 2013

Comfort soup

Its cold.  Its dark.  My man has gone back to sea.  I'm too tired to spend too much time cooking.  I'm hungry all the time!  I've made myself some super easy to make comforting soup, so I thought I'd share it with you too.

1 Butternut Squash
2 Large Carrots
8 Small onions (I had a bag of fat pickling onions I never got round to pickling. You could use 1                             regular onion chopped into wedges)
2 heaped teaspoons Cumin seeds
1 teaspoon thyme (if you've got fresh that would probably be even nicer)
olive oil
1 vegetable stock cube
1 medium heat red chilli
salt & pepper
kettle of boiling water

Peel the squash, carrots and onions.  Chop all to similar size and put in a bowl with a glug of olive oil.  The hardest bit is over!  Mix so that everything is nicely coated.  Transfer the veg to a large roasting tin leaving behind the excess oil, and sprinkle over the cumin and thyme.  Roast at 200 degrees C for about 40 mins or so, until everything is soft and there are a couple of nice caramelized edges.
I did the roasting at the bottom of the oven whilst I was cooking something else the night before!  Saves on the leccy bill....
Boil your kettle full of water.  Put the roasted veg into a pan (if you are using a blending wand, or put it in the blender if not!) and add the stock cube, and the chilli roughly chopped.
Add in 2 cups of boiling water and start blending.  Keep adding boiling water until your soup is as thick as you want it.   (I used about a litre and got 3 generous servings of creamy soup).  Season with salt and pepper to your own taste.  Remember, if your stock was salty you wont need much salt, and if your chilli was a hot one you wont want too much pepper!  Simmer for 5 mins or so until piping hot.

If I wasnt feeling so lazy I might have added a spoonful of natural yoghurt to serve.  Or a squeeze of orange or lemon juice would have been nice.  Instead, I just ate it with some bread and cheese.  Still yummy!



15 comments:

  1. Sounds very yummy. we eat lots of soup - and often very similar.....but without the chilli! juliex

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  2. You're making me hungry now, but i'm too lazy to make all that effort, cheese spread on toast it is then! :o)

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  3. I so need some kind of blendering thing!

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  4. Well making soup isn't lazy! Looks yum!

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  5. We made something similar with quinoa Friday night....tonight we are having the leftovers with cornbread!;)
    It's been raining for 4 days....soup was totally needed!!

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  6. I have a pumpkin in the fridge, I'll try this tomorrow

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  7. Sounds lovely! Hunker down, wrap up in quilts and eat soup. Thanks for the recipe missus.

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  8. Oh, nom!! I have a particular fondness for butternut squash.

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  9. I like a r ed pepper in mine, gives it a lovely sweetness :) yum!

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  10. Thanks! I am going to try that.

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  11. Looks lovely and comforting. I may well try that recipe out on Trudi when we next meet up. Di x

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  12. Sound delicious! I'm going to try it out :) thanks for the recipe x

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  13. Hope it filled the hole for a while!

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