The spring cold seemed inevitable really, everyone has been battling with sniffly noses and tickly coughs for the past few weeks, and now it is my turn. As I have a busy few weeks ahead I decided I was going to tackle it head on… with some winter veg soup.

I am also away quite a lot over the next week or so, so I wanted to use up as much of the veg in my fridge as possible. Although I love roasted veg, it is getting a bit tedious, so instead today I chose to make soup. I don’t really think I have properly made soup before, maybe only in food tech classes at secondary school, but nothing since.

I was browsing online for recipes and came across one particular one that included many of the ingredients I had in my fridge- it was meant to be.

My ingredients are:

• 50g Butter
• 1 Large onion
• 125g Leeks (1 large one)
• 280g Parsnips (about 5)
• 400g Carrots (lots if you are using chantry carrots like me)
• 1 Sweet potato
• 900ml Veg stock
• 2 Tablespoons milk
• Salt and pepper
• Oil

I have 2 tips that I wish I had known prior to starting the cooking, these are:
1) Prep ALL the ingredients first
2) Use a bloody big saucepan

With these in mind I shall continue.

So, I hadn’t first prepped all my veg, and found myself frantically peeling parsnips and chopping onion as fast as my hands could go. Like I said, to prevent this stressful soup experience, I would prep everything first, as the timings for cooking the veg are very close together.

Firstly I melted the butter and a drizzle of oil into a saucepan (a saucepan that definitely could’ve been bigger!). To the butter I then added my chopped leak and onion. The chopping of the ingredients really didn’t have to be precise as it was all going to end up in a blender anyway. However, the smaller the pieces, the quicker they would soften.

After about 5 minutes I then added the carrots, parsnips and sweet potato. The recipe indicated for all of these ingredients to be peeled and chopped, however, the chantry carrots were tiny, and there was no way I was peeling all of them!! So, they went in washed and sliced.

After about another 5 minutes I added the veg stock. I didn’t have a measuring jug for this, so guessed using the measurements on the kettle. The stock covered the veg in the saucepan, so I presumed it must be right. This was then bought to the boil and returned to simmer for about 25 minutes- until all the veggies were soft.

Whilst the veggies cooked, as well as doing my washing, I set the blender up, ready to mix everything up nicely.

I had to do the blending in a few batches, but once it was all smooth I recombined the mixture back in the pan. At this point I added the milk to make my soup less thick. I fancied have a little kick in my soup, so I added some cayenne pepper, I am kind of hoping this will kick my cold too! Along with the cayenne I added salt and pepper to taste too.

 

On my way home from uni I had picked up two mini ciabatta rolls that I knew would go just perfectly. I lastly topped my soup with a dollop of creme fraiche and some chilli flakes. The last thing I wanted to be eating today was vegetable soup, as i’m really craving pizza, curry and chicken nuggets, but I definitely feel better for dosing myself up with soup- along with some cold and flu tablets.

The soup was really tasty, but quite sweet, so I didn’t need to eat that much as it was a bit sickly after a while. Maybe if you substituted the sweet potato for a normal potato it would be better.

Fingers crossed over the next few days my cold will have vanished!