Very red roasted veg soup

Here’s a hearty winter soup chocked full of antioxidants made from stuff I had hanging around in my fridge. I don’t like beetroot much, but they are really good for you and this is a good way to eat them and disguise the flavour.

This recipe will make about three to four good servings, but feel free to vary the proportions and ingredients. The idea is to use as many brightly coloured vegetables as possible, they are the ones with lots of nutrients in.

Ingredients

Four medium sized fresh beetroots
Half a butternut squash
One large red onion
Two large garlic cloves
One red pepper
A handful of curly kale
1 tsp turmeric
Half teaspoon or so of smoked paprica
A couple of tablespoons of chopped coriander
A couple of handfuls of green lentils
Olive oil
Stock (veg or chicken)

Soak the lentils overnight and then cook them by simmering in some stock for 15 mins or so.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Chop up all the veg except the kale into 4cm chunks (roughly). Keep the skin on the squash and don’t discard the seeds: put them on a baking tray and sprinkle with salt and paprika, place in the oven for 5-10 minutes until nicely toasted.

Put the chopped veg in a baking tray, glug over some olive oil, add the turmeric and paprika and stir them up, season with salt and pepper and roast until nicely softened and starting to caramelise, turning every 10 mins or so: about 45 minutes.

Place the cooked veg in a pot, cover with the stock, add the kale and coriander, bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes or so until the veg is nice and soft. Allow to cool for a few minutes, liquidise and then add the lentils. Serve with the toasted squash seeds as a garnish.

This soup needs something to offset the sweetness of the caramelised veg so you could add a little bit of unhealthiness by chopping up some chorizo, frying it up so it’s a bit crispy and adding it to soup at the end.

Enjoy!