April 1, 2007: Beetroot and Carrot Soup

Another week, another soup. I think as winter comes on, we'll be souping it up more and more often. Luckily, Cindy's been keeping up with dozens of different food blogs and taking note of some of the particularly delicious looking recipes she stumbles across. This week's winner was the tremendously pink-looking creation on Eat Me: beetroot and carrot soup.

I made a few changes, through both laziness and a lack of ingredients (we also decided to cut back on the quantities), but it still turned out pretty well. It was slightly starchy, so I might readjust the vegie proportions next time - maybe an extra beetroot and one or two less potatoes, but otherwise it really hit the spot. I'm really getting a taste for these blended soups - it's hard to believe that I coped for so many years without a food processor.

I'll reproduced my version of the recipe here, but feel free to try out the original instead.

1 tbsp butter
1 red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 large carrots, diced
1 large/2 small beetroots, peeled and diced
1 large/2 small potatoes, peeled and diced
2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cup milk
1 Massel chicken-style stock cube, dissolved in 2 cups of hot water
Salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar to taste

Melt the butter in a large pot and cook the onion and garlic for about ten minutes. Add the cumin and mix it up thoroughly.

Throw in the diced vegies and add in the stock - you really want a fair bit of stock to boil the vegies in. I ended up padding things out with a bit of extra hot water here, so you may want to just make up more stock.

Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour - until all the vegies are nice and soft. Whizz the whole mix up in a food processor and return it to the pot. Stir in the milk and add salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar to taste.

Serve up with some fresh bread slices and enjoy the warming goodness.