Recipe: Carrot and vegetable soup with ginger

Recently I had a craving for carrot soup. I'm not exactly sure why that came to mind, but when writing out the weekly meal plan I remembered that I had some carrots that needed to be used and a sweet potato that wasn't looking as lovely as it could. When doing the grocery shopping, pumpkin was on sale, and so I decided that a carrot and other orange-vegetable soup would be delicious.

I made it up as I went along but it turned out rather nicely - it's pretty hard to mess up soup! The ginger added a nice kick. Mr Fork thought I was a bit heavy on the seasonings, but I personally enjoyed it as is. It's the sort of thing you can play with and tweak to your own tastes, and was delicious served with some fresh out of the oven ciabatta bread on the side.

Carrot and vegetable soup with ginger

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, diced
• generous knob of ginger, finely sliced
• 4 medium carrots, skin on, diced
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 400g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
• 1L vegetable stock
• 1/2 teaspoon each cumin, turmeric and curry powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Put a generous lug of olive oil into a saucepan and add onion. Sauté until softened.
2. Combine carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin, ginger, spices and stock with the onion. Bring the mix to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer it all until the vegetables are soft (about 15 minutes).
3. Blend to your desired consistency.
4. Return to the heat and check for seasoning. Add salt and pepper to taste
5. Serve with chopped coriander, parsley or shallots.

Notes:

• I was shelling some for Jimmy, so I also added some edamame beans to my bowl before serving. They sunk to the bottom so you can't see them in any photos, but I liked them in the soup, and they added some texture.
• The seasoning is very versatile. Add more or less, or change it up to suit your tastes. I think it would be good adding some chilli in as well, but my children aren't good with too much spice yet.
• It was particularly good with some fresh bread on the side to help wipe the bowl clean at the end.
• I'm a big believer in not having food go to waste, so the next night, I added the soup leftovers to a creamy sauce I was making for a macaroni pasta bake. Excuse the terrible lighting, but it turned out beautifully.