Roast Everything Soup with Walnut and Green Herb Pesto
Winter has only just arrived and soups are now hitting high rotation in the kitchen. You know me, I like a recipe that is completely adaptable to any seasonal ingredients that are on hand and this is no exception. This recipe is so easy, you just roast everything, add some bone broth, stock or alkaline broth and then blend …. simple!
Gather Your Veggies Ready To Roast!
Roasting vegetables, especially root vegetables gives them a lovely caramelised flavour that adds a richness and depth to soup. Roasted vegetables are also warming and highly assimilable in the winter months. The addition of bone broth, stock or alkaline broth to the soup further ups the flavour and nutrition. You can find my recipe for Easy Intuitive Bone Broth here. Like my bone broth recipe this is a free style recipe that can be adapted to the vegetables you have on hand and the tastes that you are hankering for.
Roasted Veggies Straight From The Oven
This recipe will make six overly generous serves or eight more restrained serves!
For the soup You will Need
3 kg vegetables – make sure about 1.5 – 2kg are pumpkin and or sweet potato and or cauliflower. At least 500g should be onions of some description eg: red, garlic, eschalots or leeks. The rest can be other vegetables such as parsnips, turnips, jerusalem artichokes, beetroot, capsicums, carrots, zucchini, celeriac … any veggie that is tasty when roasted.
3 – 5 litres of bone broth, alkaline broth, stock or water.
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
A sprinkling of spice seeds eg: coriander, cumin, fennel etc (optional)
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C (moderate).
Cut all vegetables into shapes that will roast through at approximately the same time. You will need two large roasting trays to ensure the veggies are not too crowded and do not sweat rather than roast!
If you are using garlic you can simply separate the cloves and scatter them on the baking tray unpeeled. Cut any round onions in half and place the flat surface down. If you are using pumpkin you can separate the seeds and scatter these also as when roasted they make a tasty snack for later. Scatter spice seeds if you are using them.
Drizzle everything with oil and then massage it into the veggies.
Pop the trays into the oven and allow the veggies to roast until slightly caramelised and soft. This batch took about 45 minutes.
Remove baking trays from oven and peel any unwanted skins and hard bits from your veggies, reserve these for your chooks or compost. If you have roasted whole garlic cloves, these should be gelatinous and simply squeezed from their skins into a large soup pot.
place all veggies in soup pot. Add 1 litre of broth, stock or water and then blend with a stick/immersion blender. Keep adding broth, stock or water until your soup reaches the desired consistency. Sometimes I like a chunky soup and hardly blend it and other times I like a smoother, creamier soup.
Heat through, season to taste and serve with a dollop of walnut pesto, yoghurt or sour cream … whatever takes your fancy!
For the pesto you will need
1 generous bunch of herbs (I used parsley and garlic chives)
around 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic
50g walnuts
1 tbsp lemon juice
pinch of natural salt
Method
Roughly chop herbs and add to a mixing bowl/cup.
Add half the olive oil and all the other ingredients and pulse with a stick/immersion blender. Keep adding the reserved olive oil until it develops a pesto like consistency.
Dollop your pesto onto your soup!
Leftovers – great food for chooks or for your compost!
Enjoy your “Roast Everything Soup”!
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