This isn’t a recipe as such, it’s what my niece refers to as a ‘life hack’. It’s something to help when you realise that you have a fridge full of veg that is a bit past it’s best and you dare not throw away food for fear of the Food Police storming through the door. Never fear, Aunty Wenwen to the rescue.
I would not dare to put a list of ingredients together for this, just grab whatever you have. If there are bits on your vegetables that have gone brown and soft then just cut them out and bin them saving and chopping the better bits. Gather together anything that you can roast: courgette, aubergine, parsnip, carrot, swede, peppers, tomatoes, even chillies are good if you want some heat. If you have a very large amount of one type of veg then you might consider searching for a specific recipe, otherwise just chop it all into rough chunks and put into an appropriately sized oven safe tray. If you have soft veg such as spinach or herbs pop them to one side, we’ll use those up too.
Instructions
- Add chopped veg to an appropriate oven proof tin, drizzle with veg or sunflower oil, add salt and pepper (if you have it some dried herbs and a few garlic cloves, but don’t worry if you don’t). Give it all a good mix together.
- Roast in the oven at about 180° for half an hour, stirring halfway through cooking. If you have really filled the tin you might need to stir again after half an hour and cook for another 15 mins. Just use your common sense – the veg should be just cooked and the odd piece nicely browned.
- Allow to cool slightly then add to a saucepan and cover with hot stock. Stock cube is absolutely fine, either chicken or veg will work equally well. I can’t give you a quantity as I don’t know how much veg you have used, but there should be just enough liquid to cover the vegetables (you can always add more once blitzed)
- Very roughly chop any spinach, herbs and other soft greens that you have put to one side and stir into the pan.
- Blend – I like to use a stick blender with this as I can get it to the consistency I want. You could use a food liquidiser but I think that’s a bit aggressive for this soup, better used if you want a smooth soup. I like mine to have fairly small but recognisable chunks of veg in it.
- You can portion this out straight away, cool and refridegerate or freeze; or if you are eating now simply heat through.
Roast Veg Soup
Whats even better is if you have some dodgy bread and make croutons – reducing your food waste and increasing your smug feel even more. You can cook these in the oven whilst you are doing the veggies; just be careful as they do have a tendancy to burn if you forget about them!
- Chop bread into approx 2cm cubes, any bread will do. Add to a bowl with plenty of olive oil, salt and pepper, and crushed garlic if you have it.
- Lay a single layer on a roasting tray
- Roast for 12 to 15 mins at 180
I like to put the croutons into little foil parcels and top the warmed soup with them. Don’t top the portions that you put in the fridge or freezer as they just soak up the soup and get all soggy
