Winter Vegetable soup

Winter is definately making its mark at the moment and all I want to eat is hot, comforting food!

This makes 2 litres of soup - perfect for freezing or feeding lots of people! Is a simple but tasty and cheap soup and great for these cold days and nights!

I made this on Wednesday night and it fed 7 as a starter on the thursday and there was still plenty left, re-heats well for lunches!

540g carrots
275g parsnips
4 sticks celery
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 chicken kallo boullion cube (if veggie just use two v cubes)
1 vegetable kallo boullion cube
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
S&P to taste

1) Firstly, prep all the veg. Dice the onion, celery, carrots and parsnips into relatively small cubes and chop the garlic


2) Make up the stock cubes in 2 litres boiling water

3) Heat oil in a large pan (I use my pasta pot!), gently fry the onion for about 5 minutes until translucent, add all the remaining vegetables, pour over the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes

4) Now add the tomatoes and seasoning, simmer for a further ten minutes and blitz with a liquidizer or hand blender, I quite like this chunky but have made both chunky and smooth versions. If going for the chunky option and its more of a main course serving, after blitzing add a tin of drained kidney beans, heat through and serve.

Make sure you have plenty of warm fresh bread to mop up!