Soulful Soup: Roasted vegetables soup

I made the most scrumptious, comforting soup ever! By accident, that is. I had a lot of small amounts of vegetables left in the fridge that I needed to use before they would go to waste. And I also had some bacon left. So I decided to repeat my roasted vegetables recipe from last week, with the addition of bacon, ground cumin, and tomatoes, and without the eggplant, rosemary and honey. When I took the baking dish out of the oven it suddenly came to me…let’s throw this in the blender with beef stock! So that’s what I did. I then poured it in a big soup pan and brought it to a boil. Then another light bulb went on above my head…what if I add some dry white wine and a few spoons of mustard?

The result of my left-over cooking endeavour is a thick creamy soulful bowl of soup to savour on a crispy cold autumn or winter evening. The flavour and the aroma is fantastic. I’m giving myself a pad on the shoulder.

Scroll down for the full recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/4 pumpkin, unseeded and cut into thin slices
• 1 small zucchine, thinly sliced
• 2 tomatoes, halved
• 1 Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced
• 3 carrots
• hand of brussels sprouts
• 200 gr bacon, diced (in Dutch: spekjes)
• 4 scallions, peeled
• 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
• 6 sprigs of thyme
• 6 bay leafs
• olive oil
• salt and black pepper
• ground cumin
• 3 tbsp of mustard
• 200 ml dry white wine
• 1 liter beef stock

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Take a baking tray and cover it with baking paper
3. Arrange the carrots, pumpkin, zucchini, tomatoes, apple, bacon, thyme leafs, bay leafs on the baking tray
4. Make a cross in each brussels sprout with a knife to let them cook faster, and add them to the baking tray
5. Cut the peeled scallions in half and add them to the baking tray
6. Lastly, crush the garlic cloves still in their skin by putting the blade of a big knife on top and pushing it down with the palm of your hand, and add them in their skin between the vegetables
7. Add salt and paper according to your taste
8. Add ground cumin according to taste
9. Drizzle two tablespoons of olive oil over the vegetables and toss everything so that it is evenly covered
10. Slide the baking tray in the oven and leave to roast for 20 min, occasionally tossing the vegetables
11. Take the baking tray out of the oven and discard the bay leafs, and peel the garlic cloves
12. Toss the vegetables in a blender with the beef stock of puree it in a large pan until you have a thick creamy substance
13. Add 2 bay leafs and bring to a boil
14. Add the wine and mustard and boil for 5 more minutes. Then let simmer for 5 more minutes
15. Discard the bay leafs and enjoy your bowl of soup.

I’m submitting this recipe to the Junglefrog Cooking Challenge which was to photograph and style a recipe with pumpkin and orange food.

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