We just love a warm bowl of home-made carrot soup on a cold winter’s day.  Carrots are a great source of vitamins, minerals, fibre and antioxidants and they are in season.  They are also great value.  Roasting the carrots brings a real richness to this tasty soup.

Ingredients

• 1kg carrots, peeled and cut on the diagonal into 1 ½ cm slices
• 1 medium white onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 ½ litres chicken or vegetable stock
• 3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• ¾ tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• ¼ tsp ground turmeric

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 ^oC/400 ^oF/Gas Mark 6.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Place the carrots on the baking sheet, with 2 tbsp. of olive oil and ½ tsp of salt.  Toss together to make sure that the carrots are coated with oil and salt, making sure that they are arranged in a single layer.
4. Roast the carrots until they are soft in the middle and slightly charred on the edges.  Some varieties of carrots roast faster than others so this could be anything between 25 and 45 minutes.  Keep and eye on them and when you are happy that they are fully roasted, remove from the oven.
5. Heat the remaining olive oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and sauté the onion for 5 minutes until soft and translucent. 
6. Add the garlic, coriander, cumin and turmeric and stir for 30 seconds. 
7. Pour in the stock and stir.
8. Add the roasted carrots and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 10 minutes.
9. Blend (we use a stick blender, but you can also blend in batches using a traditional blender or even a NutriBullet!).

The soup will keep in the refrigerator for up to four days.  It also freezes well.