Roasted Vegetable Soup

That's right, I'm posting the first recipe, in fact this is one of those recipes that I tried (just last week actually) and I wanted to tell everyone about, because it was just that good. You could say it was a recipe that you would eat 3/4 of it in one day, if you could. (but you just can't, Norm! - sorry, SNL reference) I tried this soup because I wanted something easy and healthy. It’s basically a vegan recipe depending on the couscous (which could be left out). I was so pleasantly surprised at how good this soup was! What really made it for me was the sweet potato! I loved the sweetness so much I even garnished it with a spoonful of brown sugar. Yum! The book also recommends garnishing with shredded cheese. I personally just don’t like how cheese acts in hot broth. Anyways, this recipe came from a book called The Art of the Slow Cooker (By Andrew Schloss). I love this book. Corn Bread would get along very well with this soup, and I'm a sucker for good cornbread.

 

Roasted Vegetable Soup

6 servings

·         2 onions, cut into 1-inch dice

·         2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch sticks

·         2 celery ribs, cut into ½ -inch-thick slices

·         1 medium turnip, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice

·         ½ red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch squares

·         1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice

·         8 white mushrooms, cleaned and quartered

·         4 large cloves garlic, whole and unpeeled

·         2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

·         6 cups vegetable broth, divided

·         1 can (about 15 ounces) diced tomatoes, preferably fire roasted, with their juices

·         1 tsp kosher salt

·         ½ tsp ground black pepper

·         ½ tsp dried rosemary, crushed

·         ½ tsp dried thyme

·         2 tbsp chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley

·         3 tbsp couscous, preferably whole-wheat (I couldn’t find anything but whole wheat, however if you can find a gluten free couscous then well done, try it. I personally doubled the couscous in my soup because I wanted more substance, which of course made it more hearty with less broth)

PREHEAT oven to 425°. Toss the onions, carrots, celery, turnip, bell pepper, sweet potato, mushrooms, and garlic with the olive oil on a large rimmed sheet pan. Spread out into an even layer and roast for 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and lightly browned at the edges.

SCRAPE the vegetables into a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker. Pour 1 cup of the vegetable broth onto the sheet pan and scrape up any browned bits clinging to it; scrape into the cooker. Add the remaining 5 cups of broth, the diced tomatoes and their juice, the salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. Cover the cooker and cook for 2 to 3 hours on high, or 4 to 6 hours on low, until the flavors are blended.

 STIR in parsley and couscous and cook for 5 more minutes.

*Though I love this soup as is I also thought this soup could be delicious with some beef chuck cut into cubes (for the meat lovers out there) I haven’t tried it yet, but next time I make this soup (which I definitely will), I’ll do it with beef. If you want to cook it with beef you have to cook for the maximum cook time (that is at least 3 hours on high and at least 6 hours on low). Before putting the beef into the slow cooker cut it into 1 ½ inch cubes, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Then you can begin to brown the beef in a skillet with about 2 tbsp of olive oil for 2 to 3 minutes (do this in batches if you need to so that all the meat is evenly browned). However if you are adding beef you want to maybe reduce the amount of vegetables you put in just to keep the volume of solids (if you will) about the same. You could even alter the selection of vegetables used, just be sure to keep that volume about the same. This soup is one of those soups that is even better the next day!

So this is a picture of a picture, but I like pictures, and like I said, I made this last week, before the blog. You can at least see the heartiness of this soup. And its quite beautiful, no?