Chefjudgejudyjudy: Swede soup.

Hi guys!

Howdy?

I've just made a pot of swede and celery soup so I thought I quickly leave you the recipe. Swede is a root vegetable and, contrary to what people imagine once they hear "vegetable", it has a high starch content- just like alot of root veggies (all kinds of potatoes, pumpkins, carrots, turnips etc) so, again, balance is key. It is certainly better to have root vegetables than to gorge out on pastries and processed foods but you want to ensure to incorporate it into your healthy meal plan in little quantities.

The ingredients you would be needing are:

1. 3-4 Celery sticks/stalk, washed and chopped
2. 1 small swede or half of a large one, cleaned and chopped
3. 3-4 large carrots, cleaned and chopped/sliced
4. Parsnip ( Optional. I added a few to mine)
5. Stock cube, seasoning and salt to taste
6. 1 large onion, cleaned and chopped
7. 4 meduim cloves of garlic, crushed
8. Handful of fresh parsley and coriander, chopped
9. Double/ heavy/ single cream.
10. Some olive/vegetable oil 

Prep method:

1.  Lightly grease a pan to roast the chopped swede in and set your oven at 200०C
2. Drizzle a little olive oil over the swede, add a dash of salt and pepper. You can toss in 1 tsp of mixed herbs. toss all together and roast in the midddle of the oven for 20-30 minutes.
3. In a pot, heat a drizzle of oil and then add the chopped onions, crushed garlic, celery and carrots to cook. Fry this on low heat or on medium heat tossing/stirring continuously so it doesn't burn or turn brown.
4. Add a cup of water to this (or some protein stock- a lot of the time, I use water with some stock cubes).
5. Add one stock cube, one maggi, some chilli (if you wish), a tsp of mixed herbs and a faint dash of tumeric. Bring to a boil.
6. Take out the swede (and parsnip) from the oven and empty roasted swede into the pot. Top this up with some water and bring to a boil before reducing the heat to allow the veggies release all their flavours.
7. Set down the pot and, with a hand blender or food processor, blend through the veggies in batches.
8. Pour the blended mix back into your pot and bring to a slow boil. Taste for salt and adjust taste with any seasoning you want.
9. Please finish this up with a generous dollop of double/heavy cream. If you cannot get "cream", you can substitute that with half a tin of peak milk but you'd need to fry your onions/garlic/celery in a little butter.

It makes sense to skip the cream bit, especially if you're so fitness concious but it does add some yumminess to the soup. The soup is still really tasty without it but, there is an obvious difference without it. You can have this on it's own or with some warm bread. I have paired mine with some homemade carrot and walnut cake.
   

Enjoy!

P.s: You can enjoy a lot of veggies as a soup using this recipe. You can "soup" carrots, sweet potato, any kind of pumpkin and turnips, tomato and bell peppers, mushrooms, etc. Just follow the steps above, roasting the swede or root veggie is optional- you can equally boil all of the veggies/stock/seasoning together in a pot on low heat and blend through when softened- not much of a difference really. The roasting just tends to give the soup a nice flavour. E.g, how some people prefer jollof rice cooked over open firewood flames to jollof cooked indoors, the burning smell of the firewood gives the jollof rice an extra twist.

So, here's to more easy recipes!

Do have a beautiful weekend!
Wishing you Love and Light

Love Always,
Judgejudyjudy....
Xxx...