Peel, chop, keep warm

[one_half]

Winter is on its way, so what is the best thing to keep the weather at bay? Spirits? No, soup! This week we have a winter warmer to keep the cockles tepid when there’s not a bottle of whisky lying around – spicy squash and sweet potato soup (or not spicy if you can’t handle it)

Serves 4.

First peel the onion, wash it, and roughly chop it into 1cm3 pieces. Then wash and chop the carrot and celery into roughly the same size pieces.

Chuck the chopped vegetables into a large saucepan with a splash of heated oil. Add some salt, pepper and chilli powder or tabasco (to taste) to the pan and stir.

Leave the pan and let the vegetables sweat down. Peel and wash the sweet potato and butternut squash into 1cm3 pieces and add these to the pan.[/one_half] [one_half_last]

Ingredients:

2 bake at home baguettes (45p)

2 small onions (26p)

2 carrots (32p)

1/2 celery head (45p)

1 butternut squash (42p)

1 sweet potato (36p)

2 cloves garlic (30p for a bulb)

salt/pepper/chilli powder or tabasco (if you like it spicy)/splash of oil

Total – £2.56 [/one_half_last] [one_half]

Finely chop or crush the 2 garlic cloves (or more if you like) into the pan and on a low heat leave the pan covered for the vegetables to sweat down.

Add a splash of water if the mix is getting dry and stir regularly to avoid burning.

When the vegetables are soft add enough water to cover them with a little extra and simmer for ten minutes.

Put the bake at home baguettes in the oven as per the instructions.

When all the vegetables are mushy take a blender (or hand blender if you have one) and liquidise the soup.

Make sure it’s spicy enough and serve![/one_half] [one_half_last]

[/one_half_last] [tabgroup][tab title=”Curried?”]To mix it up you could add some spices like cumin, turmeric, curry powder, garam masala or coriander to make a curried butternut squash and sweet potato soup instead.[/tab][tab title=”Easy Garlic Bread?”]You could turn your bake at home baguettes to garlic baguettes. Just take some of the leftover garlic and crush some cloves into butter or margerine. Take out the baguette before it’s cooked, let it cool a bit then cut slices into it and smear the garlic butter inside and return to the oven for a couple minutes[/tab][tab title=”Too Spicy?”]If you’ve gone a bit overboard with the spicyness then just add a few tablespoons of yoghurt when you’re blending. It cools the spice and makes the soup creamier![/tab][tab title=”Mix It Up!”]Mess around with other vegetables to make your own creations. Soups are perfect for using up old vegetables so save even more by using up stuff that would end up in the bin in a few days![/tab][tab title=”More Flavour!”]Flavour enhancing ingredients like balsamic vinegar, worcester sauce or even tomato ketchup can add richness and more flavour to your soup![/tab][/tabgroup]