Easy healthy dinners : Half-hour homemade soup

Okay – controversially, I am posting a soup recipe IN THE SUMMER. However, I must point out that the weather forecast for where I live looks like this.

Rain and cloud. And windy too! Yes it is still *quite* warm but hardly a heatwave. And when it starts pissing it down (to my american readers, thats a British phrase that means raining hard!) with rain and its lashing in your face, my thoughts turn to more autumnal foods.

Another good reason for me to share this recipe with you is that I may be the only person who until relatively recently didn’t realise how absurdly easy AND quick it is to make homemade soup, consider this post part recipe and part public service announcement.

I always knew that soup was easy to make of course (as long as you like chopping). I particularly like making chunky vegetable soup in the colder months, thick with root veg, lentils and herbs. But that kind of soup takes time to make – first there is quite a bit of chopping, then cooking – ideally you need to simmer your soup on a low heat for around 3 hours until the veg is tender and the lentils cooked.

So delicious, but not really so convenient (although it is when you freeze it in batches!).

This recipe is more of a simple, easy, shortcut soup for when time is short and you need soup in the next 30 minutes. Its also great when you have a glut of a particular vegetable as often happens at this time of year with peppers or tomatoes, as it means you can make them into a yummy soup which you can freeze in batches and enjoy their summer freshness for months to come.

Another benefit of homemade soup made with vegetables and stock rather than cream is how ridiculously healthy it is. This soup will cost you no more than 150 calories! Although it is mandatory to eat it with warm rolls covered in butter…

The soup I made was red pepper, red onion and sweet potato soup – here’s what you need! *You will also need a blender to make this soup – if you don’t have a blender, you could try mashing up the veg with a potato masher to break it down slightly

• 4 red peppers (the beauty of this recipe is that you can also use up the past their best veg)
• 1 large red onion
• Around half a medium sweet potato (has a quite pronounced flavour so use less or none at all if you’re not that keen on sweet potato)
• About 750ml vegetable or chicken stock (I used knorr veg stock granules which you add boiling water to)
• Basil leaves

First up, preheat the oven to around 180 degrees and next,  roughly chop the veg into similar sized pieces – that way they’ll all cook at the same rate.

Drop onto a large baking tray and drizzle over some olive oil, salt and pepper & cook for 20-25 minutes. Periodically, check how they’re doing and give the tray a little shake.

Once the veg looks cooked, remove the tray from the oven. Tip the veg into your blender and add about half  of your stock. Blend on a low speed for about 30 seconds and then check the consistency of the soup. Its all down to what you like – If you prefer thicker soups, leave it thick, or if you want it to be thinner, add more stock to the mix.

Although I chose peppers and sweet potato for the flavours in my soup, the possibilities are really limitless. Here are some quick ideas on other easy summer soups that would taste great

• Bacon, pea and mint
• Summer tomato, basil and feta
• Tomato and cucumber gazpacho (perfect if the weather ever gets warm again!)

In each case, just cook your ingredients (barring the feta) and blend away!