An Easy Winner of a Winter Soup

Roasted Roots Soup 

Prep time: 35 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour

Serves four

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 parsnips
  • 3 carrots
  • 1 celery root (optional)
  • 1 rutabaga
  • 2 turnips
  • 1 sweet potato
  • 1 stalk celery, diced
  • ½ sweet onion, diced
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • ½ tsp. ground black pepper
  • 3 tbsp. butter or substitute such as Earth Balance
  • 1 quart vegetable broth
  • ½ cup half and half, cream or non-dairy milk (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Clean and scrape (peeling optional) root vegetables and cut into same-size pieces. Combine in a large roasting pan, coat with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast at 450°F until fork-tender, stirring often.

Melt butter over in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add celery and onion and cook until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add broth and bring to simmer, uncovered. Add roasted vegetables and simmer for 10 minutes, or until tender. Puree using an immersion blender. Add more broth as needed. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with the milk (optional).

This recipe appeared in the January 2016 Shuttle; it is a surefire, can’t-mess-up winner. Because there is a lot of prepping to do, it’s a perfect chilly January Sunday do-together soup for you and your significant other(s)!

The recipe is flexible, in case you just cannot find the right celeriac bulb; recommended quantities can be altered without ill effect. The recipe says it serves four, but given considerations of how thick you like your soup, how much stock you want to add and so on, there is a wide variation on how much it makes. 

I recently bought all of the ingredients at Weavers Way Mt. Airy (except the half-and-half, which is optional) for about $14. I used approximately 1½ quarts of stock. I suggest cutting the vegetables into 2-inch pieces; otherwise you’ll be stirring them forever while they roast. Ours turned out fairly thick, and we ended up with about 12 cups, which equals out to less than $1.20 a serving. Not bad for a healthy, delicious, beautiful soup!

Thank you to whoever shared this recipe three years ago. (Editor’s note: That would be Mt. Airy Produce Manager Jean Mackenzie.) It deserves to be shared again! Bon appetit!

— Ruth and Ken Schamberg