Recipe: Squash, Roasted Red Pepper + Cumin Soup

Makes 8 portions

Ingredients:

2 onions, sliced

2 large carrots, roughly chopped

600g squash, cubed (approx. 1 small squash)

4.5 roasted red pepper

12 roasted garlic

500ml veg stock

2tsp cumin seeds

3 tbsp olive oil

salt + pepper

Roast the garlic + red peppers. Now, these take a while, but it’s totally worth it. So just add some prep time to this recipe and you can pretty much leave them in the oven and set a timer until they’re done. I made this recipe at the same time as the spicy cashew pesto (see photo!), as the recipes go together, so it was worth putting more peppers into the oven.

Put the peppers in a roasting tray and cover with foil, leave for approx 1.5 - 2 hours on 200deg or until the skins have loosened up and you can peel them off. Remove from the oven and let them loose some heat before peeling, they will be very hot! Remove seeds.

For the garlic, peel the cloves, put in a small oven proof dish and cover in hot water (they will probably float). Cover with foil or a lid and put in the oven with the peppers for about 45 mins. When done they will be very soft.

I would recommending starting the soup once the peppers have been in the oven for 1.5 hours and are almost done.

Put the onions + carrots into a large saucepan with the olive oil, fry for a couple of minutes then add the cumin seeds. Continue to fry until the onions start to soften (don’t let them brown), the add the squash. Stir for couple of minutes, then add the veg stock and top up with another 500ml of water. Leave to boil until the carrots and squash has softened and take off the heat.

When the peppers are done, the tray will be full of juice, add that to your soup, then the roasted red peppers (skins removed) and garlic. Whizz up in a blender, season with salt + pepper to taste.

When served this soup is delicious by itself, or you can add a spoon of cashew, ginger + basil pesto to give it some heat.