SWEET orange VEGE soup....FOUR variations of DELICIOUSNESS! xxx

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Moonlit Sleep LOVES sweet ORANGE vege soup!
 

SWEET orange VEGE soup….FOUR variations of DELICIOUSNESS! xxx

We LOVE our Orange VEGETABLES! We have a pile of pumpkins that grew from compost during our summer holiday, and they are just DELICIOUS!! This soup recipe is my absolute favorite way to cook them…

* 2 medium brown onions

* 4 medium cloves of garlic

* 1kg orange carrots

* 2kg sweet potato or kumera

* 1.5 to 2kg of pumpkin

* 1 cup split red lentils

* ½ cup white quinoa (soaked)

* Stock

* A little olive oil

I usually make this soup the day after we’ve had a roast chicken because I LOVE making my own stock. All I do is boil up the chicken bones in a medium sized saucepan for about 45 mins to an hour and hey presto…FRESH and HEALTHY stock! It's so satisfying, and with very little effort! I let my stock cool a little, put the lid on and then pop it in the fridge for the night. Fresh stock can also be frozen and defrosted when you are ready to use it. If fresh chicken stock is not an option, substitute with vege stock instead.

At the same time as home making my YUMMY stock, I put the quinoa into a bowl with a couple of cups of water to soak overnight. I use the white/creamy coloured quinoa as my youngest likes her soup to be a vibrant orange colour!

Armed with your stock and soaked quinoa the rest of the recipe goes like this:

1.    Roughly dice your onions and fry in a drizzle of olive oil in a large saucepan or pot.

2.    Peel your garlic cloves and crush into the pot with a garlic crusher (or finely chop them).

3.    Once the onions and garlic have browned a little, add 2 cups of your stock and bring to the boil.

4.    Whilst the stock is warming, chop your carrots into small pieces and pop them into the pot.

5.    Peel and roughly chop your sweet potato and add half of it to the pot. The pieces of sweet potato can be larger as sweet potato takes less time to cook than carrots.

6.    Drain and rinse your quinoa and pop it into the pot together with the red split lentils. Add the remaining sweet potato on top. If the quinoa and lentils are too close to the bottom of the pan I find they can stick, which is why I add them in with the sweet potato.

7.    Once all your sweet potato is in the pot, add enough stock to just cover the sweet potato. If you run out of stock, just use some water. There can be little edges of sweet potato poking out of the stock, but most of the sweet potato should be covered with stock. By this time my pot is usually on a low simmer.

8.    Peel and roughly chop your pumpkin into chunks. Add to the pot and cover with the lid and simmer. The pumpkin will start steaming, whilst the other vege’s in the stock simmer and soften into each other. Once this happens you will find that the pumpkin sinks down to be in the stock too. I LOVE the consistency this method gives me. It produces a nice thick soup that my almost 2 year old can feed herself with a spoon, and that’s a winner in my book!

9.    When your pumpkin has softened into the rest of the soup, have a stir and check if your carrots are soft too. If so, take the pot off the heat and let it cool to be hot, rather than being boiling hot.

10. Puree the soup into a perfectly smooth consistency with a stab mixer, or by your method of choice. I have a fabulous stainless steel stab mixer that I LOVE as it eliminates my concern of using plastic in hot liquids!

Now, to the options!!

Option 1 – Serve with crumbled or cubed feta for a sweet and salty soup. This option is my personal favourite….YUMMY!!

Option 2 – Boil up some little pasta’s and stir through for “Orange Pasta”. This is my little one’s FAVOURITE! We use spelt pasta in little star shapes or little tubes.

Option 3 – Orange lasagna. This soup works great with wholemeal pasta sheets and a little ricotta! Hubby LOVES this one as it travels well for lunches.

Option 4 – It’s great by itself or with toast! This option is my eldest’s FAVOURITE, as she LOVES to dunk toasties! This version (without the toasties) was my youngest's favourite puree when she was a baby!

As with all my recipes, this one will make a pretty large batch! Mine fills my biggest saucepan.... It makes enough for a couple of meals and for a couple of different variations too! It also freezes well for a quick meal later on!

Hope you LOVE this YUMMY sweet ORANGE soup as much as we do!!

Enjoy xxx

P.S, I am not a chef, food nutritionist or anything of the like….I just LOVE healthy food that's cooked from scratch. I LOVE making up recipes and sharing the ones that even my fussy one LOVES! :)