Very orange carrot and basil soup

I've been a very bad blogger, I know. I've had a steady avalanche of exam scripts to moderate ever since we got back from holiday, and it hasn't left much time for writing blog posts, or cooking new and interesting things for that matter either. The avalanche is slowing now though, and I'm feeling a bit more confident that I'm going to make it to the snow fields, or the foot of the mountain, or the Pizza Hut of restfulness or wherever you get to when you outrun an avalanche, so here I am again.


This soup was my lunch today, and it was inspired by the contents of the veggie basket at the end of the week, and a pot of special basil that Munchkin Granny brought me when she came to visit last weekend. It had a particular name, which I've forgotten, so let's just call it 'small basil'. It looks really pretty and smells lovely and I wanted to make sure I used it rather than gradually let it wilt which is what generally seems to happen to my herbs. I had a bag of carrots as well, so I roasted them during the morning along with a sweet potato, a red pepper, some garlic cloves and some of the small basil, and then blended them with some hot stock at lunchtime. Given all that orange and redness it's not really surprising that the soup turned out the colour it did, and it tasted clean and colourful as well. The basil paired well with the veggies, and it all smelled lovely too.


I'm sending this soup to this month's No Croutons required, which has leaves as its theme. I would have made a rocket soup with my home-grown leaves, but they are still only about 1cm high so it would have been a nano-soup, and I prefer meals I can see :)

Carrot, sweet potato and 'small basil' soup
Serves 2
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
glug of shaoshung wine
spray of oil
about 400ml hot stock
1 good handful of 'small' or regular fresh basil, torn

Roast all the veggies in a 200 degree oven in a covered baking tray, covered with the glug of shaoshung for about 45 minutes. Shovel them about a bit with a spatula. Spray with oil, and continue roasting, with half of the basil, uncovered for about 20 minutes more, until all the veggies are soft.

Liquidise the veggies with the other half of the basil and the stock. Reheat if necessary.