Roasted Vegetable Soup

I haven't posted a recipe in a while. It's been busy, and it's also hard cooking these days with one almost-vegan in the house when everyone else is an unrepentant carnivore and certainly unwilling to give up dairy products. Sigh. Still, my most recent vegan recipe is easy, delicious, and very very healthy. (No, Nick won't eat it, but he pretty much doesn't eat soup so I don't even stress about it.)

This is so easy it's hardly a recipe. Indeed, it's hardly soup. When Mariah and I were eating it the other night we decided that it's really glorified baby food. Though no baby food I ever tasted was so delicious.

OK, here's what you do:

Preheat your oven. Somewhere around 450 is probably pretty good. You could do it lower, but then it would take longer and I am an impatient cook.

Now peel and cut into roughly 3/4 inch cubes:

2 sweet potatoes
2 white potatoes
2 large carrots
1/2 large butternut squash

(Note: I usually don't peel potatoes or sweet potatoes when I roast them, and you could certainly leave the peels on in your soup, but your puree will be considerably lumpier. You decide.)

If you don't have one of these just sub in more of another.

Spread the cubes out on two rimmed baking sheets (like a jelly-roll pan) and pour a glug of olive oil over it. (That would be 1-2 tablespoons.) Peel some garlic cloves and throw them in, too. I used about six.

Now roast your veggies until they are soft inside and brown outside. I generally set a timer for ten minutes and try to turn everything over every ten minutes; they will take 20-30 minutes in all. You don't really need to cook them all the way through, but you do want everything soft enough to puree.

If you're not sure how your eaters will respond to garlic, remove one or two of the cloves before proceeding.

In batches, puree the roasted vegetables with veggie stock. There are several very tasty organic ones on the market; I used Swanson most recently, but I also really like Kitchen Basics. If you are more ambitious than I, you will have your own home-made veggie stock for this part.

Put the pureed vegetables and stock in a large stockpot and heat gently, adding enough stock (I used five cups in all, but six or even seven would be good, too) to make it all soupy. Ladle into bowls and enjoy! You can serve six easily from this recipe, or serve three one night and then refrigerate. Add more stock when reheating and you'll get six more lunches out of it, seriously.

You can also add other vegetables at the roasting stage--onions, other kinds of squash, and mushrooms would all be tasty. I'm sure cream or butter at the final stage would be nice if you weren't serving vegans, but you really won't miss it. This is a thick, hearty soup full of all kinds of delicious nutrients.