Roast Red Pepper and Sweet Potato Soup

You know at the end of the week when there is hardly any food left and you need to go shopping? Well, that was the inspiration for this soup. I had one lonely red pepper on the top shelf of the fridge screaming for attention so I got creative. It’s a super tasty recipe, vegetarian and dariy free. I generally just eyeball the measurements of ingredients and went a little overboard on the chilli for this, which I loved – but had to water it down for my little boy. I used an old jar to keep some in the fridge for lunch the following day too. I find soup to be such a handy and versatile meal. It leaves so much room for creativity and its an excellent way to get a lot of veg into your diet. I never ever use a full stock cube for cooking. I find half a cube is enough to keep our palates clean to taste the true flavours of food so they aren’t disguised with excess salt or sugar. Soup is generally light and easy to digest too plus its like a great big belly hug during a cold November day. Give it a go and be sure to let me know how it turns out.

Soup with leftovers in jar

Ingredients
1 x red pepper
1 x sweet potato
1 x celery stick
1 x carrot
1 x red onion
2 x cloves garlic
1/2 organic stock cube with 1 litre of water
1/2 teasp paprika
1/2 teasp chilli powder (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Remove seeds from the red pepper and wrap in tin foil, place in the middle of the oven and roast for 45 minutes.
While pepper is roasting, slice and dice the red onion.
Grate the 2 cloves of garlic.
Peel and dice sweet potato
Wash and chop celery.
In a large pot, heat olive oil on a medium heat and add onion, garlic and celery. Sauté for a few minutes stirring frequently.
Add sweet potato, stock cube along with paprika, chilli, salt and pepper. bring to the boil then simmer until sweet potato is soft.
Remove the red pepper from oven and once cool, peel the skin. The skin should ideally be quite easy to remove, if its not you may need to roast it for longer.
Slice or chop the red pepper before you add to the sweet potato pot.
Blitz with a hand blender and enjoy!

PS Sweet Potato and Chickpea Rolls and Black Bean And Vegetable Patties