Root vegetable and wild garlic soup

We love soup! It is one of the best ways of using whatever vegetables you have available. Our community food worker, Zoe made this dish with the old root vegetables that had been lying around for a few weeks in her fridge. Wild garlic is in season at the moment, normally found growing in woods, or near rivers or streams – if you get a chance on your daily walk, this could be a fun one to try and hunt for. Wild garlic is in the form of thick green leaves – as displayed in the soup on this photo. If you can’t find it though, feel free to adapt this recipe (which we expect you to do anyway!) by using any other greens such as spinach or fresh parsley, and add in a couple of cloves of crushed garlic instead at the same time as the fresh ginger.

Would go well with these http://healthylivingplatform.org/project/onleys-soda-water-bread-rolls

Ingredients

• 900g of a mix of any root veg (we used 4 parsnips, 2 carrots and half a swede, but sweet or white potatoes, jerusalem artichoke etc would work)
• 1 onion (red or white), or if you don’t have a stick of celery or leek also work well
• 1 tin of any white beans (such as butterbeans or cannelini beans, or if chickpeas also work well)
• 80g of wild garlic (or alternatively 3 garlic cloves and some fresh greens or other herbs if you have, such as spinach, parsley etc)
• Thumb size piece of ginger
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tablespoons of lemon or lime juice or to taste (we prefer lemon)
• 2 teaspoons of vegetable stock powder (or if not available try marmite or miso paste or leave out altogether and add more fresh herbs and lemon juice)
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 litre of hot water
• 2 tablespoons other any random herbs you might have lying around or in your garden such as fresh fresh, rosemary, thyme, taragon etc (go on – experiment!).

Instructions

1. Place the oil in a medium/large saucepan over a low heat. Roughly chop the onion and add this. Peel and grate the ginger and add this. If you don’t have wild garlic at this stage you can add your cloves of crushed garlic or garlic paste.

2. Whilst the onion is cooking chop all your root veg into small similar sized pieces (about 2cm is good, but it doesn’t matter too much).

3. Add your root vegetables to the pan.

4. Chop any woody herbs you have such as sage, rosemary or thyme and add this to the pan.

5. Add your vegetable stock or marmite if using. Drain your beans and add this to the pot alongside 1 litre of hot water. Season with salt and pepper and cook for about 20 minutes – until the vegetables are soft and break fairly easily.

6. Finely chop the wild garlic, parsley, or spinach – whichever you have available, add this to your pot alongside the lemon or lime juice. Cook for a further minute.

7. Remove from the heat. Either leave chunky or blend in a freestanding blender or with a hand blender.