Curried Vegetable Soup

Curried Vegetable Soup

-2lbs. Assorted vegetables (such as onion, celery, garlic, carrot, eggplant, mushroom or whatever else you have hanging around, sweet potatoes are also a great addition!) chopped into uniform 2" pieces.

-Olive oil

-Cracked pepper

-Salt

-Curry powder

-Vegetable stock or water (stock will add more rich flavor)

-Hot sauce (optional)

-1 1/2 Cups grilled chicken, cubed or grilled shrimp (optional)

-Toppings: Greek yogurt, toasted pine nuts, chopped cilantro, roasted red pepper strips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss veggies in enough olive oil to coat (if using eggplant, use more, as it will absorb a lot!), and a generous amount of salt, pepper and curry powder. Personally, I toss ingredients together in a large heavy duty dutch oven, which cuts down on the amount of dishes used, as the dutch oven can be transported directly from the oven to the stove top. Roast veggies for 20-25 minutes in the oven, until flavors begin to meld, but veggies don't burn. Pull out of oven and transfer to stove top over medium heat. Add in stock or water to cover all veggies and bring to a low boil. Use a good sized wooden spoon to scrape off any "drippings" from the bottom of the pot- there's a TON of flavor in 'em! Adjust seasoning as needed, adding more curry, s & p or hot sauce, depending on your preference. At this point, I usually use an immersion blender to create a beautifully velvety texture, but if you prefer it chunky, leave it as is. A great aspect of blending the soup is that it creates a deceptively rich texture, and you can fool yourself into thinking it has some sort of cream base when it doesn't, sneaky! If using chicken, add in after blending. Allow the soup to sit and come together as long as possible (or as long as you can stand it!) to really get the most out of the final flavor. Top with Greek yogurt, roasted red pepper strips, toasted pine nuts, cilantro, extra curry or whatever suits your taste. Relax with a big ol' bowl, and watch the snow drift by.

This is also a great soup for freezing- since my husband is out to sea a fair amount, I usually make large freezer friendly dishes to portion out and freeze for later. I throw a good size portion of cooled soup into a freezer friendly zip bag, squeeze out the air and freeze. In the bags, they're easy to pull out as needed, are less likely to fall victim to freezer burn and take up less space than regular plastic containers.