You can’t beat a thick soup on a cold winter’s day. In this vegetable soup use whatever you can find in your vegetable drawer and add fennel to give it a nice tang and cumin to add extra warmth. The mixture of different coloured vegetables adds a great selection of vitamins, minerals and fibre to your diet.

Here’s a good tip: If you like a thick, smooth soup puree it all in a blender; if not, puree half the soup and add it back to the pan to make a lumpy but thick soup.

Hearty Winter Vegetable Soup

Serves 2

Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

1 onion

1 stick celery

1 clove garlic

1bsp olive oil

1 carrot

1 medium potato

Other vegetables of choice (in the picture I used a small chunk of aubergine, a small chunk of fennel and a parsnip)

1 stock cube ( I use chicken stock as I am not vegetarian, but vegetable stock is good too)

1 tsp cumin

Mixed herbs

Method

Chop the onion and celery finely, crush the garlic and fry all of them together in a saucepan in the olive oil until soft.

Dice up the other vegetables into small chunks, add to the pan with the stock cube, the herbs and the cumin.

Cover with boiling water and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Sample one piece of each kind of vegetable you have used to check if it is done.