I know, the title Roasted Parsnip Soup doesn’t sound all that interesting or appetising!  Parsnips have to be my least favourite vegetable, no matter how they are cooked, I’m just not all that keen.  But in a soup, there’s a different proposition.

Once roasted with some onions, garlic, tomatoes and spices, drizzled in olive oil, then blended with vegetable stock (I make my own but use what you have available), the parsnips are transformed into a delicious, fragrant, creamy (but without using cream) soup.  Garnish with nuts, seeds, black pepper, cayenne (my favourite!) or “condiment” of your choice.

Roasted Parsnip Soup

Prep: 15 mins
Roasting Time: 35 mins
Serves:  4

Pre-heat your oven to 200C fan/gas 7

Ingredients

3-4 large Parsnips, peeled and diced
1 large red onion, quartered
2 large Plum Tomatoes, quartered
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp mustard seeds
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1.5 litres vegetable stock*

Method

In a large bowl, mix together some Olive oil (use as much as needed to completely coat your vegetable/spice mix, use a spoon, the Turmeric will turn your hands yellow) and all the ingredients except the vegetable stock.

Once combined, place the mixture into a roasting tin and roast for around 35 minutes or until everything is softened and tender.

Cool slightly, then spoon into a food processor with half the vegetable stock and process until smooth.  Add the other half of the stock and carefully blend until combined.  I use a Vitamix which can accommodate this amount but you can process in 2 smaller amounts for the same effect.

I popped mine in the fridge and used the next day, but if eating on the day just heat up to the desired temperature and serve with a crusty loaf.  Garnish as above.

*Add more stock if you prefer a more liquid soup, soup make thicken up if left in the fridge, adding more liquid does not alter the flavour.

This was simply delicious and now I can enjoy Parsnips instead of avoiding them, making them into a soup really does make them very palatable.

Nutritional Info:

Parsnips – They have high levels of potassium, folic acid, manganese, magnesium, phosphorous, zinc, and iron, in addition to being a good source of vitamins B, C, E, and K.

I’ve been dabbling with alternatives to the usual bread pizza base, mainly because I have been cutting down on the amount of bread type products I eat and although I am not gluten intolerant, food allergy tests flagged up yeast as a potential allergen for me.

The Cauliflower Crust has been around for a while, I’m not a huge fan of Cauliflower and in my list of favourite vegetables it comes way down, but we do try to include it in curries or with broccoli when making a Cauliflower cheese type side dish.

I have been using the most popular recipe, this one is from Eat Drink Smile, but just google Cauliflower Crust and pages of similar recipes will come up.  But I have seen other recipes out there and wanted to try a couple more for comparison.

They all start with ricing raw Cauliflower in a blender.

This one is our usual Cauliflower Crust for a pizza base.

The second is from a  recipe here from Anna Jones whose book A Modern Way to Eat is crammed full of deliciously healthy vegetarian recipes.

The third one is from Hemsley and Hemsley, the recipe can be found here.

First one:  As this has cheese in the base and is usually smothered with cheese on top, it’s not the low calorie choice, but it was firm enough to pick up a slice, very tasty and eaten by the 4 year old!

The second:  this Cauliflower Crust recipe is a little different to the first, this one doesn’t require pre-cooking the Cauliflower (I checked the recipe at least 3 times!) or add any cheeses and has oats and ground almonds included too which I found appealing.  It was less firm and more difficult to pick up but no less tasty.

The third: again with this recipe the Cauliflower doesn’t require pre-cooking, it has the addition of buckwheat flour which gave a lovely nutty flavour along with addition of ground almonds.  This one was firm enough to flip over in the oven to cook the underside and also to pick up by hand when eating.

Which do we prefer??  We actually enjoyed all 3, I think I will meld the recipes a little to make my own version.  I prefer to pre-steam the Cauliflower but I loved the addition of oats, buckwheat flour and almonds and we do like the cheese in the first which did firm the base up and for the girl the attraction of Pizza is eating it with her fingers!

Slosh on some homemade tomato sauce, a generous topping of grated Mozzarella, Mushrooms marinated in olive oil and whatever else takes your fancy and pop back in the oven for another 10 minutes until the cheese has melted.  Rustic and delicious too!

I will definitely be making a Cauliflower crust when making other dishes too, anything I would use as a bread base, even something simple like Mushrooms on “toast”, I can see this would work well.

Making these non-bread pizza crusts/bases has given me the impetus to try using other vegetables in place of cauliflower, I’m thinking sweet potato for one.  If you’ve tried any alternatives. do let me know!

Buon Appetito!