Roasted Carrot and Parsnip Soup

I know it's not really soup season, but we had soup for dinner last night.  It was our meatless meal of the week, so I made a spinach and cheese quiche and had this soup with it.  I got the inspiration from a recipe I saw on Food.com, but made mine completely differently.  Here's how I made mine.


Roasted Carrot and Parsnip Soup


Ingredients:
1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut into ½” slices
1 lb. parsnips, peeled and cut into ½” slices
Olive oil
Salt
½ large onion, diced
3-4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
¼ tsp dried thyme


Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°.  Place carrots and parsnips on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt.  Roast in oven 30-40 minutes or until veggies are soft but not too brown.


Heat 1 tbsp oil in a soup pot.  Saute onion in oil until beginning to get soft.  Add roasted veggies, 3 cups stock, and thyme.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.  Turn heat off and puree using a stick blender or in batches using a regular blender, adding more stock if necessary to reach desired consistency.  


Makes 4 servings.

Pretty simple really.  And it's really tasty.  The carrots give it a nice sweetness while the parsnips give a hint of spicyness.  The recipe I saw used only half a pound of parsnips, but I decided to give the parsnips and carrots equal billing.  They are really good together.

Roasting the veggies gives the soup an added dimension of flavor.  Just make sure they don't get dark brown; it will give your soup a "burned" flavor and will make it an unappealing brown color.  (I know this from the last time I tried making soup out of roasted carrots.  That one didn't turn out so well!)

I really like pureed vegetable soups and am happy to add this one to my repertoire.