Beetroot and Tomato Soup — Grow Batheaston - Creating A Sustainable Way Of Local Life

As the leaves are starting to fall and the smell of autumn is in the air, it inspires me to get my soup pan out. A steaming pan of vegetable soup that I eat for lunch or ladle into recycled takeaway boxes for the freezer. So easy to grab a box in the morning to take to work.

One of my favourite soups that warms me up no end is Beetroot and tomato. It’s taken me many years to really like beetroot. When I was a child I only every saw it pickled served up with fish on Fridays or with Boxing day buffets.

This year I tried growing beetroot, the first lot were enjoyed by the slugs. So, I started a second batch, multi-sowing them in modules. This means you can sow up to four seeds and when they are big enough to plant out you just transplant the whole module, the beetroot grows out from the centre, so they have plenty of room to expand. Whilst this did mean that I had less slug damage to these older plants, I only got a few big enough to roast. Think I didn’t water them enough!

So, armed with a bunch of beetroot from the local veg shop, I started on my soup.

· 50g butter or no-dairy alternative

· 4-6 beetroot

· 1 large red onion or 2 small ones

· 1 red chilli

· 1 large clove garlic

· Tin of chopped tomatoes

· 1 teaspoon ground cumin

· 500ml of hot vegetable stock

· Sour cream and chive dip.

Probably best to wear gloves if you don’t want to get pink stained hands!

1. Wash your beetroot and remove the root and stems. I find it easiest to use the grater function on my food processer to chop up all the veg, but you can manually chop them up, bright pink hands!

2. Chop up the onion and garlic. Deseed and chop your chilli.

3. Melt the butter or oil in the pan and sauté your chopped vegetables for 5-10 minutes.

4. Add the tin of tomatoes and the cumin, stirring into your chopped vegetables.

5. Make up your stock and add that to the pan. I prefer this as a thick soup, but if you prefer it thinner then add more stock.

6. Simmer for 20mins with a lid on the pan. The bigger the chopped veg the longer it will take, that’s why grating them is good. Just test how tender the veg is using a knife and if you think it needs longer give it another 5-10mins simmering time.

7. Take your pan off the heat and liquidise, ideally using a stick blender. Just make sure you have an apron on to avoid covering yourself in the bright pink elixir.

8. Pour the soup into a bowl and add a dollop of your sour cream.

9. Don’t forget, all the peelings from the veg can go into the compost

Variations on the theme:

There are some other ways that I like to eat beetroot, roasted with a little sweet blackcurrant vinegar (a recipe for another day) or balsamic vinegar would do. Also, the cook, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall does a lovely beetroot tarte tartin (https://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/beetroot-tart-tatin) with a shallot dressing. It sounds a bit odd to have a tart with beetroot, but it really is delicious.

Coming soon: Soup – part 2, parsnip and apple, yum.

Soup Part One - Beetroot and Tomato

Variations on the theme: