Vegetable Soup with Toasted Seed Croutons

 

Soup is a wonderful comfort food – imagine a warm kitchen and a pot of rich, flavoursome soup after a walk in the cold – it doesn't get much better.

The good thing about this soup is that there's no definitive recipe – you can just use whatever vegetables you have hanging around and it's a good way to use up those vegetables that are perhaps a bit past their best. Another really good thing about soup is that unlike other liquid foods, it fills you up and keeps you filled up so it's satisfying too.

I used a small amount of potato in this recipe – it adds that extra bit of thickness which is desirable in a winter soup but doesn't add too many carbs. I don't peel the potato as most of the goodness is in the skin – just clean it and remove any 'eyes'.

If you have any leftover bacon fat, it makes a fabulous base for the soup.

This soup is really quick and easy to make so you can have a luscious bowl of soup in about an hour.

 

Ingredients

 

1 leek, trimmed, washed and chopped – use the green bits as well as the white

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

1 stick celery, chopped

2 medium-sized carrots, chopped

1 medium-sized potato, chopped

I  pepper – red or green, chopped

2 bay leaves

100g frozen peas

1l good quality stock – I use vegetable or chicken stock

1 handful fresh parsley, chopped

Sea salt and black pepper

2 tblsps olive oil, bacon fat or butter