Carrot soup

The other day my kids bought a big bag of beautiful carrots, complete with their green leafy bits, all contained in a lovely bag with a picture of the very farmer who had grown them and a little eulogy to the wonders of the English countryside and to the virtues of the large supermarket chain supplying us with these goodies. A week later, the carrots were still sitting in the bottom of the fridge looking almost as lovely as the day they had been bought, and I was beginning to feel guilty as I read about Farmer Roberts for the third time and imagined just how disappointed he would be with me if his carrots ended up in the bin. So I made this soup.


Ingredients
1 head of celery
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
750g carrots
500g potatoes
2 tsps cumin
2 tsps smoked paprika
1 tsp salt
1 glass white wine
2 tbsps tomato puree
1 litre of vegetable stock

Method

1. Wash the celery, separate into stalks and cut into thinnish slices. Peel and chop the garlic. Top and tail the carrots, peel if necessary, and cut into chunks. Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks.
2. In a large saucepan, gently fry the celery. When it is nearly done, add the garlic, fry for another minute, then add the cumin and paprika, and fry for 10 seconds or so.
3. Add the carrots, potatoes, salt, wine, puree and stock, bring to a boil, turn heat to minimum, cover and simmer gently for 40 minutes, until the carrot and potato pieces are nice and tender.
4. Allow soup to cool, then liquidise with a stick blender.