Warming red beet soup with horseradish

This soup looks so amazing, don´t you think?!? It also tastes amazing…so soothing, warming and energizing! Too bad pumpkin season is long over here, I miss the pumpkins dearly 😦

To make the soup, first sautee some sliced onion in a pot with a small amount of sesame oil and a pinch of salt. Add chopped up carrot, hokkaido pumpkin, parsley root, red beet and a small piece of apple – you have to play with the ratios and each time you will end up with a different soup depending on which vegetable you decide to emphasize! 😀 Sautee together for a while, add a bit more salt and cover with hot water so that all the veggies are submerged. At this point you can add bayleaf, allspice and whole cloves (adds great depth of flavour). Boil slowly with a lid on for 15-20 minutes until the vegetables become soft. Season with ume plum vinegar. Blend the soup in a blender or use an immersion blender (I think that´s the easier way to puree soups, because you don´t need to transfer it anywhere!).  Don´t forget to take out the spices before blending…After blending, let the soup simmer for a while longer and then turn off the flame and mix in some finely grated horseradish – the amount depends on how spicy you want your soup to be… You can still season the soup with some lemon juice and add a nice green garnish, such as chopped fresh parsley.

Macro Borshch

This is a twist on the traditional Russian soup called “borshch” which is usually heavy on cream and meat and potatoes, but here you have a lighter macro version which still comes quite close and is very satisfying on a cold autumn day 🙂

Sautee some diced onion and finely chopped garlic on a bit of oil with a pinch of salt, until soft. Add similar-sized cubes of carrot, parsnip, parsley root, celery root and red beet and sautee for a while longer until the veggies get shiny. Then add hot water according to how many bowls you will need in the end. Sprinkle in some dried marjoram, caraway seeds, smoked paprika powder and add also a bayleaf or two. Cook the soup until the red beet is soft enough – it´s the vegetable that will take longest. Adjust taste using tamari and/or salt for saltiness and lemon juice and/or vinegar of choice (I had apple cider vinegar) for a sour taste.

I had the soup with some vegetable pancakes but I can imagine it would taste great with a big slice of sourdough bread!