Winter Vegetable Soup

I am a fan of the TV Show “Frasier”. Is anyone else?  I know it’s a bit old now, but the jokes are great and Frasier is, as Ros pointed out, “loveably pompous”.

Anyway… there is an episode where Frasier is seriously out of the dating pool and decides to leave a night out with his family to return home to a cat and a Hearty Winter Vegetable Soup.   As it dipped below freezing in London yesterday, that scene popped into my head and I was determined to have a nice winter vegetable soup.  And, as I had a particularly busy day, it needed to be all shoved in the Crockpot so I could come home to a nice warm soup.

As you can see I made up this recipe using the 2-2-2 base for a soup: that any soup will be fine if you have a 2:2:2 ratio of carrot, celery and onion or leek. It is a classic tip.

I hope you like it!

Slow-Cooker Winter Vegetable Soup

• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 leeks, chopped (just the pale green and white bit)
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 200g butternut squash
• 1/2 head of white cabbage, chopped
• 1 tbsp dill
• juice 1/2 a lemon
• 4 chopped mint leaves (about 1/2 tsp dried mint)
• 2 tsp chili flakes
• 8 cups vegetable stock
• any additional water to cover vegetables (depends on how wide your slow cooker is)

Combine everything in a slow cooker, and set on low for 8 hours.

Hope it keeps you warm, wherever you are!  I would love any comments or ideas to tweak the recipe – recipes are made to evolve 🙂