With winter upon us now, soups bubbling away on the stove are a quick save when ravenous kids come off the sports field after it’s already dark. So often, this is a pre-dinner meal in my house, and I love that everyone can help themselves to a ladle of soup while I get on with other chores.

Here’s what goes in

• 1 onion
• 300g of carrots
• 4 large sweet potatoes
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
• 500ml (2 cups) of vegetable stock
• 2 cups of water
• Salt, to season

How to do it

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C. Wash the carrots and then roast them with the butter and caraway seeds in a roasting dish until just tender. (This is more about flavour infusion than it is about cooking the carrots).

In the meantime, peel and quarter the sweet potatoes and the onion. In a large pot, boil these in salted water.

When your carrots are ready, add them to the pot, scraping all the caraway seeds into the pot as well. Add half the vegetable stock and continue to gently boil until all the veggies are soft enough to put through a food processor. Keep checking the liquid levels and add more stock or water if needed.

Once done, remove the soup from the heat and allow to cool. Pour the vegetables and all the liquid into a food processor and pulse until the soup is smooth and free of lumps. Depending on the size of your food processor, you may have to do this in batches. At this point you can add any remaining vegetable stock if you’d like to thin the soup out a bit. Season to taste and serve with a dash of fresh cream if desired.