Here is an easy-to-make soup that is chunky enough to feel filling. It is a little spicy, but I think that is sometimes necessary on cold winter nights. I served it with a roast kumara, feta and rocket salad and some hot toast. I think the terms tomato or vegetable would be misleading to describe this soup, so I settled on the ambiguous rouge… This serves four when it is accompanied, but only two if you wanted massive bowls. NB this does have pumpkin in it, but don’t worry, it is not like yet-another-insipid-creamy-pumpkin-soup which seems to appear everywhere these days.

Ingredients:
1 large raw carrot, grated
3/4 cup of raw grated pumpkin (remove the skin, obviously)
1 onion, diced
1 can of whole tomatoes
250ml boiling water
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4tsp chilli powder
1/4tsp ground coriander
1/4tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp vegetable stock powder
Olive oil
2-3 cloves of roast garlic, peeled (I roasted these while I was roasting the kumara for the salad)

Gently fry the grated carrot, pumpkin and onion in a little olive oil, along with the spices and cloves of garlic. Once the vegetables have softened a little, add in the canned tomatoes and their juice. Pour in the boiling water and add the vegetable stock powder and stir to combine. Allow the soup to simmer away for around 5 to 10 minutes and then blend with a stick blender (the kind that you can make smoothies with and looks like an upside down white ice-cream scoop). I don’t blend mine too much, as it is nice to have a bite of texture in the soup. Season with salt and pepper.