Soups are a quick and easy mid-week meal served with a slice of fresh artisan bread. This roasted beetroot and fennel soup is full of flavour and so easy to prepare!
Makes 1 litre of soup.

Ingredients:

• 5 large beets
• 1 large fennel bulb including stalks
• 1 onion
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• Olive oil
• Salt & pepper to taste

For serving:
• Sour cream

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200C. Peel and cut the beets into pieces, and place on an oven tray. Drizzle with olive oil, and add salt and pepper to taste. Place the tray in the oven to roast the beets.

Roughly chop the fennel, keeping some sprigs for garnish later.
After roasting the beets for about 45 minutes, add the fennel to the tray and continue roasting. After 15-20 minutes the fennel will start browning, and the beets will be ready too.
Chop the onion and sauté it in olive oil on low to medium heat. Use a pot large enough for the soup. Add the cumin seeds, and stir regularly to prevent burning. Once the onion is glazed, set aside.

Take the beets and fennel out of the oven, and place in your OmniBlend blender jug. Add the onion, cumin and 1 cup of stock (or just water, adding the sachets of stock later, if not using homemade stock). If using stock, make sure it’s cold or lukewarm. Blending hot liquids can be risky as the vacuum the power creates in combination with the heat, can push the lid off. So rather leave the stock to cool down before blending.

Add the lid, and start blending on low speed, increasing to high, for 90 seconds or more if desired.

Return the soup to the pot, add the other cup of stock, and heat up.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of fennel. Enjoy!