Celeriac, Celery & Sweet Potato Soup - Slow Cooked

Thank goodness I made this soup on Saturday. A friend came to stay from Berlin and we met up with some other friends from my Uni days and I'm afraid I had far too much to drink. We finished off a whole bottle of my homemade raspberry vodka before heading off to a restaurant and then to the pub. As a result, I have been feeling like the rough end of a rag-man's trumpet, with the whole of Sunday more or less a write off. 

I was in no fit state to cook so this very savoury soup was a saviour. I just had to warm it up and sip and feel sorry for myself.

Less about my foolish night of over-indulgence, and a bit more about my soup!

I got the ugly ol' celeriac in my Able & Cole vegetable box. In this weather, soup is a necessity so I never even considered making anything else with it.

I also had a couple of odd looking root vegetables which some G plussers helped me to identify as a type of sweet potato.

This recipe is loosely based on Delia Smith's celeriac soup recipe. I chose to slow cook the celeriac as it is quite a fibrous vegetable and so is celery, so slow cooking really helps to break down the "toughness" while retaining all the flavours.

This is such a simple and very effective soup recipe with only a handful of ingredients and you won't believe that so few ingredients can make such a tasty and hearty soup. Prepare in the morning and allow to cook all day while you go about your other jobs.

For this recipe, you will need a slow cooker or crock pot with at least 3 Litre capacity.

Slow Cooked Celeriac, Celery & Sweet Potato Soup
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:
1 x celeriac
1 x whole head of celery
2 x small sweet potatoes
3 bay leaves
1.5 litres of vegetable stock (Marigold)
Freshly ground pepper

Crème fraîche to serve

Method

• Peel and chop the sweet potato & celeriac into large chunks
• Chop the celery into 1 inch lengths
• Put all the veg into a large pan along with 3 bay leaves and a generous grind of pepper.
• Pour over the vegetable stock.
• Bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes.
• Pour everything, carefully, into the slow cooker or crock pot.
• Put on the lid and cook on "High" for 3 hours or "Medium" for 4 hours.
• Allow the soup to cool slightly before pureeing in batches. I used a food processor.
• At the point of serving, add a dollop of crème fraîche.

Have a spoonful of that.....ahhh....now you feel better :-)