Warming soup for rainy grey days. After I made this, the sun came out!

Soup for lunch can take a bit of planning. It’s not a-five-minutes-to-prepare kinda lunch, but it doesn’t take ages either. It’s worth the effort.

I either batch cook and make-ahead, in the evening, early morning or at the weekend, then re-heat as needed. Or, I’ll duck away from my desk late morning to do all the chopping and prepping, get it going, then leave it slowly blipping away until I swoop in with my stick blender just before we’re ready to eat.

This warmly spiced carrot soup is super simple and super cheap. It uses a handful of carrots, an onion, some garlic, spices and a tin of coconut milk. It would easily adapt to butternut squash or sweet potato, too.

I’ve added and served it with fresh coriander because I had some leftover from the Ramen. In fact, I’d only bought it as I knew I’d be using it ina few dishes across the week – Ramen-ish, vegetable chilli, and now soup.

The spices I’ve used are from Spice Pots. It’s actually a Tandoori Masala dry spice blend – a wonderful combination of coriander, cumin, chilli, fenugreek, ginger, cardamom and nutmeg. It worked really well with the sweet carrots and creamy coconut milk. The spices could easily be swapped out for a simple mild or medium curry powder or paste, or a combination of cumin and chilli just to give it some depth and a little kick.

Serves 4:

• 7 or so medium to large carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 onion, peeled and diced
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp Spice Pots Tandoori Masala dry spice blend
• Tin of full-fat coconut milk
• Oil
• Salt & pepper
• Fresh coriander
• Bread of your choice to serve

Sweat off the onions and garlic, then add the spices and the chopped, peeled carrots.

Cover with enough water to gently simmer, before adding a tin of coconut milk.

Continue cooking until the carrots are tender.

Then blend, adding more water to loosen, if needed.

Serve with some bread for a good dunk. Luckily I made some no-knead baguettes, again, yesterday.