Soup. It seems like I consistently forget that it is both delicious and easy to make. And, it’s an excellent way to get creative with the abundance of beautiful root vegetables we have throughout the winter in Nova Scotia. AND… it freezes nicely, so I find it is cost-effective. What’s not to love?

On those comfy, cozy nights in Halifax when there’s snow/sleet/rain (or all of the above) pounding on the windows, I don’t want to go anywhere, sometimes, I don’t have ingredients in the house that are inspiring me, and so… I want an easy fix. Enter frozen soup.

Of course this one hadn’t been in the freezer long when we pulled it out a couple days ago (Chef had made it five days prior). He literally only used giant, beautiful parsnips we purchased at the Masstown Market, onion, garlic and water. And a bit of seasoning. No packaged stock was necessary. If you love the flavour of roasted parsnip, or parsnip purée, you won’t be able to get enough of this soup. It is the essence of parsnip.

I made a little selection of soup toppings, as you can see above. Homemade croutons from multigrain bread I purchased that day at Local Source Market (using just evoo, salt and pepper), chopped basil from Riverview Herbs, a tiny bit of our housemade roasted garic oil (a new staple for me over the past year), finely grated Gruyère, and a dollop of Greek yogurt. The soup is dairy free, but if you like to cream it up a bit, and not add fat… there’s plenty of naturally fat-free Greek yogurts available out there. I also added cracked pepper.

Soup really is a meal. In this case, it became a decadent meal. Toppings make it so versatile. There’s no reason to stock up on canned soup, which has so many preservatives and sodium. You can easily purchase affordable, local root veggies all winter, make a big pot of soup every few weeks, and freeze it into portions. That what we did. Now we have a curried carrot soup in the freezer and more of this parsnip soup. We’ve already done a celeriac soup (add truffle oil for a mind-blowing experience – see photos), and next on my list is beet!