Beetroot Soup

Having spent a day taking 90 year old Grandmother Christmas shopping, I am more than happy to tell about Beetroot Soup, without the jingly bells and the children, not laughing all the way, but screaming in a quite unnecessary manner!
OK, firstly you need to know that soup is easy- no measurements we really need to worry about, you can taste it all the way through and it is actually healthy and tastes good.
Apart from a pan and a knife you will need a food processor or blender. We use a stick blender- they would be available from John Lewis, Lakeland Plastics etc. You may also need a sieve.
Ingredients. Approx
2 Carrots
2 Onions
3 sticks celery
1 leek
10 raw small beetroot 5 big beetroot
2 pints vegetable stock
2 potatoes
third of a block of butter or a couple of tablespoons of oil
big handful of flour.

Peel carrots, onions, and chop. Chop celery and leek- making sure dirt is all washed off. You're blending the soup, so as long as all the bits are roughly similar sizes it doesn't matter if they are a bit bulky.
In a large pan, melt the butter, or heat the oil, and when it is hot, add the chopped veg. While that is cooking- keep an eye, stir occasionally, the veg should start to turn brownish- top and tail the beetroot, and peel it. This may turn your hands a weird brown colour, but it will only last an evening. Add the beetroot to the veg in the pan. Stir. The veg should be starting to soften. The onions will be translucent. Everything will be pink. Throw in a handful of flour. This will help thicken and sop up any spare butter/oil. Stir so everything is coated and it all likes like a nuclear accident. Dulux will be proud.
Add your stock and stir. Do not panic if it has caught on the bottom. Just stir it. Any catches will add to the depth of colour and taste.
Peel the potatoes, chop them and throw them in to the pot after the soup has boiled. It should have deepened in colour.
Taste it. It will be stocky, and quite light. Don't change it yet. This is no where near the finished thing.Turn the heat to a good rolling boil. Cook for a good half hour- longer if you want.If it starts to reduce too quickly add more water- no more stock- and turn the heat down a little. Taste it.

If the beetroot is cooked, test with a fork, then blitz it with the blender. Taste it again.
This is where you need to think. Add a bit of salt. Taste it again. Just a touch of salt will make an amazing difference, add black pepper, then sieve a little bit and taste that. Sieving will lighten, sometimes intensify and sometimes loose the flavours. Try it. If it's too thick add cream, or milk to thin it- back to nuclear soup, if it is too thin, put it back on the boil, mix 2oz flour with 2oz butter and whisk it into the soup. Whisk until your wrist hurts and all the lumps have gone. Boil and it will be shiny and thick.

That's soup. Easy isn't it? With the veg you can add garlic, caraway seeds, cumin seeds or even orange peel, add the juice with the stock. Play with the tastes. You'll learn the different tastes, before and after salt, before and after sieving.
Most of our soups start the same as this, and then we just play with the main ingredients.
Hope you have a lovely time making this- any problems give me a shout.