Roasted Tomato, Capsicum & Fennel Soup with Spinach & White Beans

This soup is delicious, fragrant and filling and so simple to make! And it's an awesome way to add veggies and fibre to your daily diet

For convenience you can use tinned beans, but when I have time I love to soak my own beans overnight, cook them for an hour - and then to lower the glycemic impact I like to refrigerate them overnight. This increases the resistant starch content. You can read more about this HERE and HERE!

Ingredients

5 tomatoes, washed and cut into quarters
1 large fennel (or two small ones), washed peeled and cut into quarters
2 red capsicum, cored and seeds removed
2 onions, peeled and cut in half
i clove garlic with the top chopped off You don't have to use this much garlic, but I recommend you give it a try - roasted garlic has such a mild flavour.
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 x 400g tins of white beans (Cannellini, white kidney, etc), rinsed - or equivalent amount of dried beans that you have soaked overnight and then cooked for an hour.
2 cups stock or water*
100g baby spinach, washed
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

* Check out my step-by-step pics below! *

Line a baking tray with baking paper
Arrange tomatoes, fennel, capsicum, onion and garlic bulb on baking tray
Drizzle or spray with olive oil (I have an awesome oil spray bottle that I can pump full of air to produce a fine oil mist!)
Season *lightly* with a little salt and pepper.**
Roast in a pre-heated oven (150 degrees celsius) for at least one hour. Check after 30-40 minutes and turn if necessary. Keep a close eye on the capsicums. If the skins char and blacken, remove from oven, let cool and remove the skin. Lower the heat of the oven if you need to. All ovens are different so cooking time will vary. I usually cook mine for 90 minutes. We want the veggies to roast and caramelise but not to blacken.
When the tomatoes, onion, fennel, capsicum and garlic are nicely roasted, remove from baking tray and place into a high speed blender with 2 cups of stock or water. You will need to squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins, so let it cool down before you do this. They cloves will come If you have a high speed blender like a Vitamix, use the "Soup" setting. When the soup is blended, pour into a saucepan.
Alternatively, place your roasted tomatoes, fennel, onion, capsicum and squeezed-out garlic cloves in a saucepan with 2 cups of stock or water. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, then blend with a stick blender.
Stir in tinned or cooked white beans simmer for a further 10-15 minutes to heat the beans through.
Just before serving, stir in the baby spinach. Do it in batches. At first it will seem like a LOT of spinach, but it will cook down in no time.

Once the spinach has wilted into the soup, season with salt and pepper to taste, serve and enjoy!

* You can use whatever flavour of stock you like. But honestly, I find this soup is just as delicious if I make it with water. Just add a touch more seasoning.
** Be careful with your seasoning as the flavours in this soup will concentrate! Save your salt and pepper until just before you serve!