Roasted Sweet Potato and Beet Soup

Alright, so the last of the veggies from my first Imperfect Foods box went into making a nice roasted root vegetable soup. Big difference... beets. That gave me an insanely red soup, but I like it.

I had the three beets and four sweet potatoes, and one regular red skin potato left, so I diced them all up and roasted them at 400F for almost an hour to really develop some color and flavor.
Meanwhile, I watched some Star Trek:Discovery, then sauteed some yellow onion, carrot, and garlic until nice and caramelized. I let those simmer in some chicken stock for about fifteen minutes while the root veggies cooled off so I could handle them.

The key here is to get a really really good color on the sweet potatoes, otherwise, no matter how much you boil or simmer them, it'll just taste like mashed sweet potato. The roasting is what really is the key here.

You do that by tossing them in some oil and a little salt. I did it right on the Sil-Pat, but if you wanted to do it in a bowl first, that would work too. I'm just not a fan of making dishes for the sake of making dishes. It takes less time to wash my hands.
Once everything is roasted or sauteed, get it in the pot and simmer it for at least 20 minutes to get the flavors to mesh. Yes, we're about to puree it, but it does so much more this way. Just trust me there.

Finally, beat this thing into submission. The veggies should be soft enough that you could just a wooden spoon if you're patient. I got out the immersion blender (or boat motor), you could use a blender if you wanted to, I have in the past for small batches. When it's done, the beets will give everything that deep red-purple color and it looks a little crazy, but absolutely delicious.

Want the recipe? Let me know and I'll post it up.