Beany soup with roasted garlic

Roasted garlic is the food of the gods. It's so easy to prepare and gives whatever it touches a sweeter edge.

To roast a whole head of garlic, first of all peel off the outer flaky part (leave the cloves in their skins).

Run a knife across the top of the head so that the top of each clove is exposed.

Make a little bowl out of aluminium foil and put the prepared garlic head into it. Pour 1 tsp of olive oil over the top, seal up the top of the foil and bake at gas mark 5/190C/375F for 20-30 minutes.

Take it out of the oven once the cloves are all squishy and leave it to cool. Once it's cooled squeeze the base of the garlic head and all the roasted smoky sweet sticky loveliness will come out ready to be scraped across toast, stirred into a soup, added to pasta, a million things.

So once you've got your roasted garlic, this soup is easy.

You need:

1 red onion

1 carrot, peeled and sliced

2 heads of roasted garlic

2 cans of your choice of beans (I used butter and kidney beans)

1 cup of passata (or 1 can chopped tomatoes at a pinch)

2/3 cup water

any veg that you've got lying around in the fridge (I had a few brussels sprouts)

Peel and slice the onion and put into a pan with a tbsp or so of olive oil. Brown the onion over a medium heat for a few minutes until softened, then add the sliced carrot. Continue to cook for a few more minutes until the carrot has softened slightly.

Add the cans of beans (with their water), then add the passata and the water. There are no herbs in this recipe because the garlic flavour is so mild you don't want to overpower it.

Leave everything to simmer for 8-10 minutes, taste, and season with salt and pepper.

During this time you could also add any veg that needs using up, I sliced up some brussels sprouts that were asking to be used and threw them towards the end.

Squeeze all your roasted garlic out of it's skin and stir into the soup at the last minute.

Eat with some crusty bread to mop up the juice.