Vegetable soup

This is a pleasant home made dish for a cold day. I was living in Sweden, where the temperatures dip to -6 degrees in the winter. Inspite of the heating system, you still feel a little chill inside the buildings. And so I decided to make this simple soup which does most of the cooking on its own. Its quite a warm relish!

Ingredients :
Potato - 1 medium
Carrot - 3 medium
Leek - 1
Celery - 3 stalks
Celery leaves - a handful
Parsnip - 1
Onion - 1 small
Garlic - 1 clove
Vegetable stock - 1 cube
Water - 1 litre
Butter - 1 Tbsp heaped
Salt & Pepper - to taste

Clean the vegetables and peel potato, carrot and parsnip. Cut them into cubes.
Remove the root and green leaves of the leek. Cut the light greenish part into thin circular slices.
Slice the celery stalks into small strips.
Chop onion, garlic clove into small slices.

Warm water in a vessel. Add the vegetable stock cube, potato, carrot, parsnip, leek and garlic. Close vessel and keep at medium flame to boil. Stir in between. After about 45 mins, bring to a simmer. Sprinkle pepper. Its ready to serve after 10 mins.

In a pan, melt butter. Saute onion and celery. Sprinkle salt. Cook till they are slightly transparent.

To serve, spoon out the vegetable soup into a bowl . Top with the sauteed onion and celery and the fresh celery leaves.

mmm..