Red pepper, tomato and paprika soup

This soup tastes like chorizo! You can get a massive jar of roasted red peppers in Lidl (Aldi has a little jar of bits of roasted red pepper) and they are quite big. You can roast/grill some peppers yourself but that takes time and effort. If the red peppers from your jar are a bit on the small side put in another one coz the ones I used were massive.

Makes about 2 litres of soup (1.5 L when blending then I watered it down to 2).

• 1 onion, chopped
• a handful of chopped celery (I keep a bag of chopped celery in the freezer) or about 3 stalks
• 2 large carrots chopped,
• 5 garlic cloves, sliced
• 3 heaped tsp paprika
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 3 roasted red peppers from a jar, chopped
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
• a couple of stock cubes (not essential but add flavour)

Sweat the onions, carrots and celery (I added the celery first to defrost while chopping the carrots, added the carrots, chopped the onions and added them so the ingredients that needed more cooking were in for longer) together for about 5 mins. Add the garlic and cook for a further couple of mins (do not burn the garlic!) then stir in the paprika (off the heat coz it can burn very easily) and add the rest of the ingredients and a splash of water. Simmer for about 30 mins (use the carrots to judge when everything is cooked) then season to taste and blend. I'd say you could leave it chunky if you want. After blending you can add some water to make it the right consistency.