While my son was visiting, I ordered a plump chicken from one of the local farms and slow roasted it with butter and sage leaves from the herb patch stuffed under the skin. The remainder of the chicken was turned into sandwiches, the carcass into stock for future use, but I was still left with several portions of the root vegetables that I had cooked under the bird, in the pan juices.
Roasted root vegetable soup with some of the chicken stock seemed the obvious way to go and -- while I am a bit embarrassed to post such a simple recipe -- this did, as they say in the vernacular, go down a treat. This was a simple but rather elegant soup, especially admirable due to the fact that this is essentially leftovers. That being said, I liked it enough that I could see myself roasting a tray of veggies for the sole purpose of making this and you could zhuzh it up if you wanted to with a splash of sherry or a hint of curry powder.
2 cups roasted root vegetables (I used a mixture of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes and shallots that had been roasted with some thyme and rosemary)
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 Tbsp sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Blitz everything together in the blender until very smooth.
Heat until very hot.
I ate this with a slice of buttered dark pumpernickel and was very happy while doing so.