Category Archives: Soups

Best everyday vegetable soup

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I must make soup at least once a week and there are so many reasons for this.  Warming and nourishing, a great way to use up vegetables (particularly sad or slightly bendy ones), get your five a day in one go, disguise vegetables for those less keen, good for you, super cheap and of course absolutely delicious.  Whilst I make many variations on vegetable soup, what follows is my blueprint.

A couple of leeks and carrots is where it starts but you can add so many other things thereafter.  If I have some butternut hanging around then a few chunks of that, peeled, will go in.  A lonely courgette or a few florets of broccoli will also find a happy home.  I nearly always add some red lentils, a superb way to add to the already fibre rich soup and they yield such a velvety texture.  Half a bunch of parsley languishing in the fridge will go into the pot rather than the compost and a teaspoon of curry powder will certainly be added if there is a parsnip in the mix.

The resulting soup will go off in packed lunches and I will thoroughly look forward to my bowl when I stop for lunch.  Any extra (what?) can be frozen for another day.

If you are feeling flash add a swirl of cream or a handful of croutons when serving.  This is very simple and possibly rather old fashioned but it is an absolute winner too.

Everyday soup

Once blended taste for seasoning, depending on your stock you may need a touch of salt.  I sometimes add a splash of milk or indeed cream when whizzing to add a touch of richness, particularly if I have a scrap of cream (or creme fraîche) that needs using up. A splash of sherry just before adding the stock is only ever a good thing if you have a bottle to hand.

A tablespoon of oil

A small knob of butter

2 leeks, finely sliced

2 carrots, peeled and chopped fairly small

100g red lentils

1 litre vegetable stock (chicken stock is fine if that is all you have)

A few sprigs of parsley if you have them

Melt the butter with the oil in a medium size pan.  Add the leeks and soften for a few minutes before adding the carrots and the lentils.  Stir into the oil and then add the stock. Simmer for about 15 minutes until the carrots are soft and the lentils breaking down.  Add the parsley and whizz with a hand held blender then taste and season if necessary.  This is enough for 2 very hungry people or three on a normal day but is easily doubled or trebled.

The picture above is before blending, the picture below is after.

 

Soup and pudding

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Much as I love the indulgences of Christmas I also relish the clean new page of January and the opportunity it presents.  In December we are encouraged to tuck in.  Have whipped cream on that!  Would you like gingerbread syrup?  Brandy butter and cream with your minced pie?  Why not it’s Christmas.  So it goes on….  Then suddenly, on the first of January it’s all about kale, steamed vegetables, cutting out food groups, veganuary.  It all feels a bit bonkers, the change from the rich sparkly food filled photographs of December to the austere, vegetable dotted ones of January.

I’ve mentioned in previous January posts that whilst it’s not for me to tell anyone what to eat I am happy to provide the sort of recipes that will help with the reset.   Although that fresh clean page of the New Year encourages good, healthy eating I am still greedy.  I want to get excited about food, love the look it and love the taste even more.  January tends to be cold and often rather grey, we need a lift and food is such an easy and satisfying place to get it.

Not the time for leafy salads, now is for crunchy numbers full of the root vegetables that relish the cold.  That they tend to grow locally is of course a bonus.  I had a celeriac lurking in the fridge that had arrived before Christmas.  Yesterday I made half into a soup along with a couple of sad, beginning to sprout potatoes, a leek plus half a bag of rocket.  The other half I grated and made into celericac remoulade (January 2016).  Some slightly bendy parsnips, carrots and beetroots were roasted back into deliciousness.  The result was enough for two lunches plus a packed one and I was relieved to avoid the guilt felt if anything has to the compost having been found at the back of the fridge past its best.   Fridge clearing at its best.

My advice would be to go large on the veg – soup is the number one superstar for using up various vegetables as well as being extremely good for us.  Put soup into the search bar at the top of this page, there are lots of different, easy soups you could rustle up. Vegetable based soups are cheap too which is a bonus at this time of year.  Easily zhuzzed up into a Saturday lunch with some really good bread, homemade focaccia (May 2014) or soda bread (December 2018) if you want to along with a crunchy salad makes this a feast rather than a sad offering.  If you still have some Christmas cheese looking less than tempting, transform it into cheese and chive scones (October 2014) or my Cheese bread (December 2014).

When it is particularly cold outside a pudding always seems essential to me.  There are two routes you can take here – something, clean and refreshing to reinforce your good intentions such as the granita shown at the top of this post.  The gloriously coloured blood orange granita is of course a seasonal treat (February 2013) but the golden one behind it is an iced tea granita (July 2013) and who doesn’t have a teabag in the cupboard?  Light and palate cleansing yet sweet and fruity enough to be a treat.  Alternatively choose the nursery pudding route to warm yourself up from the inside.  You will find lots of such puddings in the recipes here, this weekend we had a big baked golden syrup sponge – along the lines of the raspberry larder pudding (March 2015) but using half a tin of golden syrup in place of the raspberries and raspberry jam.  Yes it was rich, sweet and super indulgent but it was also extremely good and provided the necessary ballast for the weather along with lifting the spirits.

Easy tomato soup with herby garlic oil

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I always feel terrible about throwing any food away that I have let slip the net and these days, more than ever.  If there was a time for using every last scrap then its now.  For instance, beetroot leaves that I always try and use but inevitably sometimes find their way to the chickens were chopped the minute I got back from the farm shop last week and sautéed with garlic and chilli. Extra delicious because we ate them rather than our feathery friends.

We can no longer pick a recipe and then go and buy exactly what’s required, rather we have to look at what we have and cook accordingly.  I quite like this challenge so do let me know if you need any ideas.

This was lunch yesterday rustled up from mainly store cupboard ingredients, without using too much of our fresh supplies, very easy, cheap and was properly delicious.   Making the herby oil was just a way of using some of the wild garlic that is around at the moment.  I realise not everyone has access to this so if you have some soft herbs or rocket in the fridge that need using up these will make a wonderful, deep green oil full of flavour which is fabulous with the tomato soup.

Don’t worry if you don’t have any of the red lentils I use to thicken the soup – a handful of rice or a large peeled and chopped potato added instead of the lentils will break down and once blended do a fine job of thickening your soup.   I suspect we will be having this more than once, next time I might add some dried chillies instead of the oregano.  Just use what you have.

Easy tomato soup with herby garlic oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

A good pinch of dried oregano (if you have some)

3 tablespoons dried red lentils (see intro)

1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes

Splash of white wine (if you have some and can spare it)

500ml vegetable stock

100ml milk

A handful of wild garlic or soft herbs/rocket that need using up

A clove of garlic if you aren’t using wild garlic

100ml olive oil

Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion gently until soft.  Add the garlic and the oregano if you are using it and stir.  Add the lentils followed by the wine if you are using it and the stock.  Let it simmer, covered, for about 20-30 minutes until the lentils have broken down.  Remove from the heat, add the milk and whizz with a hand held blender until smooth, taste (cautiously, it will be hot) and season.  Either serve immediately or reheat when required.   Blend the oil with the wild garlic or the herbs/rocket and garlic with a pinch of salt and swirl into the soup.  Serves 4.

Eat your (real) greens soup

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Green Soup

Everywhere I look right now I read about re-alkanising my probably too acid body, super powders, acai, cleansing (is that a euphemism?), optimum ph, powdered greens to add to my wheatgrass juice etc etc.  Now I am not knocking anyone who might want to add any of the above to their daily diet but in all honesty isn’t it easier, cheaper and just more real to eat vegetables.  Surely these are better in their fresh, honest and original state than any dried, powdered, vitamin added supplement?

As you see from these pages I try to cook seasonally and from scratch whilst still retaining a little fun and indulgence, balance being the spice of life and all that.  I know I should probably eat more fruit and I definitely could do with more fish in my diet but generally I reckon we do ok.  If I were to present my family with a glass each of coconut water or almond milk and ask them to add a sachet of revitalising, re-balancing green powder to it, well what do you think they would say?  I have a rough idea.

There are a million salads, juices, smoothies and soups doing the rounds but this soup is what I had for lunch today.  Broccoli, spring onions and spinach were languishing in the fridge, a plucky mint plant is soldiering on in the garden despite the rain and I was given a box of lemons yesterday.  I want to eat healthily but I also hate throwing away food.  This was the result.  I made a straightforward vegetable soup, the peas added a little sweetness to balance (!) the spinach, a spritz of lemon and fresh mint brought a hint of Spring to the party.  A dollop of Greek yogurt added a perfect richness whilst the seeds gave crunchy, tasty texture.

Clear your fridge and cleanse yourself at the same time.  Happy New Year!

Green Vegetable Soup

As I said, this is what I had in the fridge today.  Previous incarnations of this soup have included leeks, watercress, courgettes and chard.  All of these were probably looking a little past their best which is why they ended up in soup.  Use whatever you have. There is nothing to stop you buying the ingredients specifically for soup but isn’t it satisfying when these end up on your plate rather than the compost?

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 spring onions, finely chopped (use a regular onion if you don’t have any spring)

1 head of broccoli (approx 250g) chopped fairly small

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 large handful fresh spinach

1 cup of frozen peas (around 125g)

A few sprigs of mint

A few sprigs of parsley (if you have them)

750ml vegetable stock

Half a lemon

Greek yogurt to serve

Toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds

Heat the oil in a pan and gently soften the spring onion.  Add the broccoli (you want it chopped fairly small to you don’t have to simmer it for hours) and the stock and cook for around 5 minutes until the point of a knife goes into a piece easily.  Add the spinach and peas and cook for another 2 minutes, then add the mint and parsley if using.  Stir so these are wilted and then blend.  Serve with blob of yogurt, a good spritz of lemon and as many seeds as you like.  Enough for 4 with something else or 2 if that is all you are having.

 

 

 

 

Caldo Verde

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Caldo Verde_

The vegetables around at this time of year are pretty hard and tough, the rugby players of the vegetable world if you will.  Big bruisers able to withstand adverse conditions and not ones to wilt in the face of a little frost.  On first sight they may seem a little solid and unapproachable – think swedes, celeriac, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, cabbages and big, floury winter potatoes.  A world away, or certainly a few months, from frilly rocket, pea shoots and delicate herbs.

Whilst summer produce is immediately scoffable and obvious in its delights, some of these winter offerings need a little gentle encouragement, accessories of butter and cream and time so that they too can shine.  The transformation can be astonishing and it is these cosy, reassuring and restoring soups and gratins that we need during the cold months.  Necessary ballast.

Last night I made a gratin with sliced potatoes, a few matchsticks of leftover ham, broccoli and a thick blanket of cheese sauce.  Baked until the top was bubbling and blistered and the broccoli satisfyingly singed, it was absolutely perfect for the coldest night of the year so far.

This is, for me, dream food.  The sort I start thinking about fairly soon after breakfast as I take Tom for a brisk walk up the hill and one of the reasons I push myself on said walks – so I can have seconds.

This soup is just such a warming little number and has a second smack of satisfaction in its frugality.  Caldo Verde is a Portuguese soup rustled up when there wasn’t much on offer and is traditionally just cabbage, potatoes and water with a little garlic.  I’ve taken a liberty by using lovely seasonal kale instead of cabbage and whilst I do add chorizo I stop myself there.  Tempting though it is to use stock rather than water or to add an onion or some herbs, such tinkering would be too great a departure from the original.

I urge you to try this, it makes a fabulous lunch followed by a good hunk of cheese.  Just don’t do what I did which was to burn my mouth in my speedy greed to taste it.

Caldo Verde 2

Caldo Verde

4 tablespoons good olive oil

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

750g floury potatoes, diced (I don’t bother peeling them)

150g kale or Cavolo Nero, tear it up and remove big hard stalks

150g chorizo, sliced

Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a large pan, add the garlic and then heat gently.  Once the garlic is dancing around the pan but not coloured add the potatoes and a teaspoon of salt, stir and cook for 5 minutes.  Add 1.2 litres of water and simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.  Mash about a 1/3 of the potatoes against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon so they break down a bit.  Add the kale and simmer for five minutes.  Meanwhile heat the remaining oil in a pan and fry the chorizo for a couple of minutes then add this to the potatoes and kale along with the fabulous orange oil.  Taste (cautiously) and adjust the seasoning if necessary then serve.  Enough for 4.

 

Pea Soup with Cheese and Chive Scones

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Pea Soup and Cheese Scones

I love a bit of thrift, nothing more satisfying than using up bits and pieces that might otherwise find their way into the bin.   So it was with my pea soup here.  We had a baked ham for supper and whilst there wasn’t enough to make another supper for four there was a small chunk left plus the water I cooked it in.  I always intend to use this liquor for some useful purpose but must confess it often sits in the pan on the back of the hob until it has to be thrown away.  Today I was determined however and with the addition of a bag of frozen peas and a couple of spring onions sautéed in butter it has made a delicious soup, just the warming ticket for a breezy day.   You could add a swirl of cream, something I rarely turn down with soup, but here I’ve used a few little bits of the leftover ham.

Wanting to jazz this frugal lunch up a bit, but not wanting to go shopping I decided to make some scones.  There is always flour and cheese around and I happened to have bought some buttermilk the other day to make a cake with.  I split my usual scone recipe between cheese and chive to go with the soup and the other half sweet, sugar topped ones to greet the children with when they get back from school this afternoon.  The left over cheese scones will be filled with the last of the ham for their packed lunches tomorrow.  I hope this doesn’t sound hideously smug but – hurrah, everything used up and stretched further than I had anticipated.  Good stuff.

Pea Soup

This is barely a recipe however,  I sautéed two chopped spring onions in a teaspoonful of butter until soft then added a 400g bag of frozen peas.  I added a litre of the leftover ham poaching liquor and heated until the peas were just cooked.  Whizzed with a hand held blender until smooth and served with some chopped ham.

Buttermilk Scones

I often have a carton of buttermilk in the fridge, it has a great shelf life and works a treat in many bakes or, of course, soda bread (Seedy Soda Bread, April 2013).  The recipe that follows is my usual (sweet) scone one.  As mentioned I split the recipe and added 60g of grated strong cheddar and a small bunch of chopped chives to one half.  To the other I added 40g golden caster sugar.  Both I brushed with milk before baking and sprinkled a little more sugar over the sweet ones.

450g self raising flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

100g cold butter

85g caster sugar

1 carton buttermilk ( they are either 284 or 250ml, if the latter you may need an extra splash of milk)

Preheat the oven to 200.  Sift the flour and salt together and rub the butter into it until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Then add the sugar and buttermilk and mix together until it just holds as a dough but don’t handle it more than you have to.  Form into a round and pat or roll out until about one inch thick.  Cut out and put onto a floured baking sheet, brush with milk if you want and scatter over a little extra sugar.  Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden and well risen.

 

 

Kale, Lentil and Bacon soup

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Kale and Lentil soup

Don’t call me a swot but I just love vegetables.  More so than fruit I think and this time of year brings an amazing vibrant selection.  Beautiful and delicious, pretty as a picture and so good to eat.  My vegetable garden is coming to the end of its growing season and just has a few courgettes and late runner beans on offer, but no matter, my wonderful farm shop down the road (Washingpool Farm Shop, near Bridport) is full of earthy seasonal treasures.

So far this week we’ve had Celeriac and Spinach soup, Beetroot and Parsley soup with a little horseradish cream and Cauliflower Cheese.   Ahh, Cauliflower Cheese, shockingly overcooked and watery at school but a thing of pure delight when done well.  Whether you go for a proper béchamel with cheese or the quick creme fraiche with grated cheese route, I love this supper.

IMG_1702

Looking back at what we were eating last time it was chilly I found the Late Autumn Salad (November 2012) with earthy roast beetroot and salty crumbly feta.  Another favourite is the Kale, Mushrooms and Chilli on Sourdough Toast, pictured above  (January 2013) which is not only delicious but feels so full of goodness.  To go with a cup of tea you can’t beat Patrick’s Plum Cake (October 2012) squidgy and delicious with almonds and plums.

What I am looking forward to now is Plum Crumble, hot juicy tangy plums with a sweet crunchy blanket of crumble on top, the purple juices seeping up making it sticky and chewy.  Or celeriac remoulade, at once both crunchy and creamy with some lovely air dried Dorset ham – what could be better on a crisp sunny day with perhaps a glass of cold cider on the side…..  Or maybe this Kale, Lentil and Bacon soup.

A super cosy, warming yet fresh and healthy soup if ever there was one. Earthy lentils, verdant good for you kale and a little salty hit of bacon.  So good.  As ever, I feel a splash of dry sherry enhances a veg based soup but it is up to you.  A really cracking result depends on a good stock,  I don’t always make my own (I know, I know) but ensure I buy a top quality one.  I used chicken stock here but you could use a vegetarian one, omit the bacon and make this vegan should you so wish.

Kale, Lentil and Bacon Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 rashers streaky bacon, chopped

100g puy lentils

1 litre stock, chicken or vegetable (see introduction)

A splash of dry sherry

A few sprigs of thyme, leaves picked

100g kale, chopped

Cook the bacon and onion in the oil until soft.  Add the lentils, give it a good stir then add the sherry.  Let it sizzle briefly, pour in the stock and cook until the lentils are just about done.  Stir in the kale and thyme and cook for a minute or two until the kale is wilted.  Serve with some good crusty bread.  Enough for 3-4 depending if there is anything else for lunch.

Time for soup

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Soup, soup, soup.  Funny how it never crops up much on our summer menu.  The odd gazpacho if it is really hot outside (rarely) or a chilled courgette soup if the glut is overwhelming (it wasn’t this year).  Generally though it is when the days cool that I want soup.  I love soup – not only is it warming and cosy, but as it is often vegetable based it reassures you that it is doing you good whilst giving you that warm hug.  Not to mention what a star it is when coming to use up vegetables you have too many of or those past their best and did I mention how cheap it is…

We eat a lot of soup for weekday lunches, partly as a fabulous quick warm healthy solution but also because for some maddening reason I can’t always sell the idea to my children.  Tomato soup fine, creamy onion soup fine but anything green or pulsey they just won’t love.  I keep on trying though.  Whenever we have a tapas, picnic sort of weekend lunch in the cooler months, I tend to rustle up some kind of soup.  Serve it to the children in little bowls with something yummy and crunchy to sprinkle on the top.  This way not only is the amount not too daunting but there are other things for lunch if it is really poorly received.  It seems to work this way but would be a different story I think if they were presented with a big bowl of soup and nothing else….

Red Lentil and Tomato Soup

1 onion chopped

1 tablespoon oil

2 cloves garlic chopped

Small thumb of ginger peeled and grated

Large pinch of chilli flakes

Large pinch sea salt

70g red lentils

1 can chopped tomatoes

500ml vegetable or chicken stock

50g creamed coconut

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/3 bunch coriander chopped (optional) I add for us, not for my children.

Soften the onion in the oil for a few minutes over a gentle heat, add the garlic, ginger, chilli and salt.  Stir, add the lentils, stir again and add the coconut, tomatoes, stock and sugar.  Simmer for 20 minutes or until the lentils are soft and have broken down.  Add the coriander if using and blend with a stick blender or in a liquidiser.  If you like you can serve the soup with a blob of yoghourt.

This is just fabulous to warm you up on a chilly blustery day.  Delicious, wholesome, cheap and made pretty much from store cupboard ingredients.  Extremely easy to make and you just know it is doing you good.  Increase the chilli if you like it spicy or omit if serving to very small children.