Good old Minestrone Soup

The winter storms are rolling and rolling across my increasingly sodden and wind lashed world.  In desperation, I turned to the Mediterranean for comfort, and to remind me that once there was a less harsh world!  By stroke of luck, I found a beautiful big bulb of fennel while I was grocery shopping which led to this lovely recipe.  As with all my recipes, this isn’t cast in stone – use what you have and leave out what you don’t!

For four good serves I used :

1 cup of chopped onion

1 bulb of fennel, diced

3 stalks of celery, chopped

1 large carrot, diced

½ medium swede (approximately one cup) (rutabaga)

2 finely chopped cloves of garlic

A good handful of chopped green beans (frozen works as well as fresh)

1 400g tin of Italian tomatoes

1 pint of vegetable stock (use Knorr stock pots if you can find them)

2tsp caraway seeds

Salt and pepper to taste

½ cup soup pasta (or broken macaroni, spaghetti etc)

Preparation is simple – peel and chop the onion and sauté in a little olive oil while you prepare the rest of the vegetables.  After about 10 minutes, add the garlic, fennel, celery, carrot and swede and sweat together for 10 more minutes.  Add the tin of tomatoes and the stock and give it all a good stir.  Season to taste and add the caraway seeds.  Give the soup 20 minutes simmering – until the vegetables are tender.  Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary (you might need several tastings, I did!) then add the soup pasta and cook for 10 more minutes.

Serve with lovely crusty bread, or slices of parmesan toast (toast a few slices of crusty bread, sprinkle with grated parmesan and grill until crispy and golden).

I apologise for the quality of photographs, the real ones are stuck on my SD card as my computer won’t recognise it!  I’ll update the blog post as soon as I can with the real ones!

I’d like to dedicate this recipe to my lovely Dad, who loved a good soup.  I wish I could have shared it with him.

Thick Country Vegetable Soup

It’s been growing increasingly autumnal here so I thought I’d treat us to a good thick vegetable soup.  I managed to pick up some nice soup mix from Sainsbury’s recently (a mixture of dried peas, lentils, beans and barley) which made a good hearty soup.

It’s difficult to give exact quantities, because much depends on appetite and how many serves you want.  Similarly, the actual ingredients can be varied to your own personal taste.  I bought as many different kinds of root vegetables as I could lay my hands on at the time!

For three or four serves I used :

1 medium leek

½ a medium swede (rutabaga)

1 large carrot

2 small turnips

2 ribs of celery

½ large celeriac (celery root)

1 large parsnip

100 g soup mix

Vegetable (or chicken) stock

Seasoning to taste

If you are going to use the soup mix, you will need to give it an overnight soak.  Then simply drain and cook according to the instructions.  Mine needed a good 10 minute boil and then 40 minutes rapid cooking.  I started cooking it while I prepared the root vegetables.

Halve the leek and then cut the halves into slices.  Peel and dice the swede, carrot, turnips, celeriac and parsnip.  Chop the celery ribs into rough pieces.

When the soup mix has had the required cooking time add the prepared vegetables to the pan and top up with boiling water if necessary.  Add the stock cube/pot/powder to the water and stir, season to taste with salt and pepper.  Cook the vegetables gently for 30 minutes or so (depending on size), until cooked through.

This was good on the first day, even better on the second.  Sadly, there wasn’t a third day!

Golden Turkey and Country Vegetable Soup

The beauty of cooking a giant turkey for Christmas is all the lovely leftovers you can look forward to in the weeks ahead!

We’re enjoying a lovely cold wintery spell here at the moment, we even had a brief fall of snow this morning ...... blink-and-you-missed-it brief, but snow nonetheless!  Perfect conditions for a spot of kitchen pottering and soup making.

This is one of those quick to cook soups, not a long slow cooking stew, gratification comes quickly!

For three serves I used :

1 small leek

2 small potatoes

2 baby turnips

1 large carrot

2 corn cobs

Appx 1 cup leftover cooked turkey (or chicken)

1  pint of chicken stock

1sachet of Philadelphia creamy peppercorn cooking sauce

Peel and dice the vegetables and sweat gently with a big knob of butter for 10 minutes or so.

Favourite cheats!

Add the chicken stock, the chunks of turkey/chicken and season with salt and pepper – go easy on the pepper because there’s pepper in the Philly sauce.

Simmer gently for 20 minutes and then add the Philly cooking sauce.  Bring back to a simmer and cook for a further 5 minutes for thereabouts.

Best served with good crusty bread on the side, on a bitterly cold day!

Chicken Tortilla Soup with Avocado Salsa

We first ate this soup when we were skiing at Beaver Creek several years ago.  It’s been hubby’s favourite ever since!  After tasting it again on our last holiday he asked me to make it for him.  This is my approximation of it.   

Instead of tortillas, I decided to lighten it by serving an avocado salsa with it.  There’s something about lime, avocado and coriander that always screams summer at me.  Probably because it takes me back to the ‘Delia Summer Collection Days’ of the early 90’s! 

For two of us, this was what I used : 

For the soup : 

1 tb olive oil

1 shallot

1 small clove of garlic

1 stick of celery

1 red chilli

1 bunch of coriander (stalks for the soup, leaves for the salsa)

1 green pepper

1 x 220g can of chopped tomatoes (1 cup)

1 x 220g can of red kidney beans (1 cup)

1 cup leftover cooked chicken

¼ tsp ground coriander

1 lime

¾ pint chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste 

For the salsa : 

½ small red chilli

The coriander leaves from above

The juice from ½ a lime

1 small avocado 

Finely chop the shallot, garlic, celery and coriander stalks and add to the pan containing 1tb of olive oil.  Add the ground coriander and sauté gently for 5 minutes. 

Rinse the kidney beans well and de-seed and chop the green pepper and red chilli. 

Add the tinned tomatoes, kidney beans, green pepper, red chilli, chicken stock and finally the cooked chicken (tear into bite sized chunks).  Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Simmer gently for half an hour. 

While the soup is simmering you can prepare the salsa.  Simply chop the coriander leaves and pop into a serving bowl.  De-seed and chop the small chilli (or half of a chilli depending on the size and how hot you like it to be) and add to the coriander leaves.  Peel and chop the avocado and add to the chilli and coriander leaves.  Finally, squeeze over the juice of half a lime. 

When the soup is cooked, to give it a delicious light zing squeeze in the juice of the lime and stir through the soup. 

Serve the soup with the salsa heaped in the middle for a lovely light contrast.

Chicken Soup

I feel faintly embarrassed giving a recipe for chicken soup, but this is such a tasty soup I thought it was a shame not to share it! 

I know I should make the stock myself, from the carcass; but I’ve never had any success with stock making and it’s been a complete waste of good vegetables and hours simmering on the hob.  Instead I use a good ready-made stock instead. 

I always make this with leftover chicken, and usually toss in the sticky wings too.  They impart a lovely flavour to the soup.  Just remember to fish out the bones before dishing up! 

The quantities below are what I used today, and this made four generous servings.  As always, it improves on keeping so could well be made today for tomorrow.

 

½ to 1oz butter

1 large potato

1 large stick celery

1 leek

1 carrot

¼ large swede

Quantity of leftover meat (I never weigh, just toss in generously!)

Salt and pepper to taste

Chicken stock (I use a Knorr chicken stock pot). 

Optional – ½ cup Orzo 

Wash and dice the stick of celery, peel and dice the carrot, swede and potato. 

Cut the leek in half lengthways and wash thoroughly under a running tap, from the white end down to the green to wash out any trapped dirt. 

Lay the cut sides down side by side on the chopping board and cut in half lengthways again.  Slice across the leeks to dice them. 

Melt the butter in a large pan and add the vegetables.  Season with salt and pepper and sweat very gently for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring often to stop them sticking to the pan. 

Pour in enough water to cover the vegetables and add the powdered / cube of / pot of stock.  Stir well and add the leftover cooked chicken.  If you are adding the orzo, do that now too. 

Leave to simmer quietly for a further 20 minutes.

Just like Grandma used to make!

We’ve been away in London for most of this week, Hubby was seeing a client for a few days’ training and I went along to keep him company.  Ahh, the blessings of being a full-time housewife!

I don’t know if it was because we’ve been away, or because it’s been quite cold over the last few days, but I woke up this morning with a real fancying for proper Welsh cawl.  When I was a child this was my favourite dinner; my grandparents lived in the same street as us and my grandmother, with whom I was incredibly close, used to make it quite often.  Hers was the best!  My mother used to make it from time to time as well, but hers was never quite as nice as my grandmother’s.

Well, today I cracked it!  I’ve been making it for 20+ years, but today’s batch was the closest I’ve ever gotten to my grandmother’s. 

After shopping for all the bits and pieces I needed, I worked out that it had cost no more than £3.62 for the meat and the veg.  Add on a couple of coppers for the stock cube and the flour and suet for the dumplings and you can see it really is a cheap meal!

It doesn’t take a lot of preparation, but it does need a good 2 or 3 hours in a very low oven.  I left mine for 3 so that it got good and thick.

Quantities will vary, depending on your pot size and how many people you want to feed – and are never fixed in stone anyway (!), but this was what I used : 

3 nice big carrots, peeled and cut into rough biggish chunks, rustic style

2 small and one biggish parsnip, peeled and cut into rough biggish chunks

about the same quantity of swede, again peeled and cut into biggish pieces

1 medium sized potato, again peeled and cut into biggish pieces

1 large leek, cut into big rings

Appx 1½ lb of diced casserole beef (skirt, shin, clod – whatever)

1 stock cube

Pour about 1tb of olive oil into a casserole and add the diced beef, stirring around to brown.  Remove to a dish and add the prepared carrot, parsnip and swede, turn the heat down as low as it will go and toss the veg around the pan for a few minutes to lightly brown them.  Return the meat and any drippings in the dish to the pan, add 1tb of flour and stir well into the contents of the pan.  Add as much hot water as is needed to cover all the vegetables and meat and then season to taste, add a stock cube and the leek and potato.  Cover and pop in a low oven for 3 hours.  I cooked mine at 130^o.  Towards the end of the cooking time you can make the dumpling mix – I used 2tb flour, same of suet and a pinch of salt, adding enough water to make a very thick mixture.  Spoon tablespoonfuls into the pan and pop back in the oven for half an hour. 

Best served to a cold and hungry husband on a cold, wet and windy day!.