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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Soup Season!


With the autumn chill just starting to creep into the air here, I have decided that soup season has started.

I love soup.

The cook in me loves it for its versatility. You pretty much take whatever is on hand, put it all together in a pot and cook. It doesn't have to be flash. In fact, I often use soup as a way of using up the veges that are starting to look a bit limp, left over rice or roast, or whatever else takes my fancy. Lots of chopping. Then smelling the flavours all intermingling. Then eating. A simple recipe for success. I have very rarely made a dud soup. Only once, that I can remember...and that was because I got a bit confused as to how strong cayenne pepper was and it ended up a little hotter than desired! Still edible, but we did serve that lot up with a lot of yoghurt added to tone it down a notch or two.

The eater in me loves soup for its warmth and flavour. I grew up on soup. I recall many, many servings of pumpkin soup when I was around 11-13 years old...Mum would get a free Big Grey pumpkin most times she got fruit and veges at the local market, and it invariably ended up in the most delicious pumpkin soup. Yum. My other all time favourite is Irish Chicken Soup, out of a recipe book of my mum's. The egg and natural yoghurt in it give it an absolutely delightful tang. In recent years I have discovered that you can even make soup out of broccoli with a bit of potato and cream cheese (Frog Soup - so named for its colour) . Quite tasty. I was surprised. Usually I like my broccoli either raw or very close to it.

Tonight I am making a BIG pot of vegetable soup, using up 2 small chicken carcasses from previous roast dinners. I am hanging out to try some shortly. It has: garlic, onion, ginger, potato, kumara (sweet potato), carrot, celery, savoy cabbage, fresh thyme, rosemary and parsley, a teeny sprinkle of chilli flakes, and some red split lentils and pearl barley. It should prove to be a very satisfying meal for me!

Boyo does not share my enthusiasm for soup. He doesn't really like it much, which is sad, seeing how useful it is! Never mind. He does eat it, as long as I don't try dishing it up more than once or twice a week, and make sure there's enough other food so he gets filled up...soup rarely being filling enough for him. But I don't know if much of this soup will make it to the dinner table. I sense a 'soup and toast' for breakfast phase breaking upon me. I will leave him to his daily dose of weetbix. Boring cardboard stuff.

Amy

1 comment:

kiwimeskreations said...

Boyo never has liked soup :-(... bit like his father, although he did enjoy pumpkin soup there for a while - ask him about out Sunday pumpkin soup and crumpets teas.
As for weet-bix, I endorse your opinion of that!!
Blessings
M