Vegetable soup....

 

A little Friday foodie post, if that's okay today. I love to cook nowadays - when I was a student, I would burn toast; but when you have to feed a family your culinary skills have no option but to improve. I know I definitely have - I've also lost "the fear" - the fear of messing up, of your food tasting like the culinary equivalent of the bad auditions in the X factor. It's also the fear of the unknown - of not knowing how to make something, thereby thinking it must be tricky.

Take soups, for example. I love soups for lunch, and if I'm out and want something light, I'll often go for a soup option, particularly those fancy blended varieties, with a bit of homemade bread. My mum makes one type of soup - vegetable broth made with some shin and stock; she makes it every Saturday in the winter; and her mother before her. It's my childhood in a bowl.

I decided I wanted to make a bit of soup without meat - and couldn't believe how easy it was - I used Mary Berry's "Winter Vegetable Soup" for inspiration, and tweaked it a bit. Basically, I used a couple of leeks; celery (I love celery in soup); potatoes; a couple of garlic cloves; onions and a couple of carrots; I cooked the leeks in butter in a big saucepan for around 8 minutes; then added the rest of the chopped vegetables for the same time; and then added about 1.2L of chicken stock (just using stock cubes) and let it simmer for around 25 minutes. Then I blended the soup et voila!



A veritable feast of veggies.

 

The first time I made it, I couldn't believe how tasty and simple it was. And now I make my vegetable soup nearly every week. I tend to use whatever vegetables I have in the kitchen: always leeks and celery, onion and garlic; but I've added parsnips/carrots/potatoes/butternut squash/sweet potato (Master Chander likes the sweet potato variety!) - whatever I have that's fresh and available - it also makes it slightly different each time. It's great for hubby to bring to work as well; and healthy too. I've never frozen it (because there's usually not enough left) but I think it probably would be okay. To me, the blending makes it that little bit more delish but that's just a personal preference.

Next stop will be to make the bread with it! Take care...