Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

Eagle-eyed readers will note this is a hill, not some soup

I'd like to start this post with an apology...

Regular readers will have noticed that there haven't been any new soups for a while.  For this I can only apologise.  Lets pretend I've been on my holidays (which I have - a lovely trip to the Lakes, where I climbed the beautifully named Crinkle Crags (850m above sea-level at the top) on the hottest day of the year), got a cat (which I have - her name is Princess Kitteh Bitey-Face Death-Claw Katzenjammer Fantastico III and she is a bundle of claws and teeth wrapped up in fur) and that it's been so hot that any attempt to make soup would have been futile (which it has been, although I've still making soup every Tuesday, although many of these have been curiously un-inspired)

When I see that cute look, I just know she's getting ready to bite or scratch me

So here we are again, back with a new soup and my soup-mojo fully restored...

Real, actual, hair.  Not 'shopped...

When I was a teenager, I was a full time mosher (although the word 'mosher' hadn't been invented then, we were just 'smelly long-haired hippies') and could often be seen in darkened record shops clutching vinyl bearing such lovely names as 'Death Angel', 'Slayer' or 'Lawnmower Deth', wearing black skinny jeans, huge white trainers and t-shirts with skulls and demons on them.  I also had such beautiful long hair (where did it all go?)

To get all this morbid paraphernalia (strangely, not a band I listened to) I had to venture into Leeds Market.  It was awful.  Full of grotty stalls and the smell was so rank we dubbed the whole place the Dead Rat Emporium. But it did have a stall that sold Megadeth and Anthrax t-shirts  Fast forward 24 years, and I returned to my home town after years in exile in Hull with much less hair, a wardrobe that has more (but not many more) colours in it than black, and an enthusiasm for soups, meats and the rest of the culinary spectrum.  Where is a boy to get his fix of tasty treats?  Leeds Market?  Are you sure - isn't that place awful?

Well, no is the short answer.  The longer answer is it's a treasure trove of fine butchers, amazing fish mongers and cheap and plentiful veg stalls.  It also features a shop that sells nothing but eggs (an ovi-mongers?) and a tripe shop!  Yes, a TRIPE SHOP!!!!

The reason I'm mentioning this should be patiently obvious by now (and no points for guessing 'Is it because you're turning 40 soon and prone to flights of nostalgic waffling'?) On our last trip to Leeds Market, out haul included a huge bag of red peppers for £1.00.  Try getting them for that price in a supermarket (Along with this, we also got a huge joint of super-cheap lamb, tuna steaks, many many other fruit and veg bargains).  The moral of this story is to support your local market, as wonders and bargains lay within.

Oh, and Reign in Blood stands up surprisingly well after all these year...

So this recipe is an easy, simple and very very tasty way to show off those cheap red peppers (almost the name of a band I used to listen to).  With all those tomatoes it makes for an almost summery soup too, perfect for this time of year.

Blood red soup...

Ingredients
5 Red Peppers
600g Tomatoes
3 Red Onions
900ml Chicken Stock
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
6 Garlic Cloves
Fresh Rosemary
Sal and Pepper

Method
1.  De-seed and roughly slice the red peppers, peel and slice the onions and cut the tomatoes into quarters.

2.  Heat the oven to 200ºc

3.  Place the vegetables in a large roasting tin, along with the garlic cloves.  Drizzle with a good covering of olive oil and the balsamic vinegar and rosemary and toss to make sure all the veg are covered in oil.  Add seasoning and then put the baking tray in the preheated oven.

4.  Cook the veg for 40 minutes, or until the edges of the peppers and tomatoes are starting to blacken slightly.

5.  Heat the stock in your soup pan, then add the roasted vegetables.  Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat.

6.  Using a stick blender, blend the soup until smooth.  Feel free, as always, to pass the soup through a sieve before returning it to the pan (I did this and fished out most of the tomato seeds and skins - so much easier than peeling them after roasting!(

7.  Adjust seasoning to taste and the reheat, serve with crusty bread.  Enjoy!

Celeriac and Chard Soup

We are all about the vegetables over at Soup Towers this month.  For reasons that are now shrouded in the mists of time, it seemed like a good idea to go meat free for a month, so the next few soup recipes will all be veggie.  When I told my Mum I was dropping the meat, there was an amazing look of horror and disbelief on her face, and a I half expect her to come round with a care package of bacon and black puddings before the month is out.

But the truth is, like a lot of people these days, it's actually not that much of a shift to go vegetarian as about half of the meals I cook are meat-free anyway, and a quick glance down the recent blog posts here show that the vegetable soup recipes are at least as many as ones with bits of dead animal floating in them.

So after a weekend that was a veritable orgy of meat (at least one huge mixed grill, a chunky gammon steak and a hilariously long hot-dog smothered in chili) I commenced, starting with this soup.

After the last recipe, which was made entirely of items found in anyone's cupboard, this soup is a riot of fresh veg, and rather brilliant for it - in fact it used up about half of our veg box for this week - and it's also a lot like Ribollita, but without the bread to thicken it, and chard instead of cavolo nero.  However, you could pretty much chuck in whatever vegetables you have to hand and it would still be amazing...

Ingredients
1 Large Onion
1 Celeriac
2 Stalks Celery
1 Large Carrot
Chard
1 Can Haricot Beans
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
900ml Stock
4 Cloves Garlic
1tsp Thyme
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper
Butter

Method
1. Peel the celeriac and cut into 1cm cubes.  Peel and chop the carrot and onion, slice the celery thinly.

2.  Heat some butter in your soup pan and  then gently cook the vegetables for about 5 minutes, until they start to soften.  Add the finely chopped garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.

3.  Add the stock, tomatoes, beans, thyme and balsamic vinegar and then bring the soup to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

4.  Wash the chard, remove any tough stalks and then shred.

5.  Add the chard to the soup, adjust seasoning to taste and then cook until the chard has wilted.

6.  Serve with grated Parmesan and fresh bread.  Enjoy!

Carrot and Coriander Soup

Ahhhhhh!  That was the sound of panic when the doorbell rang this morning at 7.15.  Not because I was still in bed and there was someone at the door, but because the person at the door was our lovely veg box man.  Don't mis-understand me - there was nothing actually wrong with the veg box, nor the hour of its arrival (although a more fashionably late hour would suit me better)

No, the cause of my outburst was that there was meant to be parsnips in the box this week, which were going to form the basis for this weeks soup, Curried Parsnip.  Only, now bereft of parsnip, what is a boy to do?  Well, what is that I spied in the veg box, nestled under some cabbage and next to the potatoes?  Carrots?  Still covered in mud you say?  Well that gives me an idea...

I told you all a while ago about the first ever soup I made, minestrone as part of a home economics class when I was 12? Well today I'm going to tell you about the first soup I ever cooked to impress a girl...  Carrot and coriander soup.  This soup seems to be a bit of a student classic, probably because it's cheap and easy to make, healthy and quick, and there are hundreds of ways to do it.

Some people add lentils, some tomatoes, cream, sour cream, coconut milk.  It is, in a nutshell, what is brilliant about soup - it's tasty and it's very hard to mess it up.  So I thought it would be perfect for impressing a girl that I invited to come round for a meal.  It was the first time I'd ever cooked to impress, so needless to say, I was worried.

The soup simmered away, with vegetable stock as she was a vegetarian, not too much chili as she didn't like her food too spicy. The ginger and lemon a sharp counterpoint to the earthy carrots sweet tomatoes and spices.  It was perfect...

She turned up, the lights were low, the music was soft, the chat was small, and then I dished up the soup and... she loved it, was very impressed - in fact, it was the best carrot and coriander soup she'd ever tasted - even better than her friend who worked in a vegan cafe made (which was previously the pinnacle of soupy perfection for her)

I could hardly believe my luck.  Maybe there was something in this cooking malarkey after all.  And then I served the main dish - tandoori salmon, choked on a fish bone and spent the next three hours retching and coughing like a cat coughing up a hair-ball...  The girl left rather quickly after that...

Ingredients
500g Carrots
10 Medium Tomatoes
3 Cloves of Garlic
1 Lemon (Juice Only)
750ml Chicken Stock
1 Tin Coconut Milk
1tsp Grated Ginger
1tbsp Coriander Seeds
1tsp Cumin Seeds
1tsp Chili Flakes Oregano


Balsamic Vinegar
Bunch of fresh Coriander
Olive Oil
Salt and Black Pepper

Method

1.  Heat the oven to 200ºc.  Cut the tomatoes in half and de-seed.  Put them in an oven dish and drizzle with olive oil.  Sprinkle on a pinch of dried oregano and a splash of balsamic vinegar, then a pinch of salt and pepper.  Put the dish in the oven and roast the tomatoes for 35-40 minutes, until they have started to brown.  Remove from the oven and set aside.

2.  In a dry frying pan, heat the coriander and cumin seeds over a moderate heat for 2 minutes, until the seeds start to pop.  Transfer them to a mortar and grind.

3.  Slice the onion and fry gently in a little oil.  Add the  garlic and ginger and fry for another 2 minutes, then add the ground cumin and coriander seeds, as well as the chili flakes and stir until everything is coated in the spices

4.  Add the tomatoes, stock and peeled sliced carrots.  Bring the soup to the boil and then cover, simmering and cooking for 30 minutes, until the carrots are cooked through

5.  Blend the soup until it's smooth and then return to the pan.  Gently heat through.

6.  Stir in the coconut milk, chopped fresh coriander and the juice of a lemon.

7.  Garnish with a few coriander leaves.  Serve and enjoy!

Scotch Broth

Another cold day, another warming soup for you!  This one involves the left-overs from a rather lovely Sunday lunch (well, the meaty / gravy parts anyway) and is an old favourite of mine.  If you don't have any left over lamb, you could just get a lamb chop and use the meat from that, it will work just as well.

This is a slight adaptation of Scotch Broth, with the mint and balsamic vinegar being my own additions, as I think both flavours go particularly well with lamb, and help to cut through the fatty taste that you can sometimes get with that meat.  If you want to be more traditional, leave those two ingredients out (and don't write me emails saying I got the recipe wrong, please...)

Also included in this recipe is some pearl barley, which I think in another brilliant but under-rated ingredient, although it does show up quite a bit in Scottish recipes.  It makes a brilliant risotto instead of rice, and can be used in countless stews and soups - indeed, I suspect that as the nights grow darker, more and more people will be reaching for the pearl barley as well as their favourite stew recipes.

Ingredients
2 Large Carrots
1 Small Turnip
1 Large Onion
1 Small Leek
1 Medium Potato
50g Pearl Barley
250g Lamb
2l Stock
3 Cloves Garlic
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Handful fresh chopped mint leaves

Method
1. Cut the carrot, turnip, potato and lamb into small cubes. Finely chop the onion, leek and garlic.

2.  Heat your stock in a soup pan.  Throw in any left-over gravy from Sunday lunch at this point too, and add the balsamic vinegar.

3.  Bring the stock to the boil, put in the vegetables and lamb then cover and bring to a simmer.  Cook the soup for 2-3 hours on a low heat.

4.  30 Minutes before serving, add the pearl barley.

5.  Check seasoning, adding plenty of black pepper before serving and garnish with a handful of chopped fresh mint leaves.  Enjoy!