Quibebe - Brazilian Squash Soup

Sometimes when I'm looking for soups to make, the most childish things attract me.  For instance, when I was researching South American soups (you'll remember that I'm a little excited by them right now) I was drawn to this recipe simply by its name Quibebe.  Say it out loud.  It's impossible not to smile at that word.  It's also impossible not to smile when you taste this soup.  Its creamy, a little bit spicy and amazing.  Perfect for a winter's evening when there is snow on the ground and the nights are short.

Snow. It's pretty, isn't it?

In fact, pretty much nothing like what I imagine the weather is like in Brazil, where this recipe comes from.  Although I imagine it gets pretty chilly in the Andes.  (And yes, I did make a reference to the Andes without a) doing a Chilly/Chile pun, b) an Andes/Hands pun or c) referencing the movie Alive. I must be ill)

Other things that attract me to soup recipes are weird and wonderful ingredients, and whilst this soup contains nothing that you wouldn't find in your local corner shop, I did unearth a recipe for Piranha Soup.

Where does one acquire Piranhas from? Allegedly, the soup has aphrodisiac qualities (presumably derived from the fact it's made from Piranha, much the same way as idiots think Tiger Testicles are an aphrodisiac too) so I'm not sure substituting for any other fish would have the same effect.

So if your local Aldi does sell Piranha on their fish counter, do let me know and Ill be all over it

(And whilst we are on the subject of puns, should I do a 'In Brazil the soup eats you' gag here?)



Ingredients
500g Butternut Squash
100g Potatoes
20g Butter
2 Tomatoes
2 Stalks Celery
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Onion
1tsp Dried Chilli Flakes
1/4tsp Light Brown Sugar
1.2l Beef Stock 
Salt and Pepper

 
Method
1. Peel and de-seed the squash and cut into cubes of about 1cm.  Peel the potato and roughly chop that too.  Thinly slice the onion and celery.  Put the tomatoes in boiling water and leave to soak, then remove the skin, seeds and cut into small bits.

2. In your soup pan, heat the butter and then gently cook the onion, celery, garlic and chili flakes until the vegetables are soft but not coloured.  Add the squash and potato, stir everything round and cook for a few more minutes, before adding the stock and sugar.

3.  Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 25 minutes, until the squash and potatoes are very soft and starting to break up.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth, then return to the pan, adjust seasoning to taste and reheat.  Serve and garnish with parmesan and croutons. Enjoy!

Creamy Sweetcorn Soup

There's an age-old debate in soup-making circles - where is the line between Soup and Stew? It is fought over as much as 'What constitutes a proper pie?*' and 'How do you pronounce Scone/Chorizo**'

The debate mostly seems to centre around the ration of solids to liquids in the soup/stew.  As I've been researching South American soups, a lot of them strike me as being much more stew than soup (For instance, check out the Aijaco Soup from Colombia I made a while ago.  There's barely any liquid in there at all, but who am I to argue with Colombia eh? If they say it's a soup then it is most assuredly a soup.  Of course, if you are really worried about where to drag this line, just do what I did with this recipe, which is to blend the heck out of it until it is smooth and silky.

Now I don't recommend doing this with every soup, too often it just reduces the whole thing to a homogeneous mess with less character than when it started (Can you imagine a Minestrone being improved by being blitzed?), but some soups, usually ones with milk/cream/potatoes in often work so much better when they are creamed, and passed through a sieve just to make sure they are smooth.

And that is definitely the case with this soup, which was inspired by my dabbling with South American soup recipes (Indeed, you could just not blend it and it would be pretty similar to many recipes from that continent) but as it is really cold at Soup Labs today I thought it would make the whole thing just that little bit more comforting.  I think I made the right choice, but feel free to leave yours chunky.  I wont judge you. Much

Also, another great thing about this soup is it's another great cupboard soup - I bet you have everything for this soup in your cupboard / freezer right now. Apart from the cream, which you could substitute milk for if you really wanted.

* Anything with something else on top of it can be a pie - Shepard's/Fish/Steak and Kidney included, but a double crust pie is one with something completely encased in pastry.
** S-kone and Cho-rit-zo

Ingredients
400g Frozen Sweetcorn
200g Potatoes
20g Butter
2 Stalks Celery
1 Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
1/2tsp Red Chilli Flakes
1l Chicken Stock
75ml Double Cream
2 Tomatoes
Spring Onions
Salt and Black Pepper

Method
1. Peel and chop the onion and potato.  Thinly slice the celery stalks.  In your soup pan, gently heat the butter and then cook the vegetables until they start to soften

2. Add the garlic and chilli flakes, then the sweetcorn and stock.  Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked and soft.  Remove the soup from the heat and allow to cool.

3. Put the tomatoes in boiled water, leave for 10 minutes, then peel and de-seed them, keep for garnishing the soup.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth, pass through a sieve to remove all the bits amd then return to the pan.  Add the double cream and re heat.  Adjust seasoning to taste and serve.  Garnish with the chopped tomatoes and thinly sliced spring onions.  Enjoy!

Chupe de Maní - Ecuadorian Peanut Soup

 Waaaay back last year, when everyone was talking about ball kicking tournaments, I was part of a small group of dedicated bloggers who took part in the World Cup Food Challenge.  This (I'm sure you remember) was a blog based challenge to cook between us, dishes from every country involved in said real-life-subbuteo competition.

In this challenge, I made a number of dishes (and some soups) from South American countries, and I fell in love with the cuisine of that continent.  Fast forward to Christmas, and as I tore open my presents from under the tree, I found that Santa had brought me not one but two recipe books on South America (along with 5 more on other things.  I'm so easy to buy for at Christmas - either cook books or Star Wars merchandise*) 

So I thought that I would do a few South American soups on the blog.  Starting with this one, from Ecuador.  You could use peanut butter for this recipe instead of grinding up your own peanuts, but I think the flavour is more intense doing it this way.  It's thick and creamy and satisfying and a great start to my South American soup adventure.  Let's see if my prediction made last summer - that South American cuisine would be the next big thing - comes true this year.  It totally should if this soup is anything to go by...

* Incidentally, I will be making at least on Star Wars inspired soup recipe in the run up to The Force Awakens being released, but that's not until December, so I have plenty of time. And yes, I am aware this exists... and I probably won't be making Bloodsoup, as I'm not a Sith Lord.  Until I do get round to making my own Star Wars soup, why not try this recipe for Bantha Steak Soup that I found

Cube 1 thick bantha steak; trim fat, pat dry. Saute meat in bantha butter until brown. Core, seed, and chop 2 large ootoowergs, 3 ripe dropes, 1 small koba if available. Add vegetables to cooked meat, cook til heated through. Put all in pot of boiling water. Cover, simmer at low heat for 3 days. Add roosha to taste. Serve 1-2.

Now, where can I get some ootoowergs from? I'm thinking Lidl? 

And for anyone else wanting to try Star Wars soups, here is a list of some that exist in the Star Wars universe, courtesy of the ever-helpful Wookiepedia. Although sadly Gungan bouillabaisse is made *by* Gungans, not *of* them. Mmmm, Cream of Jar Jar soup...

Ingredients
200g Potatoes
150g Peanuts
2 Large Tomatoes
2 Stalks Celery
1 Onion
1 Red Chilli
Fresh Coriander
1tsp Cumin
1.2l Beef Stock

Method.
1.  Heat to oven to 160ºc.  Spread the peanuts out on a baking tray. Put them in the oven and roast them for 10 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool.  Put them in a food processor and blend into a fine powder

2.  Peel and chop the onion and potato then slice the celery.  Heat some oil in your soup pan and gently cook the vegetables for a few minutes until they start to soften.

3.  Roughly chop the tomatoes and add them to the pan, along with the cumin, chilli and stock.  Then add the peanuts, bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 25 minutes.  Remove from the head and allow to cool.

4. Blend the soup until smooth, adjust seasoning to taste, reheat and serve. Garnish with more crushed peanuts, fresh coriander and thinly sliced red chillies.  Enjoy!

Roasted Beetroot, Garlic and Goats Cheese Soup

Beetroot.  You can just tell that anything that brightly coloured has GOT to be packed full of goodness, vitamins and E numbers.  No wait, I'm pretty sure that one of those isn't true*

*Actually, Betanin, or E162 is an red glycosidic food dye extracted from beetroot. So there. Don't say you don't learn anything from this blog. Other beetroot facts are* :

Beetroot is an excellent source of folate and a good source of manganese,^[9] and contains betaines which may function to reduce the concentration of homocysteine,^[10] a homolog of the naturally occurring amino acid cysteine. High circulating levels of homocysteine may be harmful to blood vessels and thus contribute to the development of heart disease, stroke, or peripheral vascular disease.^[11] This hypothesis is controversial as it has not yet been established whether homocysteine itself is harmful or is just an indicator of increased risk for heart disease.^[11][12]
The red colour compound betanin is not broken down in the body, and in higher concentrations may temporarily cause urine and stool to assume a reddish colour; in the case of urine this is called beeturia.^[13] This effect may cause distress and concern due to the visual similarity to hematuria (blood in the urine) or blood in the stool, but is completely harmless and will subside once the food is out of the system.

Last year, I abandoned 2 blog posts as, after making the soups, I looked back through the blog and realised that I'd already written the same or very similar soups before.  I really should plan my posts better.  Regular readers (you know who you are! Hello Mum!) will probably know that I've done at least 3 beetroot soups before, but I thought, why the heck not do another one.  This one is slighly different, and who has the time to wade through old blog posts anyway.  This is 2015 dammit, we're all in a hurry, we want our soups right now...

Although this soup *will* take a bit of time, as you need to roast the beetroot first to release all those sugars and other goodies that make the little purple blighters taste even better, and make that addition of lemon juice a nice counterpoint.  I also used hard goats cheese, as it melts and goes all gooey when you put it in the bowl, covered in soup. Which is perfect at this time of year, when it's cold and you want tasty comforting foods.

*Isn't Wikipedia amazing...

Ingredients
350g Beetroot
2 Stalks Celery
1 Onion
6 Cloves Garlic
900ml Vegetable Stock
30g Butter
1 Lemon
1tsp Thyme
100g Hard Goats Cheese

Method
1.  Heat the oven to 180ºc.  Peel the beetroot with a potato peeler.   Wrap them up in some kitchen foil, with some salt and a splash of olive oil.  Then place in the oven, leaving them to roast for 45 minutes.  Set them aside to cool.

2.  In your soup pan, heat the butter.  Finely chop the onion, garlic and celery then fry them for a few minutes until everything starts to soften.

3.  Cut the roasted beetroot up into smaller pieces, then add to the pan, along with the stock, thyme and lemon juice.  Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth and then reheat.  Adhust seasoning to taste then serve.  Garnish with some cubed bits of hard goats cheese.  Enjoy!

Krupnik - Polish Barley Soup

So, because I like to have themes on the blog (mainly as it's a good way to get inspiration for new soup recipes), welcome to Polish Month on Soup Tuesday!

I used to live down the road from a rather brilliant Polish restaurant - the food was cheap and cheerful, but blimey it was filling, and I think that's where I first got addicted to Polish cuisine.  The owner / waiter was always helpful in pointing out what was the special of the day and they did some killer pirogi, but one thing I never tried was the soup - being equally as addicted to dumplings as I am to soup, I always went for them first - and occasionally, the restaurant did serve tripe soup (which will be coming to the blog shortly...)

Since starting this blog, I've done a number of East European soups, and they have always been brilliant.  This one is no exception.  Krupnik is a sort of Polish minestrone, it seems - with various recipes adding or subtracting different elements - you could always try it without the mean - but the constant is the pearl barley.  Its a chunky soup that works well (as you would imagine) on a cold night.

Krupnik is not to be confused with the honey sweetened alcoholic drink of the same name, but I'm pretty sure it would go well with this soup too!  Also, the dried mushrooms I used in this recipe were given to me as part of a foodie pen pals parcel ages ago and I'd never used them until now, but they gave a nice meaty edge to the soup.



Ingredients
250g Chicken Breasts
150g Pearl Barley
1 Large Onion
2 Cloves Garlic
2 Carrots
2 Potatoes
1 Leek
1 Stalk Celery
2 Bay leaves
25g Butter
15g Dried Mushrooms
1/2tsp Ground Allspice
1.5l Chicken Stock
Fresh Dill

Method
1. In your soup pan, heat the stock, bringing it to the boil.  Cut the chicken breasts into small cubes, then put them in the stock, poaching them for 3 minutes until the meat is cooked.  Skim any scum from the stock as you do this.  Remove the chicken from the stock and set aside.  Take the stock off the heat for the moment

2. Heat the butter in a large frying pan.  Into this add the finely chopped onion and celery.  Cook until the veg starts to soften, then add the garlic, cubed carrot and leek, cook for another few minutes and then add the cubed potato.  Cook for another few minutes until all the veg is softened.

3.  Add the vegetables to the stock with the pearl barley, allspice and bay leaves.  Wash the dried mushrooms to remove any grit and then add these to the pan also. Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. 

4.  Check the mushrooms and barley are cooked and soft, then add the chicken back into the pan and heat through.

5.  Adjust seasoning to taste and then serve.  Garnish the bowls with plenty of finely chopped fresh dill.  Enjoy!

Cauliflower Cheese Soup

 

I think we can all agree that winter is finally here and that means two things - 1) everyone moans about the weather and 2) my blog gets more hits as everyone rather sensibly says 'ya know what, now the nights are drawing in, I need some soup, tasty and comforting, to take my mind off the rain and the fact that I can't afford to put the heating on any more...

And like some kind of soup supplying fairy, I can make that wish come true! And there can be few better and more comforting soups than this cauliflower cheese recipe.

One of the things that we did here at soup HQ over the summer was convert the patch of weeds behind the house into a vegetable garden.  Being that I was our first year of properly flexing our green fingers, the garden more or less resembled the patch of weeds it had previously been, but with some brave veggies poking their way through the canopy of bind weed (next yearm I shall be more prepared for just how much work even a small veg patch can be to maintain)

Amongst the things that did grow really well were cauliflowers. I love caulis and ours were turned into all manner of tasty dishes (gobi aloo being my favourite) but I realised that not a single one had been soup-ified.  That was quickly rectified with the last two being added to this recipe.  The stronger the cheddar the better when making the soup, and if you feel like you need some meat in the dish, garnish with some crispy bacon bits, although the soup works fine without them.

Next year, I'll be growing lots more stuff - if anyone has any suggestions for their favourite veg to , grow, especially ones that are fairly idiot proof and grow anywhere, Id love to hear from you...

Ingredients
2 Carrots
1 Onion
2 Stalks Celery
1 Large Potato
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Cauliflower
150g Mature Cheddar Cheese
800ml Vegetable Stock
400ml Milk
40g Butter
2 Sprigs Thyme
1 Tbsp English Mustard

Method
1.  Peel and slice the carrot, potato, onion and garlic, chop the celery and cut the cauliflower into florets

2.  In your soup pan, heat the butter and then gently fry the carrots, onion, garlic and celery until it starts to soften.

3.  Add the cauliflower, potato, thyme, mustard and stock, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer, covered, for 30 minutes, until the cauliflower is softened

4.  Remove the pan from the heat and allow the soup to cool

5.  Blend until smooth, then return to the pan

6.  Add the milk and cheese and bring to a simmer again.  Adjust seasoning to taste and then serve

7.  Garnish with some more grated cheddar and some crispy bacon bits

Ciorba de Perisoare - Romanian Meatball Soup

Running a soup blog, I invariably get asked the question "What is your favourite soup?".  Its a really difficult question to answer, obviously.  That's like asking "Which is your favourite child" and I wouldn't want any of my soups to feel like they were second best. However, after several years of making and eating soups from around the world, I'm beginning to think that my favourite soups are those from Eastern Europe.

The reason for this is that I think they get the flavour combinations right - often using lemon juice, or vinegar to add a sour note that works really well.  They are often pretty simple recipes, and (oh yes) often incorporate either dumplings or meatballs.  And regular readers will know how I feel about those two...

So my round-the-world soupstravaganza hits Romania, which is undoubtedly most well known as the place where Dracula lives.  I'm pretty sure some other stuff must have happened there, but really nothing of importance from the time Peter Cushing killed Vlad until the present time*

They did, however, come up with lots and lots of exiting soups, many of them with that slightly sour taste that I love so much.  And this one has meatballs, so I just had to give it a go.  The addition of rice to the meatballs makes the meat stretch that little bit further, and although it's a simple soup to put together, the end results are so tasty...

* This may not have happened

Ingredients
300g Minced Beef
50g Long Grain Rice
2 Carrots
2 Onions
2 Celery Stalks
1 Green Pepper
1 Lemon
3tbsp Tomato Puree
1.5l Beef Stock

Method
1.  Peel the carrots and parsnip, cut them into small cubes.

2. De-seed the green pepper and cut finely, as well as one of the onions and the celery stalks

3.  Heat some oil in your soup pan and gently fry the vegetables until soft but not starting to colour

4.  Add the stock to the pan, as well as the tomato puree, lemon juice and bring to the boil.  Cover the pan and simmer for 30 minuted

5.  In a mixing bowl, combine the minced beef, washed rice and then grate the other onion and add this to the mixture, along with 1tsp of salt and some black pepper.

6.  Form the mixture into balls about an inch across.

7.  Add these to the soup after 30 minutes and continue to simmer gently for another 10-15 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked.  You will be able to tell when they are cooked as they will float to the surface of the soup.

8.  Adjust seasoning to taste and then serve.  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!

Snert : Dutch Pea Soup

Today's soup entry is sort of a cheat, as eagle-eyed readers will remember that I've made it before.  Last time it appeared, it was called Erwtensoep, but the recipe is also known as Snert, so by cleverly changing the name, I'm hoping to throw people off the scent.

The reasons for repeating myself are threefold.  1 is that as part of my Postcrossing recipe experiment, a nice Dutchman suggested I make it, as Erwtensoep is a Dutch recipe, plus he made me a hand-drawn postcard, so how could I refuse. 2 is the fact that it's cold and pea and ham soup in any form is a brilliant cold weather recipe, and finally reason 3 is that I found out I could swap the ham hock for pig's trotters, and I've always wanted to make a soup with pig's trotters in it.

Oh, and it's called 'Snert'  How could I resist...

However, there was one slight problem with the pig's trotters.  After putting them in the soup, then fishing them out to strip the meat off (See recipe below) I found out, much to my horror, that there appeared to be no actual meat on them anywhere.  Now, never having used trotters before, I have no idea whether this is normal, or have I been sold a couple of duff pigs feet?

If you can't get trotters, or just plain don't want to use them, I suggest swapping a small ham hock or knuckle.  I wasn't too disappointed in the lack of trotter meat, as just their presence in the soup added a wonderfully meaty flavour to the stock.

Ingredients
300g Split Peas
1.5l Chicken Stock
2 Pigs Trotters
100g Smoked Bacon
2 Carrots
1 Large Onion
3 Leeks
1 Stalk Celery
Small Bunch Flat Leaf Parsely
300g Smoked Sausage 

Method
1.  Roughly chop the carrot, celery and onion.  Remove the green parts of the leeks and chop those too, but put the white parts aside for later as well as half the carrot.

2.  Put the chopped vegetables in the soup pan, along with the  trotters, stock, bacon and split peas.  Bring the pan to the boil, cover and simmer for 2 hours, until the peas have softened and the trotters are fully cooked through.

3.  Take the pan off the heat, remove the trotters and allow everything to cool. Blend the soup until it is smooth

4.  Remove the meat from the trotters.  Add this back to the pan, along with the finely sliced white parts of the leek and the remaining carrot, and simmer for another 15 minutes, until the leek is soft.

5.  Slice the smoked sauasage and add this to the pan, letting it heat through for about 5 minutes

6.  Serve in warm bowls, garnished with parsley and slices of sausage.  Enjoy!

Chicken Waterzooi

As promised last time, today we have the first of a few Belgian soup recipes, inspired by my recent visit to Brugge.  Sadly, as we were only there for one night, we didn't have time to sample a huge array of Belgian foodstuffs - Flemish Rabbit Stew, Frites and deep fried gravy were about the limit of what we had time for (and the obligatory waffles, chocolates and beers, of course...) but everywhere we went in the city (and we did go ALL over...) there were little restaurants selling wonderful food.

Other things we saw on menus all over were Moules (mussels) and Waterzooi.  Waterzooi is a stew or soup (Ahhh the age old question - when does something stop being a stew and start being a soup...) which can be made with chicken, mussels or other fish.

Like a lot of Belgian food, it's very rich and creamy and totally delicious. It's a sort of Flemish Cock-a-leekie, with a lot of recipes recommending using a whole chicken, although I have just stuck to using thighs which are both cheap and really tasty.  I tend to substitute them for breast in almost every recipe I cook, but you could use breast or chicken quarters in the soup.

If you have never been before, I highly reccomend a visit to Brugge - it's a beautiful place, and we had a brilliant tour round by a local gentleman who told us (amongst other things) that one ruler of the city was called Baldwin Iron Arm, who scared a bear to death*, and that they chopped off the head of a finance minister who raised taxes after promising not to (A strategy I think many people would be in favour of re-introducing...)

* This may not be entirely true - it was cold and I was tired so I may have mis-heard...

Ingredients
6 Chicken Thighs
2 Carrots
2 Leeks
2 Stalks of Celery
1 Onion
1 Sprig Thyme
2 Bay leaves
Chicken Stock
20g Butter
250ml Double Cream
2 Egg Yolks
Pinch of Nutmeg

Method
1.  Peel and chop the onion, leek, celery and carrots.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and then gently sweat the vegetables for 5 minutes, until they start to soften

2. Add the stock, thyme, bay leaves and chicken thighs.  Bring the soup to a gentle simmer and then cook for 10-15 minutes, until the chicken poaches. Check that the chicken is cooked through and there is no pink left in the meat, then removed the chicken from the soup and set aside.  Let the soup cool for 10 minutes.

3.  Strip the meat from the bones and remove the skin, then cut the chicken into small pieces and return to the pan.

4.  In a bowl, mix the cream and egg yolks thoroughly, then put this in the soup pan over a gentle heat, stirring quickly, so that the mixture thickens the soup. Be careful that th egg and cream mixture doesn't cook too quickly or scramble! Taste and adjust seasoning, adding a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg, then serve with crusty white bread.  Enjoy!

Tuscan Chicken Soup With Orzo

I remember the first soup I ever learned to make, when I was about 12 in Home Economics lessons at school.  The teacher didn't actually teach us how to make it, but let us all cook one thing that we ate at home.

Pretty much every Friday thoughout the winter months, dinner was either Macaroni Cheese or Minestrone - made from scratch by my mother, and I did love the minestrone soup, so that was the dish that I decided to cook in school.  I badgered my mum for the recipe and then got all the ingredients, turnied up in the classroom and started to cook.  And suddenly, lo-and-behold, there was soup!  I felt like an alchemist, I had combined vegetables, pasta and meat, and with the judicious application of fire, the end result was soup, and it even tasted pretty good!

And from then on, I realised I could cook (although I didn't actually cook much for another six or seven years when I went away to University)   and I loved the buzz I got from being able to do that.. It's something that hasn't ever gone away.

Which brings us, in a very round about way to today's soup.  Although I'm not making Minestrone (and I still pronounce it Mine Strone in my head...) this soup is very similar, using as it does lots of vegetables, a bit of meat and a rich tomato-y stock.  And it also uses Orzo, which I love - it's pasta that thinks it is rice!  Crazy!

If you can't get orzo, any small pasta shells will do - I was over-joyed when I first found it in a small corner shop, and immediately bought some for Mrs Soup, as she had never been able to find it in this country before, for which I won brownie points, and gained a nice ingredient for soups, stews and casseroles.

Ingredients
3 Chicken Thighs
1 Large Onion
3 Carrots
2 Stalks of Celery
1 Medium Potato
4 Cloves of Garlic
1 Tin Tomatoes
1.2l Chicken Stock
75g Orzo (Pasta Rice)
Fresh Basil
Fresh Thyme
Salt and Pepper

Method
1.  Heat some oil in your soup pan. Fry the chicken thighs until they are golden and cooked through.  Remove the chicken and set aside to cool.

2. Finely chop the onion and garlic.  In the same oil that you fried the chicken in, soften and brown the onions and garlic (add some more oil if there isn't enough left)

3.  Add the chopped carrot, potato and celery and let them soften over a low heat for 3-5 minutes, then add the stock, cooked chicken and tomatoes.  To this add the thyme, salt and pepper, simmer and cover, then let cook for 25 minutes.

4.  Add the orzo to the soup and let simmer for another 10 minute, until the pasta is cooked through.  Check seasoning and then serve, garnished with fresh basil.  Enjoy!

Venison Soup with Bilberry Relish

Everything seems upside down this week - after a long spell at work with irregular breaks, I don't know what day it is - I'm assuming it's a Tuesday because I'm making soup.  Also, it really feels like autumn is just around the corner - where has the summer gone?  As such, I'm making a sort of autumnal game soup this week.  It also features a tangy and fruity bilberry relish, but you could use red or black currants if you don't have bilberries.

The ingredients for this soup came from a variety of sources.  The venison mince came from a stall at Kirkstall Deli Market, the Bilberries were picked on The Chevin, shallots from a friend's garden, onions, celery and carrots from a veg box and the stock from Essential Cuisine (okay - they sent me a few trial pots after reading the blog, which are rather brilliant and you can get you hands on them from their website)

As a measure of how my brain has seemingly stopped functioning, I had made some stock from scratch to use in this soup before a) I remembered the stock I was sent, and b) I made chicken stock when this soup needed Beef stock...  Maybe I should just go back to bed and wake up when my head is back to normal eh?

Recipe after the jump...

Spicy Cauliflower and Chard Soup

 After the craziness of the Olympic Food Challenge, normal service resumes now (although I know it's not Tuesday, but hey, I have made soup).  We have been, for the last few weeks, getting a veg box every week, and so for the next few weeks, I'll be making some random soups, based on whatever comes in the box on a Thursday.

After the random allocation of countries in the Olympic Food Challenge, I like the idea of this.  Also, I was running out of inspiration for new soups every week.  Now I have all the ingredients I need quite literally on my doorstep.

Today's soup is a bit healthy as I've been working odd hours and days this week, eating junk food and generally feeling a bit run down - hopefully all the vegetables will perk me up as I'm working until Sunday (today is my only day off - hence the non-Tuesday soup)

When I blended it all together, I was vaguelly horrifed as it appeared at first glance that I had made piccalilli soup - and I hate piccalilli.  However, after the chard and coconut milk was added, it no longer looked like piccalilli, and definately didn't taste anything like piccalilli. (Did I mention I can't stand the stuff?)

Recipe after the jump >>

Sopa Paraguaya and Bori Bori Soup -Olympic Food Challenge : Paraguay

Aaaaand... they are off! Both the women's football teams and the small army of insane food bloggers who signed up the the Olympic Food Challenge (We have our own hashtag for you twitter users (I refuse to say 'tweeps') which is #olympicfoodchallenge)

This is the first of the 19 dishes over 19 days that we will be blogging as part of the Olympic Food Challenge, and as we are Soup Tuesday, the first dish is from Paraguay and is, yes, you've guessed it, a soup... and something that sounds like a soup, but isn't...

Paraguay have a grand total of 8 Olympians competing in 6 sports, and have won a grand total of 1 medal in their Olympic history to date (A silver in the football in 2004, fact fans...)

You can keep an eye on Paraguay's progress here, and you can keep an eye on us as we attempt to cook our dishes without losing our minds here, don't forget to check back soon and see what we've been up to!

Courgette, Ginger and Orange Soup

 This week, doing our bit to support local producers, as well as doing the whole 'organic' thing, we at Soup Towers signed up to get a vegetable box delivered each week.  I like the whole 'pot-luck' aspect of getting one of these boxes of produce, but it does make for an interesting experience of conjuring up a new soup every week...

For instance, this week, in the box, we got broad beans (which went into a risotto with some bacon and chorizo), onions and new potatoes (which made a fine accompaniment to some pork steaks and caramelised apples) and some locally sourced butter (Lemon drizzle cake!) which just left come fine looking courgettes, which meant that I had to make, you guessed it, courgette soup.

So I tried to make it both summery (because, well... it's at least meant to be summer) and healthy (as in - no bacon, black pudding or random bits of offal) because yet again, disease is stalking Soup Towers in the form of a rather nasty summer cold that Mrs Soup picked up at the weekend whilst *shudder* glamping...

So here is what I came up with, a citrusy and creamy, light courgette soup, hopefully packed with enough vitamin C to clear off the most virulent of summer colds...

Celery Soup with Stilton and Bacon

Still waiting for the summer to appear, this week, I'm craving comfort food.  Whist thinking about this, I started to crave tinned soup, so off to the supermarket I trundled, in search of two specific types of tinned soup - Heinz Cream of Mushroom and also Celery soup.

When I was at school, my house was just round the corner from the school, so I never had to suffer the terrors of school dinners (until I was much older, anyway). Instead, I used to come home and eat lunch with my brother - often whilst listening to Star Wars on the radio (in the days before the films came out on VHS, it was the only way to get my regular fix of a galaxy far far away...)

Regular fixtures on the lunch menu were Campbells Meatballs and Deep fried fish balls* - evidently spherical food was a big thing in the early 80's - as well as Heinz soups, which is possibly where I got my love of soup from in the first place.  Indeed, my brother, always a fussy eater had to be persuaded that mushroom and celery soups were chocolate and seaweed respectively, which he found much more palatable.

Lucy's Italian Bean Soup

For the next few weeks, I'll be in my top secret soup laboratory (In a hollowed out volcano, obviously) working on a very special project, which I'm sure I will bore you all senseless with in good time, but to fill the gap, I have some lovely guest posts lined up.  Please say nice things about them and also you can follow them on twitter.

First up we have Lucy who you can find on twitter as @LucyNeuburger, but we will let her introduce herself...

Hello, my name is Lucy and I am a 23-year-old Masters student currently residing in small but lively city of Leeds.  Anytime I am not devoting to ‘bettering myself’ (yes Dad, I do listen to you) I can be found reading cookbooks, cooking blogs, and cooking websites…. I am an avid follower of anything and everything food related and my dream job would be anything involving food writing.  I am first and foremost a baker, but I also like to cook all manner of other dishes for friends and myself.  At my age, I should probably be out partying, but I would far rather have you round for dinner and a bottle of wine (maybe 2).

Soup is a word that most students associate with a garishly orange, thick liquid that empties out of a tin marked ‘HEINZ’.  Most of the time this is because they go through body numbingly cold winters in damp, unheated houses blissfully unaware of how simple (and rewarding) it is to make your own.  I am fortunate enough to come from a family where my Mum always encouraged me to cook and eat well.   I have often forgone nights out in order to afford better food…. Yes that may make me a terrible student, but after four years, I have yet to contract scurvy and my liver still feels like it is part of my body!  I must be on to something….

The recipe I would like to share with you is one passed on to me from my Mum, which she often makes it for me when I go home.   We will sit with a bowl each, and by the time we are finished, the world has been put to rights and sometimes, it has even stopped raining!  The association with home is probably why I like it so much…. That and the fact it is a meal in itself and can be freely adapted as well according to what you have in the cupboard.  It is also excellent in providing a use for those onions that have started sprouting green shoots!  A bowl of this soup I believe has the power to melt away your stress, cure the common cold and pretty much anything in between.   It has seen me through many difficult times in many barely habitable houses…. Fellow unwashed, tired, stressed students, this one is for you via my Mum! Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion (finely chopped)
1 carrot (finely chopped)
1 stick of celery (finely chopped)
2 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
50g pancetta (if you wish to splash out, but normal bacon/lardons are absolutely fine!)
1 tin of cannellini beans (or borlotti beans or butter beans or go wild and add several different sorts of bean…. At pence per tin, you have no reason not to try some different ones!)
1 tin of tomatoes
1 vegetable or chicken stock cube
1 squeeze tomato puree (not essential)
1 large pinch of dried chilies (this can also be omitted but I find adds warmth and slight kick!)

To serve:

Chopped basil/parsley
Grated Parmesan/cheddar
Black pepper
Crusty bread

Method:

    •    In a pan, fry off the pancetta until crispy and put to one side.
    •    In the same pan, add the olive oil, onions, garlic, carrot and celery and sweat until the onion starts to appear translucent – transfer to a pot or large saucepan.
    •    Re introduce the pancetta and add the tin of tomatoes, tomato puree and chilies (if using) and stir well.
    •    In a jug, add half a litre of boiling water to a stock cube and stir until the stock cube dissolves.
    •    Add the liquid to the saucepan and bring to the boil before reducing the heat so the soup is just simmering – simmer for 20 minutes to give flavours a chance to combine.
    •    Before serving the soup, add your chosen beans, stir and allow to cook through for a couple of minutes.
    •     Serve in big bowls with chopped herbs, some grated cheese and as much black pepper as you can handle!

Pork, Apple and Fennel Soup

Meeting up with friends and family at the weekend, and the subject of food and cooking came up, as it often does.  I was talking about making things like gnocchi and albondigas and everyone seemed impressed (once I had explained to them what these things were) and it occurred to me that most people stick to a few dishes that are tried and tested, and often passed down through the generations.

I'm not sure where and when I learned how to cook. Indeed, as a student I was often mocked for my terrible food, but somewhere between then and now I have started to experiment with ingredients and recipes, and also doing the blog has encouraged me to make new things every week, so even things that have worked really well and would be put on the short list for being made regularly, have only ever been made once, because of the drive to come up with new and exciting soups, cakes and other dishes.

Today's recipe isn't, however, one of those experimental and obscure recipe, but it is s delicious combination of summery vegetables and pork into a lovely soup.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Ingredients
1 Onion
1 Fennel Bulb
1 Stalk Celery
1 Apple
400g Pork
500ml Cider
700ml Stock
150ml Single Cream
2 Sprig of Rosmary
1tsp Wholegrain Mustard
Plain Flour
Flat Leaf Parsley

Method

1.  Finely chop the apple, fennel, celery and onion.  In a largem heavy pan, heat some oil and fry the vegetables over a low heat for 10 minutes, until they are sweated down but not too brown.  Remove them from the heat and put in a bowl for later.

2.  Cut the pork into cubes about 1cm across.  Toss them in the plain flour.  Heat some more oil in the pan and then brown the meat.  Once it is browned, add the stock and cider to the pan, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to bring the soup to a simmer.

3.  Add the vegetables back to the soup, along with the rosemary and mustard.  Put the lid back on the pan and contine to simmer for 30 minutes.

4.  Just before serving, stir in the single cream, and then pour into bowls, garnish with parsley and enjoy!

Borscht

Today's post is dedicated to food that is unnaturally coloured (even if it contains no artificial colourings).  As the second beetroot based recipe on the blog, I've already talked at length about the amazing colour of the vegetable and the love/hate relationship I have with the flavour (see here)

When I was taking the photos for today's post it looked like someone had committed bloody murder in the kitchen.  As a strange co-incidence, for some reason the shower started running by itself at the same time I was snapping away, scaring the bejesus out of me. Perhaps the flat is haunted by the ghosts of all the beetroot I have brutally slain over the years - their purple juice is on my hands...

Anyway, that got me thinking about all the foods I've eaten that have unnaturally strong colours, and how most of these rank on my list of most-hated foodstuffs. These include -

Piccalilli - like radioactive snot.  Sandwich fillings shouldn't glow in the dark

Semolina with Strawberry Jam mixed into it - turns the colour of a melted My Little Pony.  Not any old semolina pudding, I should point out, just the wallpaper paste consistency mess I was served as part of school dinners at Primary School in the 70'2

Sweet'n'sour sauce - specifically the gloopy orange stuff that comes from bad take-aways, sends shivers down my spine thinking about it - like the blood of an alien the Jon Pertwee incarnation of Doctor Who might have fought

And beetroot was also amongst the list, until recently, when I learnt to love the taste, and the colour too. I guess it's all part of growing as a person (why does that sound like the trite moral of a corny American sitcom episode?)

Which brings us to today's soup - a creamy and wonderful dish of pink heaven, set off perfectly by the hint of vinegar and sour cream.  Your mouth will never forget it, or your best white tablecloth...

Ingredients
300g Beetroot
100g White Cabbage
75g Smoky Back Bacon
1 Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
2 Stalks of Celery
1.2l Stock
1tsp Thyme
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Bay Leaf
Oil
Salt and Pepper 
Sour cream
Parsley

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200ºc

2. Peel and dice the beetroot (about 1cm square cubes should be okay), then peel and roughly slice the onion

3.  Put some oil in a roasting tray, then toss in the beetroot, onion, thyme and some salt.  Put the tray in the over for 45 minutes to roast the vegetables until they are golden and soft

4. Roughly chop the cabbage and celery.  Crush the garlic cloves. Cut the bacon into small slices

5.  In your soup pan, heat some more oil, then toss in cabbage, celery, garlic and bacon.  Sweat these in the pan for 5 minutes until they become so, but not colour too much.

6. Add the stock to the pan, then add the beetroot and onions. Finally, add the bay leaf and balsamic vinegar.

7. Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

8.  Using a hand blender, liquidise the soup until it's smooth, and at this point, feel free to pass it through a sieve, pressing down with a wooden spoon to get all the lumpy bits out and make the soup silky smooth

9.  Heat through just before serving, and garnish with sour cream and parsley.  Serve with fresh bread and enjoy!

Faki Lentil Soup

Ahh the lentil.  Butt of so many jokes when it comes to vegetarian cooking, but invaluable in making so many delicious soups, casseroles and even pate. For years, all I could think about when I heard about anyone cooking with lentils was Neil from The Young Ones.  Indeed, I suspect that he did more to set back the cause of the humble pulse, and probably vegetarians as a whole, than anything else I can think of.

But now I'm a bit addicted to them, which is something I never thought I'd say, what with being a ravenous carnivore and all (like a T-Rex from Jurassic Park, but less likely to eat Bob Peck - he's all gristle anyway, I've heard...) and I use them in all sorts of things, from being the basis of veggie chillies, lasagnes and Shepards pies (is it still a Shepard's Pie if there is no actual Shepard, umm, meat in it?  Answers in the comments section please...)