Leek and Bacon Soup with Squash Dumplings

It's raining!  It's cold and wet and miserable.  Welcome to Soup Tuesday, where we have soups for every occasion, to suit every taste  and whatever the weather, there always be something hot and tasty on the stove!

Today's soup has it all!  Bacon! Interesting vegetables!  Dumplings!  Un-necessary exclamation marks! Continuing the the theme of conjouring something up from the vegetable box which is delivered every Tuesday morning, we have Squash dumplings, made from a rather pretty Harlequin Squash, which, ummm, seems to be pretty much the same as a butternut squash but a bit paler flesh and with green bits on the skin.

Roasting the squash with a bit of ground coriander made the whole kitchen smell amazing all morning, and the resulting dumplings are a bit more like gnocchi than the sort of dumplings I usually make (of the suet variety).  I think these squash dumplings would go well with a tomato sauce and lots of basil and parmesan.

Ingredients
Squash Dumplings

350g Squash
300g Plain Flour
50g Butter (Frozen)
1tsp Baking Powder
1/2tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Oregano
1/2tsp Ground Coriander
Pinch Chili Pepper
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil 

Leek and Bacon Soup
100g Bacon
2 Large Leeks
1 Large Onion
1 Large Potato
1.2ml Chicken Stock
100ml White Wine
1 Sprig of Rosemary
Salt and Pepper


Method
1.  Heat the oven to 200ºc. Peel and cube the squash, Put on a baking tray with the Oregano, Coriander, Chili, salt and pepper and olive oil.  Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes, until the squash is golden.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

2.  Finely chop the onion, peel and dice the potato and cube the bacon.  Heat some oil in your soup pan and then toss in the bacon, letting it fry for 2 minutes before adding the onion and potato.  Let that fry off for 3-4 minutes, until everything starts to colour.

3.  Add the stock, wine and finely chopped rosemary.  Bring to the boil and then add the sliced leeks and then let the soup simmer for 20 minutes

4.  Break up the squash in a bowl with the back of a fork.  Sieve in the flour, nutmeg and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Grate the frozen butter in and mix into a firm dough.  You may need to add a little more liquid to get the dough to the right consistence to roll it up.

5.  Roll it out into a strip that's about 3cm wide, and then cut into 2cm thick pieces..  Cover in flour and then set aside.

6.  Add the dumplings to the soup and let cook for another 8-10 minutes, then the soup is ready to serve.  Enjoy!

Russian Kale Soup with Smoked Sausage

Well, the nights are drawing in and I've noticed a lot of people saying it's Soup Season.  Well, guess what, here at Soup Tuesday, it never stops being soup season.  I never seem to be one for seasonal dishes anyway.  I eat stews in the middle of summer and salads in the snow.  It's all good to me.

However, what I do enjoy at this time of year is the later crops that arrive, like turnips, swede, big carrots and dark cabbages.  Today's soup involves just one of these, but it's my favourite!.  As I'm on a bit of a crusade to make soups from the more un-loved soups, I remembered when I was a kid and my favourite dish was Steak and Kidney pie (Still is my favourite actually) and my Mum would always serve it with a type of cabbage that I just can't seem to find anywhere any more - it had dark green leaves like a savoy, but was smooth, and had a taste that was almost bitter.  If anyone knows what variety it was, or even where to get my hands on said cabbage, I would love you for ever and dedicate a soup to you...

In lieu of that cabbage, I am including Kale in tonight's soup, which is a hearty winter warmer to get you in the mood for longer evenings, snow drifts and mince pies in the shops (I know they are already there, which is good news, bring on Xmas...)  Kale is pretty simialr in taste to the cabbage I remember from being a kid, and I know that its flavour is not to everyone's taste, but I like it as it has the strong, almost bitter thing going on, and is a prefect complement to the smoked sausage that goes into the soup as well

Ingredients
1 Onion
1 Large Bunch of Red Kale
200g Smoked Sausage
1 Tin Tomatoes
1 Tin Borlotti Beans
3 Cloves Chopped Garlic
1tsp Chopped Fresh Rosemary
1tsp Chopped Sage Leaves
1.2l Chicken Stock
Salt & Pepper

Method
1.  Heat some olive oil in your soup pan.  Gently fry the  finely onion, garlic, rosemary and sage for 3-5 minutes, until the onion starts to colour

2. Add the tomatoes and stock, then bring to to boil

3.   Finely shred the kale, removing the stalks, and add this to the soup, as well as the beans and 2/3s of the sausage, cut into cubes.

4.  Bring the soup to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes, until the kale has completely cooked and softened.

5.  Slice the remaining sausage and fry this in some oil until it starts to brown.

6.  Check the seasoning of the soup, serve in warm bowls with a couple of the fried sausage slices on top.  Enjoy!

Turnip Soup with Bacon and Rosemary

Way back in the mists of time that was 2010, I was spurred on to write this blog by a few things.  One of them was a desire to have my name up in lights on t'interwebs (still waiting for that to happen...) and the other was two soups I made in the cold depths of winter that made me think 'Hey, soup is awesome, but it's not sexy like cupcakes, thai food or bacon, it needs someone the be it's champion.

So, like some kind of brothy St George, I vowed to take up the cause, riding off into the jaws of the internet armed only with a wooden spoon and a desire to spread the good word about soups, broths and (maybe) consommes.  I was looking through the blog, reminiscing about the good old days, when I realise that the two soup recipes that had provided the catalyst  for Soup Tuesday never even got written up, consumed, as I was, by the desire to find newer, more amazing soup recipes and add balck pudding to them...

So here is a version of one of those soups (the other shall remain shrouded in mystery until nearer Christmas, when I shall unleash it upon you in all it's cruciferous goodness....)

Turnip is a sadly under-rated vegetable, along with it's yellow cousin the swede.  Lo and behold, one turned up in this week's veg box, so I thought I'd make it into soup, like I did all those months ago pre-blog.  I also dragged the bread maker out to make some crusty bread to go with it - one day I shall graduate to making 'proper' bread, but to be honest today I just couldn't be bothered.

Anyway - turnip soup, made much more exciting by the presence of bacon (is there anything it can't do?) and some home grown rosemary, plus a cheeky splash of white wine, all adds up to lift this soup way beyond what you would expect from a soup made out of turnips...

Ingredients
450g Turnip
1 Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
200ml White wine
150 Smoked Bacon
1l Chicken Stock
30g Butter
2 Sprigs of Rosemary
1 Bay Leaf
Salt and Pepper
Grated Parmesan cheese

Method
1.  Finely chop the onion and garlic.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and fry gently until the onion is starting to brown.

2.  Add the wine and stock, rosemary stalks and bay leaf, season and bring to the boil.

3. Add the chopped turnip and bring the pan to a simmer.  Cover and leave to cook for 30 minutes, until the turnip is good and soft.  Take off the heat and leave to cool

4.  Remove the bay leaf and rosemary.  Blend the soup until smooth (pass through a sieve to remove lumps if you want to soup to be nice and creamy)

5.   Cut the bacon into small cubes or strips and fry until they are nice and crispy..  Meanwhile, reheat the soup, checking and adjusting seasoning as you see fit

6.  Serve in warm bowls and sprinkle the bacon cubes and Parmesan on top.  Enjoy!

Pie Floater - Olympic Food Challenge : Australia

Australia are one of the big boys when it comes to the Olympic games.  Over it's history, they have won 432 medals, 131 of those being all golden and shiny and are the 11th most successful team competing on medal ranking alone. They have already gotten a haul of 4 medals so far, including a swimming gold..

When we were planning the menu for the Olympic Food Challenge, and found out that we had drawn Australia, Mrs Soup, who has visited parts Antipodean, suddenly became very animated and say "you have to make a pie floater"! Now, Australia is renown for some amazing fusion dishes with lots of Asian influence, but I wanted to do something a little more old school, so this was perfect...

Now, never being one to back down from a challenge,  I had to find out what a pie-floater was, and after some research, it turned out to be a very maligned dish of a pie floating in mushy peas, smothered in tomato sauce, which was designated in 2003, a Southern Australian Cultural Icon.  And people say the Australians have no culture... (I jest, by the way, in case anyone challenges me to a game of 'knifey-spoony')  It appalled to me to make a somewhat more swanky version of what appears to be the Australian version of a drunken kebab on the way home from the pub. Find out more about them here

The pie floater was also a challenge as I had to make pastry, which regular readers will know, usually makes me cry tears of sadness and failure.  However, today was a success. The pie filling had to be lamb, of course (Chuzz-wazzer being unavailable in my local butcher*)  Also, I added green food dye to the mushy peas, as they didn't seem, well, green enough...

*Enough with the Simpsons references...

Boerewors Stuffed Mushrooms

I don't know if you noticed, but we had a Jubilee celebration this week. And rather sadly, the street party we were scheduled to attend was, in true Great British style, rained off...  Rather than be deterred by this sad turn of events, we staged an impromptu BBQ in our living room. 

As at least one of Team Soup is a colonial type, we thought that it would be a good idea to celebrate the Jubilee with a bit of meat from South Africa (being as that's where Mrs Soup calls home) so one trip to the rather brilliant Leeds market later, we had procured some boerewors, which a) I can never pronounce properly, and b) is rather tasty. 

So as we sat in our living room, eating boerewors in buns with tomato sauce (and being told that British BBQs are no where near as good as a proper South African braai) I tried to think of something to to with the left over boerewors sauage.  And this is what I came up with, as a sort of Jubilee celebration of meat and mushroom.

Ingredients
4 Large Open Mushrooms
250g Boerewors (or any other sausage that you can find...)
1 Large Onion
1 Slice of Brown Bread
20g Butter
Olive Oil
White Wine
Fresh Thyme
Fresh Rosemary
Cheddar Cheese

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180ºc

2. Place the Mushrooms in large over proof dish or baking tray.

3.  In each one, pour 1/2 tbsp of olive oil, a splash of white wine and a knob of butter, then spinkle each with fresh thyme leave

4.  Put the mushrooms in the oven and cook for 20 minutes

5.  Heat some oil in a frying pan.  Gently fry the onion, finely chopped for 3-5 minutes, until it starts to colour

6.  Remove the sausage meat from its skin and then add this to the frying pan, breaking up the meat as it gently cooks.

7.  Put the onions and sausage meat in a mixing bowl.  In a food processor, turn the bread into breadcrumbs

8.  Chop the rosemary.  Add this and the breadcrumbs to the onions and sausage meat.  Mix thoroughly with a fork, and season to taste.

9.  Spoon this mixture into the mushrooms, and top with grated cheese.

 10.  Return to the oven and cook for 30 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and browning slightly, then serve!

Leek and Blue Cheese Soup

So this might be a bit premature, but I spent this weekend planning what to grow in the garden (and by garden I mean the tiny 2x4meter balcony outside our flat...) because hopefully, Spring is coming soon.  I have quite a bad track record when it comes to growing things - instead of green fingers, I have death-fingers, or so it seems, with a rubber plant that now adorns my flat being the only thing I've ever grown that has lived longer than six months.

A tiny evil creature.  Elvis had the right idea.  Eat 'em!

With the help of Mrs Soup (and the valiant efforts of Suttons Seeds and the local B&Q) we now have seeds a' plenty (two varieties of beetroot, kohlrabi, borlotti beans, raspberries etc) and some nice specially designed growing containers just for teeny tiny balconies.  So the scene is set for some growing type actives come spring.  We shall see what happens, and whether the plants survive for more than a month against the terrors of inclement weather, forgetting to water them and the marauding squirrels that dive-bomb the balcony (and were responsible for destroying not one, not two but three bird feeders...)

I will certainly keep you updated, and hopefully, the results will be incorporated into a few soups come harvest time (and I might organize a mini Harvest Festival like we had in school)

But one thing that I keep trying to grow, and that keep dying, is a good crop of herbs.  If anyone has any tips, please let me know in the comments section - you could just be a life-saver.  One herb plant that I have tried at least three times, and three times have watched in horror is it turned brown and whithered, is Rosemary - it's one of my favourite flavors, goes so well with lamb (my favourite meat) as well as so many other things, including being used in this soup, which is a really nice variation on the classic Broccoli and Stilton soup.

Anyway, this soup is great for these spring-is-not-yet-here evenings...

Ingredients
5 Leeks - Trimmed
1 Small Onion
2 Medium Potatoes
3 Sprigs Fresh Rosemary
1tsp Minced Garlic
1.5l Chicken Stock
1tsp English Mustard
150g Soft Blue Cheese
Salt and Pepper
Cooking Oil

Method

Peel and cube the potatoes, chop the onion and strip to rosemary sprigs of the green bits (just pull them off roughly and don't worry about chopping them at this stage)

In your soup pan, heat the oil and then add the potatoes, onion, rosemary and garlic.  Cook this with the lid on over a low heat for around 5 minutes, until everything has started to soften and the rosemary starts to release its wonderful smells and flavour.

Roughly chop the leeks (green bits and all) and then toss them into the pan, stirring them in and cooking for another 5 or so minutes, until they are nice and soft too.

At this point, add the stock and bring the pan to a simmer, then cook the soup for 30  minutes.

Cut the cheese up into cubes and then stir these into the soup and add the mustard, then with either a stick blender or a food processor, blend the soup until it's smooth.  As always, pass it through a sieve for a smoother texture if you wish (and I do wish - I hate soup that's more puree than soup)  This also helps get rid of any bits of rosemary that might be lurking in the soup

Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste and then heat through, garnish with a bit of grated nutmeg, before serving with some nice (preferably home-made) bread to warm you up on a cold winter's evening.  Enjoy!

Pea, Lettuce and Mint Soup

So you know how when you are hungry, a nice tin of soup is always lurking in the back of the cupboard?  And how tinned soup is one of the greatest things ever?  But what happens if you have possibly a few more mintues to spare and feel like whipping up a home-made soup?

But oh no!  You don't have any ingredients... shock horror.  Well, fear not - this soup (which is really healthy as well, for those of you on a diet)  doesn't have any exotic ingredients, and it can be thrown together with that solitary carrot and half a lettuce thats slowly going brown at the back of the fridge, and some frozen peas that are encrusted with ice in the freezer.

And lo-and-behold, look how lovely it looks!  How wonderful that colour is! And It's made of peas... another pea-based soup.  The best thing about pea recipes is that frozen peas are just as good as fresh ones, in my opinion.  Plus, they are pretty cheap, and keep for a while.  After all, we all have a bag lurking somewhere in the bottom of the freezer, and what better way to use them than in a soup, rather than just sticking them rather forlornly on the edge of the plate?

This recipe is a light and summery soup, as opposed to the pea and bacon soup, which to me seems much more of a hearty winter soup