Smoked Haddock Chowder

So, it's the new year and here is a new blog post.  And it's a special one.  This soup recipe makes 100 soups on the blog! Wow.  When I started doing this blog, mainly as a way to keep occupied and to inspire me to cook new and interesting things, I never thought I'd make it this far.  In the 3 years I've been doing this, I have found by cooking becoming increasingly more adventurous and that I've also gotten a lot more passionate about what I eat.

And the soups - who would have thought that there even were more than a hundred types of soup in the world?  And it seems that I've just scratching the surface - not just in terms of 'Ooh, what veg do I have in the cupboard?  Let's jam them into a soup...' which is a perfectly acceptable way of coming up with recipes, but also in terms of national dishes, soups particular to countries, cuisines and regions.  So many wonderful tastes and recipes yet to come.

So thanks to you, my lovely readers - some of whom I have talked to on twitter (and if I haven't, why not say hello - I'm @souptuesday) for reading this blog, and hopefully enjoying the soups I've made so far, and put up with my occasional ramblings and bad jokes.

As well as more soups this year, you can look forward to some more posts about what else I'm eating (after getting more than my own bodyweight in cookbooks for Christmas, I'm itching to try out some fancy-pants new dishes) and also the World Cup Food Challenge - much like the Olympic Food Challenge, where I will be cooking selected dishes from some of the countries taking part in that whole football thing (and showing off my shocking lack of knowledge about the beautiful game)  If you want to know more about it, you can read more (and find out which other food blogs are taking part) by clicking here

And without further ado, the 100th soup recipe - suggested by Mrs Soup, without whom, this blog wouldn't exist...

Ingredients
300g Smoked Haddock
450g Potatoes
150g Sweetcorn
1 Large Onion
2 Leeks
75g Smoked Bacon
30g Butter
1 Bay Leaf
1tsp Fresh Thyme
700ml Water
500ml Milk
150ml Single Cream
3 Hard Boiled Eggs

Method
1. In a large pan (I used a frying pan) gently heat the milk and then put the haddock in, simmering over a low heat for 5 minutes, until the fish it poached.  Take the pan off the heat, and using a slotted spoon, remove the haddock, putting it into a bowl for later, flaking it with a fork.  Also keep the poaching milk for later too!

2. Cut the bacon into small pieces.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and gently fry the bacon

3. Finely chop the onion and leeks.  Add them to the pan and then sweat the vegetables until they are soft

4.  Peel and cube the potatoes, then add these to the pan, cooking for a further few minutes.

5.  Add the water, milk, sweetcorn, thyme and bay leaf.  Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 25-30 minutes, until the potatoes are soft and starting to break up.

6.  Using a potato masher, break up the potatoes a little more, then add the haddock back into the pan, along with the single cream and reheat gently.  Test seasoning and adjust to your preference.

7 Serve with crusty bread and sliced boiled eggs on top of each bowl.  Enjoy!

Purresuppe - Norwegian Leek and Potato Soup

Week two of what my crack team of lawyers are telling me to avoid calling 'Around the world in 80 soups' - not because Jules Verne might sue, but because it's a rather obvious thing to do isn't it?  So today we come to Norway.  When I'm looking for recipes to put on the site, especially from other countries, I am often stymied by the fact that some ingredients are just too darn difficult to lay my hands on.  For example, two really exciting Norwegian soups called for Reindeer meat and cod tongues - both rather difficult to lay hands on on a Monday afternoon (however, there may be a Norwegian store in Leeds Market - I shall have to investigate next time I'm there.

Instead, I found a nice leek and potato soup recipe, all the while cursing myself for playing it safe.  Especially because from what I know about Norwegian cuisine, it can be anything but safe (See Surströmming for example - a tinned fish so dangerous that it's banned from being carried on aircraft lest it explode!)  Also, all the Norwegians I have known have been crazy to borderline insane (in a good way) Maybe to make this soup more dangerous, I should have stirred in some elk blood or something.  At the very least listened to some black metal whilst burning down a church...*

This soup really is a thing of beauty, creamy without resorting to cream, thick and warming without being too heavy and also perfect for a winter's day (which will soon be coming, and then the page views for my blog will start to go up again - yay grotty weather, you go!)

I have a vague aversion to soup recipes that are just x & y soup, where x and y are random vegetables thrown together (although I have made and blogged plenty of those) so writing about Purresuppe allows to to include what could be seen as a rather mundane soup and give it a sheen of the exotic.  And it really is very nice...

*Soup Tuesday does not advocate burning anything, or listening to horrible music

Ingredients
2 Leeks
3 Parsnips
1 Onion
500g Potatoes
4 Cloves Garlic
1.5l Chicken Stock
3 Rashers Smoked Bacon
Fresh Thyme
Salt 
Pepper
Butter

Method.
1. remove the green parts of the leeks and slice them.  Peel and slice the onion

2.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and cook the leeks and onions until they start to soften

3.  Peel and cube the potatoes and parsnips.

4.  Add them to the pan and let them cook for a few minutes to

5.  Add the stock and season.  Bring to the boil, cover and reduce to a simmer, then cook for 45 minutes, until all the vegetables are falling apart.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool

6.  Using a blender, blend the soup until it is smooth.  Pass it through a sieve if you want to remove any lumps lurking in the soup

7.  Fry the bacon until crispy, then cut into small pieces.

8.  Serve the soup with a sprinkling of bacon pieces and some fresh thyme leaves.  Enjoy!

Potato and Savoy Cabbage Soup with Bacon

Hands up who takes part in the Foodie Penpals scheme?  If you don't, why not?  The deal is that you register and get given a penpal to send a box of goodies to, and someone else sends you a package full of lovely foodstuff in return.  What could be simpler? Nothing, that's what.  Plus you get the enjoyment of shopping for weird and wonderful things to send to people and also the fun of opening a box that is stuffed full of brilliant things.

This month, we got an awesome Easter themed box, that not only contained some tasty things, but also a lovely wee Simnell cake.  Not only that but it even came with some cute Easter chicks and some bunny ears, which I'm wearing as I write this post.  No, really...

Obligatory snow picture

As well as sending us all the tasty treats, our foodie penpal also sent me a soup recipe to put on the blog, which is what I am posting right now, and it couldn't have come at a better time, what with all that unseasonably snowy weather we've been having lately

Also, if you are interested in getting involved in the Foodie Penpals scheme, you can find out more here.  Have fun!

Look at all that food!  Plus meat flavoured peanuts...

 And without further ado, here is the recipe

Ingredients
1 Onion
1 Carrot
1 Celery Stick
2 Garlic Cloves
1tbsp Olive Oil
550g Floury Potatoes
1l Vegetable Stock
8 Rashers Streaky Bacon
1/4 Medium Savoy Cabbage

Method
1. Chop onions, carrot, celery and garlic.  Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the veggies and potatoes, season, reduce heat and cover with a lid.  Gently cook for 5 minutes until the vegetables are starting to soften then add the stock and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 5 more minutes until the veg is tender.

2. While the soup is cooking, fry or grill the bacon until crisp, then cut into strips.  Shred the cabbage, discarding the core.

3.  Whizz the soup in a food processor until smooth, then return to the pan and add the cabbage.  Simmer for a few minutes until the cabbage is tender, season to taste and serve scattered with bacon.  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!

Kartoffelsuppe : German Potato Soup

Happy new year everyone! Hope your hang-over has subsided and that you are looking forward to the new year as much as I am.  I've got some exciting things planned for the blog this year, starting with today's recipe.

It's often hard for me to come up with inspiration for soups - either using whatever is at hand, or when that elusive soupy muse strikes.  The easiest inspiration is when someone else suggests it, but where could I find a willing source of people around the world to tell me what kind of soups they like?

I happened to stumble across a website called Post Crossing, which is a postcard exchange site (And if you are looking for something to do in the new year, you could do worse than sign up - it's fun getting snail mail from all over the planet!)  Anyway, I set up a profile and asked for people who were sending me a postcard to include their favourite soup recipe from their home country.  And today's soup is the first result - a humble but hearty potato soup recipe from Germany. 

I used nice waxy potatoes, and was quite happy with the consistency - potato soups can have a tendency to get quite thick and glue-y.  If yours is going that way, add a bit more stock after blending.  Also, substituting some sausage for the bacon would work brilliantly.  So thanks to donnerkugel from Germany via Postcrossing for suggesting it!

Ingredients
750g Potatoes
1 Large Onion
1 Carrot
150g Smoked Bacon
1.2l Beef Stock
200ml Sour Cream
1tsp Thyme
Grated Nutmeg
20g Butter
Salt
Pepper

Method.
1.  Heat up the butter in a soup pan.  Fry the cubed bacon until it browns.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the bacon and set aside

2.  Thinly slice the onion. Fry them in the butter and bacon fat until they start to go golden.

3. Peel and cube the onions and carrots.  Add these to the onions in the pan, along with the thyme and nutmeg.  Allow them to cook for 4-5 minutes in the butter along with the onions, until they start to colour slightly.

4.  Add the stock to the pan, bring to the boil, cover and then simmer for 40 minutes, until the potatoes are just starting to break up.  Take the pan off the heat and leave to stand for 15 minutes.

5.  Using a stick blender, blend 2/3 of the soup and then return to the pan, stirring well.  You could alternatively use a potato masher to break up the vegetables - or use a mixture of the two.  As long as you don't have too many large chunks of vegetable floating round in the pan.

6.  Return the pan to the heat, adjusting seasoning, and heat through.  Just before serving, stir in the sour cream.  Ladle into heated bowls and garnish with the bacon that you set aside earlier.  (I warmed my bacon through under a hot grill for a few minutes before serving too)  Enjoy!

Pumpkin Soup with Sage and Bacon

On a trip to the supermarket the other day,  I had to wade through aisle after aisle of skeleton themed sweets, plastic vampire fangs and bottles of bleach in the shape of Frankenstein's Monster (although I may be making one of these up...) which led me with the swiftness of Sherlock Holmes, to deduce that Halloween is almost upon us.

Me, with terrible wounds...

Much like Chrismas, birthdays and that day when they roll cheeses down a hill somewhere and people chase after them, Halloween seems to be a decisive event.  From people moaning about it being an American holiday, being over-commercialised to people objecting on religious grounds and so on and so forth.  Me, I love it - always have done, back from when I was a nipper and we used to make turnip lanterns as pumpkins were such stuff as dreams were made of back in the 70's in Leeds. 

On to student days when we dressed as zombies, lobster creatures and, erm, werewolves with jaundice (yes, we still remember that Kris!) and now in more sedate times re-watching old Hammer Horror films like Frankenstein and The Monster From Hell and Taste the Blood of Dracula (man those films had way better names that modern horror films do...)

And yes, it goes without saying that the one vegetable that symbolises Halloween is the pumpkin (which are everywhere now...) so here is a pumpkin soup to warm your bones as you prepare to chill your soul this Halloween.

Of course, you could leave out the bacon and use vegetable stock if you wanted, but scientists have discovered that the addition of bacon improves any dish by 1027%, and who am I to argue with science?

Ingredients
40g Butter
2 Onions
1kg Pumpkin
2 cloves Garlic
1.2l Chicken Stock
60ml Sherry
50g Smoked Bacon
Pumpkin Seeds
1tbsp Chopped Fresh Sage
Grated Nutmeg

Method
1. Finely chop the onions and garlic.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and then gently fry the onion and garlic until it starts to colour.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

2.  Peel the pumpkin, de-seed it and then cut the flesh into cubes.  Add these to the pan and cook for a further 10 minutes, until the pumpkin flesh is soft.

3. Add the stock, sherry, sage,and some salt and pepper, bring the pan to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Cover and cook for 30 minutes, until the pumpkin is very soft.

4.  Remove the pan from the heat and then blend until smooth, pass the soup through a sieve to remove lumps and make it extra smooth at this point if you like, then return to the pan.

5.  Re-heat and serve.  Garnish with grated nutmeg, toasted pumpkin seeds, basil leaves fried in a little butter until crisp and some cubes of fried smoked bacon.  Enjoy!

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!

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!

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.

Irish Lentil and Bacon Soup

Today we have our 3rd guest blogger, the wonderful Ms. Ella Rose, and yes, she's on twitter too, so why not give her a shout and a smile @missellarose.  This is all about her...

I have always been really into food and cooking from a young age. Watching and tasting everything I could to learn all the techniques and recipes I could remember! I suppose that this is when my (border-line crazy lady) obsession with recipes began.

I love trying new foods, reading and writing about them, and last year started my own blog www.gourmetgob.blogspot.com . I love the idea that people can share my food with me through the internet. It feels great to hear when someone has successfully replicated one of my own recipes in their home. I spend most of my time feeding anyone who’ll eat and have a loyal legion of tasters!

Between cooking and reading other people’s blogs I occasionally find time to sleep!

Reading other blogs is a great way to get ideas, and connect with like-minded people. That’s is how I found Soup Tuesdays Blog. We follow the same people on twitter and I think we have a similar style of cooking which is why I’m so pleased to be guest blogging!

Now down to the nitty gritty, I got this recipe is from my partner’s mother and it is a classic in Northern Ireland, everyone has their own take on it. I have chosen to grate the carrots which gives the soup a lovely texture, other examples are adding spinach, using ham hock instead of bacon and adding in curry powder. A word of warning if using curry powder only add in a little to avoid creating

Ingredients
240g (a packet) of smoked bacon chopped
One chopped onion
2 Cloves of garlic
250g Red split lentils
3 peeled carrots

Method
1.    Fry the bacon in a pan until crispy and golden brown, remove from the pan and set aside.

2.    Gently fry the onion until translucent, then add in the garlic and cook for a further 5 mins. Add the bacon again to the pan, lentils and the stock.

3.    Cook for 30-40 mins until thickened, 15 mins before the end grate the carrots in.
Serve with crusty fresh bread, garlic bread or cheese on toast - perfect!

Butternut Gnocchi with Sage Butter and Bacon

 After last week, I have found out that I'm addicted to gnocchi!  Having talked to a few people about it, some have told me that they sound the texture a little bit slimy, so I thought I'd experiment with different ways of cooking them, and here is the first one!

As usual, I had to cram some meat into this dish somehow, but it would work perfectly well without the bacon!  I think my addiction to gnocchi was started by my love of dumplings, they are my gateway drug, as I have been experimenting with dim-sum as well, but I could give it up at any time, I could...

Ingredients
For the Gnocchi
1 Butternut Squash
450g Waxy Potatoes
250g Parmesan 
1 Egg
Plain Flour


For the Sage Butter
1tbsp Fresh Sage
300g Butter
100g Bacon Lardons


To Serve
Fresh Rocket, spinach or other salad leaves
Parmesan Shavings


Method

1. Heat the oven to 200ºc.  Cut the butternut in half, lengthways and de-seed, then brush with olive oil, place in an oven tray and then put in the over.  Cook for 90 minutes, and then allow the squash to cool. Once it is cool, use a spoon to remove the flesh, and using a food blender, puree it.

2.  Heat a large pan of water and cook the potatoes for 20 minutes, until they soften.  Drain and allow to cook

3.  Pass the potato through a ricer, or mash very well, then put into a mixing bowl.  To this add the puree'd squash, the beaten egg, grated parmesan, salt and pepper.  Start adding plain flour, slowly mixing until you have a firm but not too dry dough.

4.  Roll the dough our on a floured surface into a sausage about 2 / 3 cm thick, and cut into 3 cm long chunks.  Put this on sheets of greaseproof paper, cover and chill for an hour or so.

5.  Heat a large pan of salted water and bring to the boil.  Add the gnocchi to the pan and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon, allow to drain.  You might have to do this in two batches depending on the size of your pan.

6.  In a large frying pan, heat some of the butter and cook the bacon until it starts to go crispy on the edges.  Set this aside for serving

7.  Add the rest of the butter and the sage, then cook the gnocchi for 7-8 minutes, until it starts to go golden. 

8.  Serve on a bed of leaves, with parmesan and bacon.  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!

Minestrone Soup

There hasn't been a blog post in a while, but there has been illness abroad at Chez Soup.  And when there is illness, I always turn to the restorative powers of the soup - and this time it was the turn of Minestrone.  Everybody probably knows this soup. and it would seem that everybody has their own way of making it.  And that's the joy of soup - they can be as simple or as elaborate as you wish them to be.

However, my version of Minestrone is about as simple as you can get - and yet again it's an old family recipe - I remember my mum making huge dishes of this soup, served from a rather gaudy enamaled tureen that must have fallen through a timewarp from the 1970's (or probably actually was from the 1970's, come to think of it...) and it' probably the first meal that I ever cooked by myself - back in 19-something or other I was a fresh-faced schoolboy, studying home-economics and to impress the teacher, during one lesson, I brought in the ingredients and made a pan-full of Minestrone.  However, if memory serves, I mis-judged the quantity of stock needed and so what I ended up producing something much closer to a thick stew than a soup! Mu cooking has improved much since then...

Other Minestrone experiences I can remember are - my first ever Cup-a-soup (which started my life-long love affair with heavily processed foods, such as the humble cheese slice) and it's amazing chemically taste, and then tinned Minestrone, eaten out of a Muppets flask for lunch at school, and dipping cheese spread sandwiches into it...

Ah, the folly of youth!

Anyway, here is the recipe, a rich and hearty soup perfect for autumn evenings, and possibly for curing the common cold too...

 When making this soup, you can use any pasta you want, but I really like using Orzo or Pasta Rice - mainly because it doesn't swell up too much when it absorbs the liquid from the soup.

Ingredients
2 Small Onions
2 Carrots
3 Sticks Celery
1 Leek
200g Dark Cabbage
150g Smoked Back Bacon
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
100g Pasta
50g Butter
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 Cup Red Wine
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1.5l Chicken Stock
2tsp Fresh Thyme
2tsp Fresh Basil
2tsp Fresh Parsley

To Garnish
Parmesan Shavings

Method
Heat the butter in a large pan.  To this, add the bacon, chopped finely, and fry until the bacon starts to brown.

Remove the pan from the heat and remove the bacon, placing it on some kitchen towel to soak up the excess butter.  Now return the pan to the heat and add the carrots, onion, celery, leek cabbage and garlic, all shredded, grated or finely chopped, depending on how chunky you like your soup, and sweat in the butter for 3-5 minutes, adding more butter or olive oil if the pan gets too dry and the vegetables start to stick.

Once the vegetables are nice and soft, add the tomatoes, red wine and balsamic vinegar, and bring to the boil, cooking over a high heat for a few minutes before adding the stock and herbs.  Also at this point, put the bacon back into the pan as well. 

Cover the soup and cook for 30-40 minutes, then add the pasta and cook for another 10 minutes.  Check to make sure the pasta is cooked through, season to taste and serve.  Garnish with parmesan and eat with crusty bread.  Enjoy!

Home Made Baked Beans

Before we go any further, a confession - I can't stand tinned Baked Beans.  I know that marks me out as a food heretic in many people's eyes, but it's true.  Luckily it's about my only weakness when it comes to food - I will eat anything else (oh apart from Salad Creme - tastes like mayo that's gone off... Maybe I just have a thing against Heinz products, apart from Oxtail Soup, which is wonderful!)

So why am I finding myself writing a recipe for what is essentially glorified baked beans?  Well...  I think I may have mentioned that it's been my birthday recently - and if you feel the need, contact me for a present list, I don't mind if they are belated (Hallmark make cards for every occasion...) and as a special birthday present, Team Soup de-camped to Cambridge for the weekend to, umm, camp.  On the way we stopped off at Melton Mowbray to sample some rather amazing pies, ate delicious Wild Boar sausages in a pub near our campsite and I also had cooked for me a brilliant Steak and Kidney pie a la Delia (my special birthday meal)

Beer and Cheese Soup with Bacon

I'm always on the lookout for strange and interesting combinations of flavours, and when someone told be that beer and cheese soup was an actual thing, how could I resist making it?  Combining, as it does, three of my most favourite ingredients in the world - namely beer, cheese and, ummm, bacon (which you have already guessed, due to the fact that this IS a recipe for Beer and cheese soup with bacon...)

I know it sounds like a very strange combination of ingredients, but trust me, once you try this soup you will be a convert.  As well as tasting delicious, it is possibly the most manly soup possible.

The beer flavour isn't too strong, and neither is the cheese, but combined with the bacon, it's a really nice and savoury taste.  I imagine this is the soup that lumberjacks eat before chopping down trees in the Canadian wilderness, or perhaps contestants in The World's Strongest Man eat before lifting cars with their ears, or whatever it is that they do.

Anyway, eat this soup and put hairs on your chest.  Grrr....

Pea and Bacon Soup

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the humble pea.  Can't stand them as a side dish, but love them as an ingredient, as in this soup, which has the most wonderful colour, and just enough meat with the addition of the bacon to remind me of my other favourite pea related meal - Pork Pies with mushy peas.  (Preferably eaten standing next to a bonfire with the smell of fireworks in the air)