Sick-day Soup

Last week I had a horrific stomach bug so had to take the day off work. Luckily by the afternoon I was feeling better and ready to eat. Unluckily we had virtually no food in the house and I didn't want to venture outside. I desperately searched the cupboards, trying to find something other than plain pasta and managed to put together a surprisingly tasty soup with the following ingredients, I call it my ‘Sick-day Soup’:  

 

Ingredients:

Whatever vegetables, pulses and herbs you can find + vegetable stock. 

I used:

3 old celery stalks, chopped

1 small red onion, chopped (mouldy bit chopped off…yeah that’s how grim the situation was)

750ml vegetable stock

2-3 tbsp olive oil

Pinch of rosemary and black pepper

1 cup of soup mix soaked in cold water for several hours and rinsed (lentils, pearl barley etc – available in most supermarkets and health food stores, see picture below)

 Method:

1. Gently fry the onion for a few minutes, add the celery and fry for a further 5 minutes or so.

2. Stir in the soup mix, stock and herbs. Bring to the boil then simmer for 30 minutes or until the soup mix is soft. 

 3. Serve in Tupperware as you’re too sick and lazy to do the washing up.  

 I promise it tasted better than it looked...

 Also, isn't this onion just beautiful?? Just me? Like I said it was a bit mouldy in places and soft on the outer layers but when I cut into the middle it was fine so check your food before you throw it out!

 

Seasonal Scotland: Leek & Potato Soup

This is one of the first ~proper~ (i.e. from scratch) things I ever cooked and you just can’t go wrong with it. I’ve based my recipe on the one featured in 400 Soups. UK-grown leeks and potatoes* are available most of the year and last week I managed to get mine from South-East Scotland :) 

Serves approx 6 (freeze any leftovers!)

I always make Alex chop the onion :p He wears contacts!

Ingredients:

75g butter or oil

2-3 leeks, chopped

400g potatoes, chopped

1 onion, chopped

2 pints vegetable stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Heat up the half the butter or all the oil in a large pan then add the onion and leeks. Gently cook for a few minutes until they’ve softened up.

2. Mix in the potatoes and cook for a further few minutes.

3. Add the stock, cover, and bring to the boil. Reduce to simmer for 30 minutes.

4. Add the salt, pepper, and left over butter if using. Optional – take off the heat and liquidise all/part of it for a smoother soup (I like to whiz up a little bit of it to make it thicker).

To find out more about what fruits and vegetables are in season check out this amazing interactive calendar! I have one of Liz Cook’s wall charts on my kitchen window but like to use this electronic one too.

*Maincrop potatoes are generally harvested October-December but they can be stored for months so although not technically ‘seasonal’ (it’s nearly March now!) I’d still say this counts as a Seasonal Scotland dish!

Mushroom Stoup

Stew or soup….I’m not really sure, this version is probably more soupy. I tried to recreate one of the dishes I had at the Hearty Squirrel’s ‘Climate-friendly food workshop’ (see picture below), though admittedly this version isn’t so climate friendly (the porchini mushrooms were from China and I have no idea where all the bits in the soup mix came from, oops). The great thing about the original was that all the ingredients were from Scotland! They put dumplings in it too which made it more stew-like. But anyway, here’s my version…

Makes 6 portions – me and Alex just kept reheating it and ate it for 3 days straight it was so good! 

Ingredients:

50g dried porchini mushrooms

2 medium sized chestnut mushrooms, chopped

Half a bag of kale (~50g), leaves removed from stalks

1 large carrot, chopped

1 onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 leek, chopped

100g soup mix (usually contains dried pearl barley, lentils, various peas and beans etc)

2 pints veg stock

2-3 tbsp olive oil

Herbs to taste (I used oregano, rosemary, sage, black pepper and salt)

Method:

1. In advance of making the soup, rehydrate the dried porchini mushrooms (rinse thoroughly, soak for 2 hours in cold water, drain and rinse, soak for 30 mins in hot water) and soak the soup mix (overnight in cold water is best).
2. Prepare the veg and heat up the oil in a large pan. When the oil is hot, add the onion and leeks and gently fry till the onion turns clear. Mix in the herbs and garlic.
3. Next add the chestnut mushrooms and carrot. If you have a muslin cloth or something similar, strain the liquid that the porchini mushrooms soaked in and add that too before adding the mushrooms themselves (this will remove any remaining grit off the mushrooms). If you don’t (I didn’t) just throw it all in but it might be a bit gritty once you get to the bottom of the pan! Add the soup mix, then the stock, bring to the boil, and simmer for 30 minutes or until the carrots and soup mix have gone soft. Add the kale 5-10 minutes before the end.

 

 - and here's the one I had at the workshop!