Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Piedmont Chestnut Soup The Christmas Song starts with the lyric "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire."  The first time I ever heard that song was at a studio recording of The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show in London many years ago (Mike Yarwood - where is he now?). When planning the Christmas menus with the spouse, I thought, "Mmmm, chestnuts." There are two recipes for chestnut soup in the  The Soup Book , the first of which was my choice for Christmas day. I started preparing it on Christmas eve, the spouse having had to go out to get another bag of chestnuts. The recipe for Piedmont chestnut soup is by Sophie Grigson, who warns that you need to allow time for peeling. I'd like to follow that up with a nail health warning: the nailbeds of my thumbs are very sore from peeling the chestnuts! I even put nail varnish on to hide the tear marks. Enough moaning - it's Christmas. The ingredients for the soup include chicken stock (home-made), thyme, bay leave...

Porcini Mushroom Soup I think it's been a while since I made a tomato-based soup from The Soup Book . This weekend's effort is porcini mushroom soup, described as a "hearty Italian country soup [with] deep, earthy flavours." The ingredients are dried porcini, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, garlic, chestnut mushrooms, celery, chopped tomatoes, vegetable stock, seasoning and ciabatta. Once I had the ingredients out on the worktop, I left the porcini soaking while I chopped the herbs and other vegetables. Then I started to cook the onions in the olive oil, but became sidetracked by another activity and the spouse had to rescue the onions. My hero! The next ingredients into the pot were the herbs, garlic, chestnut mushrooms and celery. The smell of the herbs was intense. The celery having softened, I put in the tomatoes, porcini, stock and the soaking liquor from the porcini (it's suggested that you strain this through a fine sieve as there may be bits of straw or dir...

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Saffron and Thyme Our plan this weekend was to go to the Dublin Food Co-op for something to eat before heading to the market in the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral . As I wasn't sure which soup to make, I decided to bring my copy of The Soup Book with me and to make my choice based on the available vegetables. First, though, the spouse, younger offspring and I made different choices for our lunch - falafel wrap (the spouse), vegetable curry (the offspring) and lentil soup (me). Then I inspected the vegetables. I haven't cooked with Jerusalem artichokes in years and the ones on display looked clean and fresh, so that was my vegetable choice made. There are two Jerusalem artichoke recipes in The Soup Book : one involving scallops by Shaun Hill , the other by Celia Brooks Brown . I had no intention of buying scallops, so Celia's recipe it was. The ingredients include onions, garlic, artichokes, carrots, vegetable stock, thyme, saffron and...

  Onion and Garlic Soup  Regular readers will spot immediately that the spouse has done what he's good at and found the camera connector that I misplaced. Below is his photograph of yesterday's soup from the The Soup Book .  It was onion and garlic soup by Marie-Pierre Moine . The ingredients include a Spanish onion, a banana shallot, a small head of garlic, dry white wine, vegetable stock, milk, egg yolks, double cream and Dijon mustard.  Trying to avoid the onion fumes, I used a handheld blender to chop the onion and shallot together. These were then cooked until the water had evaporated. Onion and garlic soup with croute Meanwhile, I boiled the unpeeled garlic cloves until they were soft enough to squeeze the flesh from the skin. I added the wine, stock and milk to the onion mix before dealing with the garlic flesh. To this I added the egg yolks, mashed them together then spooned in the cream. This mixture was stirred into the onion mix, and finally...