Avocado and Rocket Soup

Avocado and Rocket Soup

The introduction to this recipe on page 114 of The Soup Book states that "rich slightly nutty avocado works well with peppery wild rocket" and recommends the Hass variety. I hadn't given much thought to the varieties before, but on reflection my earliest memories are of smooth green-skinned ones (possibly Fuerte or Gwen) rather than the rough-skinned purplish-black Hass. This avocado information comes courtesy of Wikipedia and the California Avocado Commission website, by the way.

I am not a fan of lettuce and was made to eat it as a child. As an adult I have to smother it in dressings in order to get it past my reluctant tongue. In the last ten to twelve years I have found that restaurants in Dublin over-dress, over-decorate and over-garnish salads with lettuce - a cheap way of making a plate look full, I presume. Pleasant to look at but olfactorily repellent to the likes of me. So thank goodness for the arrival of rocket (Eruca sativa; also known as arugula).

Anyway, back to the recipe. It calls for ripe avocados, lemon juice, cold light chicken or vegetable stock, and harissa. It can be tricky enough to find ripe avocados - I find they're either as hard as nails or too soft. Fortunately, I was down at the local greengrocer's just after they opened this morning and was able to pick out the best of older stock. Back at home I had to wait for a bag of chicken stock to defrost before preparing the soup. No cooking involved at all - just washing, peeling, chopping, blending and chilling. The spouse and I tasted it before and after the addition of the harissa. You could get away without the harissa, but it does give it a kick. Tabasco sauce could substitute.

Coincidentally, today's Irish Times magazine has a chilled avocado soup recipe. The ingredients include vegetable stock, plain yoghurt, Tabasco, lime juice and garlic. Sound good. You can find more avocado soup recipes on the California Avocado Commission website, of course.

The recipe I followed is by Marie-Pierre Moine. I have to admit I hadn't heard of her before, but have discovered that she is the author and co-author of several books about French cooking, all published within the last twenty years.

I am an avocado. A poem by Kate Burnside

I was wondering if anyone had written a poem about avocados and came across I am an avocado on the Authors Den website. Here are a few lines -

My fleshy substance puzzles:
Am I savoury or sweet?
Delicious or non-descript?
And with or without texture?

Bee positive

The spouse sent me this link to a positive story about bees - http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0602/bees.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter. According to the story on the RTE news website, the number of wild bees has dropped, but more people are keeping bees.

Tuscan Bean Soup

Tuscan Bean Soup This recipe calls for canned beans (borlotti, flageolet or cannellini) and as I have been tidying and cleaning out our cupboards I've used cannellini beans. I have to mention that the younger offspring has done an impressive job on the cupboards. That's enough about him. Back to me and my soup! Other ingredients include onion, carrots, leek, garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree (I substituted sun-dried tomato paste as there was an open jar of it in the fridge), chicken stock (I had to use a cube as my home-made reserves have been used up) and spinach.When ready it's served with ciabatta bread, grated Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil. So it's quite a rich soup. We've just had the Tuscan bean soup for lunch. All enjoyed it. The adult males were particularly forthcoming in their praise. The spouse liked the "tomato-ey sharpness" and mused that ham stock should be considered as an alternative to chicken stock. Bees' Cheese and other recipes H

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Lovage Soup Today I made lovage soup, the second recipe by Sophie Grigson in The Soup Book that I have used in the last four days. She introduces the recipe with these remarks: "If you don't grow this old-fashioned herb yourself, ask around among your gardening friends or head down to the nearest garden centre to see if they sell it. " As I mentioned in my last blog entry (18th May), lovage now features among the herbs in my front garden. As the spouse left the camera at home, I took some photographs. Parsley, sorrel and lovage in Minnie's garden. Rosemary, parsley and lovage in Minnie's garden. I had hoped to add chervil to my collection of herbs - there's a recipe for vegetable and chervil soup in The Soup Book - but "Young Stephen" wasn't able to source any for me. At least he tried. Just while I'm mentioning Stephen, I have to reveal that the spouse and the older offspring claim that he has been mention

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