Cream of Vegetable Soup

Cream of Vegetable Soup

The recipe for this soup is by Roopa Gulati and features in the winter vegetable section of The Soup Book. So far I have made only seven of the forty-five soups in this section and thought I'd better get a move on. The older offspring, with his predilection for meaty soups, will survive.

Still in thrift mode, I used the older vegetables from the fridge to make vegetable stock based on the book's recipe. This stock recipe is a good way to use up leeks, carrots, celery, onions, button mushrooms, potatoes and tomatoes; the herbs of choice are parsley, bay leaves and thyme. I used this stock in today's soup, the other ingredients of which are carrots, leek, parsnips, onion, turnip, celery, potato, thyme, bay, nutmeg, cream and milk. Parsnips are not among my favourite vegetables, but the dominant taste of the finished product was swede turnip (in Ireland turnips are swedes - UK publishers, take note!). The four of us liked it and there is plenty left over. Unfortunately, the addition of milk and cream makes it unsuitable for freezing, so I'll chill it and bring some into work on Monday.

On the subject of bringing soup to work, last month I brought the remains of the Henningsvaer fish soup into the office. While driving there, the lid of the container came off when I took a corner too quickly. The soup spilled and my car stank! It's all right now.)

What's the buzz? 

• The spouse sent me this link to a cartoon story called The Queen Commands - quite amusing. 
• At this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition third prize in the Intermediate (Individual) category went to a project on queen bees: Do they stop laying broods during the winter?
• There is cocktail called the Bees Knees! It has gin it and I don't drink gin.
• There is such a thing as honey bun cake. I tried to find a straightforward recipe for it, but anything I found involved using a "packet of yellow cake mix". I don't know what that is. Help!
• Celebrity spot. During the week, I was out with the colleagues for dinner. After our meal we went to a well known southside pub, where one of the girls ("Janey" - not her real name) spotted an opposition party leader. I had seen the same man at Heathrow Airport a few years ago and his hair was a different shade of blonde then. Anyway,  I headed off to catch the bus home and received a multimedia text message from Janey: a photograph of herself cheek to cheek with the said politician. Cheeky girl!