Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Beef and Green Bean Sou p   Just as it says in the title of today's entry, this soup contains beef (shoulder is recommended) and green beans. Why am I stating the obvious? It's been one of those weekends. Beautiful weather but lots of indoor jobs to do.  Anyway, before I went shopping yesterday (the spouse was working) I looked in the fridge to see what we needed and saw a packet of beans on their last day of "best before". "I'll use those up, " I thought. The other ingredients of my 115th recipe from The Soup Book were onion, potato, vegetable stock and thyme. Very simple, very suitable for a weekend with lots going on. I made the yesterday for today's dinner. First the meat had to be sealed, then the onion was fried in the meat juices. I returned the meat to the pan, poured in the stock and continued cooking. After about forty minutes it was "show time" for the potato and fifteen minutes later again, in went the beans. It tasted pre...

Cuban Black Bean Soup Why on earth did I choose to make a Cuban soup on St Patrick's Day? I don't know. I think I just wanted to push on through the pulses section of The Soup Book , so I picked Carolyn Humphries ' recipe. Not willing to go to the effort of soaking and cooking dried black beans, I asked the spouse to find me a can of the chosen beans. You're supposed to cook the beans with a bay leaf, so I had to use the bay leaf after it was supposed to have been discarded. Another substitution was turmeric for the required annatto . The remaining ingredients and garnishes were easily available: a bay leaf, onion, garlic, cumin, ground cloves, tomato, white wine vinegar (a new bottle to replace the one with the 2008 expiry date!), ham, coriander leaves, corn tortilla chips and grated Cheddar. One listed item that I got out ready to use was brown sugar, but its use wasn't stated in the cooking instructions. The spouse and younger offspring were watching Ireland...

Jane Grigson's Melon and Wine Soup When I dip into The Soup Book I can sometimes spot which soups are worthwhile sharing with guests. Sophie Grigson 's take on her mother Jane Grigson 's soup is one such soup. As I flicked through the book last weekend, the melon and wine soup caught my eye and I read through the ingredients (a melon - charentais or canteloupe -, sugar, dry white wine, lemon juice and creme fraiche). "I could make that for my book group," I thought. The instructions looked reasonably straightforward. Timing was the tricky part. The spouse bought the canteloupe last Saturday and I wondered if the melon would last for five days. Isn't that where a fridge comes in handy? The next timing hurdle was how to get the soup ready in time for my book group as the recipe involves making and chilling syrup. The book group was meeting on Thursday evening so I made the syrup on Wednesday evening while I was preparing ginger shortbread with chocolate cloa...

Bigos Nestled in the Winter Vegetables section of The Soup Book is Marie-Pierre Moine's recipe for bigos , a meaty Polish stew rather than soup , according to many internet sources. I identified the recipe last weekend and thought it would be a substantial "soup" for sharing with others, but only sent out invitations yesterday afternoon. We had two guests to share our meal with and there was a substantial portion left over. The ingredients include Savoy cabbage, sauerkraut, smoked bacon, smoked Polish sausage, duck breast (you can substitute venison), a red onion, garlic, brown mushrooms, smoked paprika, a bay leaf, juniper berries, marjoram, caraway seeds, red wine and beef stock. Getting all the ingredients together was the fiddliest part of a fiddly soup. The spouse might as well have gone to Poland when trying to find the smoked sausage and sauerkraut. Or so he said. I went out yesterday evening after the rugby match had started to buy a bottle of red wine and...

Butternut Squash Soup Today's recipe from The Soup Book is by Clodagh McKenna , an Irish writer. The first time I ever heard the name Clodagh was when a Northern Irish singer called Clodagh Rodgers represented the United Kingdom in the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest. She sang "Jack in the Box" and wore hot pants. I was thinking about the contest because I heard during the week that Engelbert Humperdinck will represent the UK this year. My interest in him stems from a shared Anglo-Indian heritage and that fact that he was born in Madras (now Chennai), as was my father. One of my siblings once asked Dad if Engelbert came from the other side of the jungle to him! Butternut squash soup: yum! So, back to the soup. Butternut squash. Mmm. Can be hard work to get through the skin. Can be bland. Should I avoid it or just get on with it? I didn't feel like making anything too complicated and this recipe looked straightforward. I cut into the squash and chopped it up bef...