Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Carrot and Orange Soup Yesterday I set out to buy ingredients for spicy spinach soup (from a Roopa Gulati recipe in The Soup Book ) and when I got home I realised that I had already made it about a year ago. So I thought quickly. I knew I had a lot of carrots in the fridge, and on checking the summer vegetables section of The Soup Book , I came across the recipe for carrot and orange soup. The ingredients include leeks, which I had just bought, and orange juice, a carton of which we were slowly working our way through. I also needed ground coriander, cumin, stock, a potato and a bay leaf. The sliced leek and carrots were the first ingredients into the pot, cooking gently until the leek softened. Next in were the potato, the ground spices, orange juice, stock and the bay leaf. About forty-five minutes later the soup was ready to be liquidised. There were just the two of us for lunch - the younger offspring and I. The boy tucked in and was particularly enthusiastic about the soup. W...

Curried Broth with Peppers  Today is a lovely sunny day in early June but I have chosen to make a hot curried soup. I was pondering what to make for dinner this evening and the spouse said that we had a lot of vegetables in the fridge. I knew there were quite a few peppers so checked in The Soup Book to see how I could use them up. This soup is based on yet another recipe by Roopa Gulati and contains star anise , nigella seeds , fennel seeds, fenugreek seed s, onions, root ginger, an orange pepper and a yellow pepper, basmati rice , turmeric, garam masala , vegetable stock, date palm sugar , lemon and coriander leaves. If you can't find nigella seeds, there are a few spices or herbs you can substitute for them. I didn't use a substitute for the nigella seeds, but I did for the date palm sugar - I just used dark brown sugar and hoped for the best. The different seeds smelled delicious as I fried them together before adding the onion and ginger. Star anise is a new addition...