Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Tomato Borscht Sofia Larinua-Craxton , the author of this recipe in The Soup Book , promises that you will love the rich colour and fantastic taste of this unsual version of borscht. With cinnamon among its various ingredients, it certainly smelt fantastic while being cooked. The other ingredients are onion, garlic, beetroot, ground toasted cumin seeds (I cheated and used pre-ground), fresh tomatoes, tomato juice, sun-dried tomatoes, vegetable stock (I inadvertently used chicken), soy sauce and seasoning; it's served with soured cream or creme fraiche and more toasted cumin seeds.  Delicious tomato borscht served with yoghurt and ground cumin. I made the borscht for lunch and three of us (the older offspring is out touting for work) have just eaten it. It lives up to Sofia's promise. I am hesitant about beetroot, but this is a soup I would definitely make again. The spouse and I agreed it was the spices and the richness of the tomatoes that have made it palatable. There...

Pichelsteiner   Last Sunday I spent some time making a list of all the recipes in The Soup Book after someone asked me how many more recipes did I have to get through. I counted 199 soup recipes and ten bread recipes, and I have made thirty-seven soups, including the most recent. So I still have some way to go. At this rate, it could take me five years! So, Pichelsteiner. What is it? The Soup Book lists it as a German soup containing lamb, but suggests that it is "versatile enough to work with pork or beef instead of lamb." On looking it up on the internet (including German language descriptions), I discovered that Pichelsteiner (from Buechelstein, a mountain in Bavaria) is a mixed meat stew or Eintopf (one pot). Other recipes use a combination of beef, pork and veal, but not lamb; the common vegetables are onions and cabbage. The Soup Book's ingredients include lamb (shoulder or neck), onions, dried marjoram, dried lovage or thyme, vegetable stock, carrots, leek...

Crab Bisque If you'd asked me last weekend which soup I'd be making next, I wouldn't have have said crab bisque.  The choice was made because last Friday (6th August) the spouse fortuitously spotted and bought a pair of frozen crabs from his new favourite fish shop on Upper Rathmines Road. As soon as I saw them, I thought "Soup!" and looked up crab recipes in The Soup Book .  There are two options - the bisque and gazpacho.The latter requires clams or mussels, so we chose the former and began thawing the crabs ready for cooking yesterday afternoon. There is quite a lot of preparation involved in this recipe - crab meat to remove from shells, onions, carrots, celery, leeks, fennel, ginger and garlic to chop, as well as cooking, blending and sieving - so I called upon the younger offspring's pair of hands.  I bashed the crab shells with my rolling pin and cracked open the legs with the kitchen scissors so that the child labourer could prise out the meat.Then ...

This weekend's soup is watercress (one of two recipes in The Soup Book ). It contains: onions, watercress (stalks cooked with the onions; leaves added later), pears (cored, but no mention of peeling. I left them unpeeled. You have to take risks), vegetable stock (cheated and use cubes), and cream. I've have got as far as liquidising the soup ready for a dinner party. I'll add the cream when I re-heat it. Bothar - Bee My Honey Appeal, 2010 Bothar (www.bothar.ie) is an Irish charity that "enables families and communities worldwide to overcome hunger and poverty and to restore the environment in a sustainable way." One of its projects is the Bee My Honey appeal which takes place in the run-up to St Valentine's Day. Donations (Eu50, Eu90 or Eu125) go towards supporting families in Uganda, Tanzania and Cameroon to set up beehives. Project families learn how to keep bees and can make money from honey and wax; the environment benefits at the same time. Incidentall...