Minnie's Soup Kitchen

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 lef...

Henningsvaer Fish Soup  According to Sophie Grigson, Henningsvaer is "a picturesque little port right up north in Norway's Lofoten Islands" and this soup (my thirty-eighth) is "the speciality of a small restaurant there." Searching briefly on the internet for Henningsvaer has confirmed in me my desire to visit those more remote parts of the Nordic countries (we holidayed in the Baltic earlier this year and I really liked what I saw of Finland). Back to the fish soup, which I made yesterday evening, the ingredients include fish stock, cod fillet, butter, onion, carrot, leek, caster sugar, white wine vinegar and creme fraiche.  I prepared the vegetables in advance, then started cooking around 5pm. It was fairly straightforward and we were ready to go just before 6pm. The creme fraiche and the fish (the fish is cooked separately) were the last ingredients to be added. The soup was really delicious and is on my notional list of recipes to be used again. Last wee...