Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Split Pea and Bacon Soup Last Sunday was another sunny day in Dublin so why did I make a hearty winter's day soup? Partly because I had the packet of split green peas from last weekend and partly because I love bacon-flavoured meals. The other ingredients included smoked streaky bacon, celeriac, carrot, leek, potato, dried marjoram and onion. The first task was to get the peas cooking in water. Then in went the piece of bacon. In the meantime I sliced and diced the vegetables and added them to the peas with some marjoram. When the bacon was cooked, I took it out of the pan, chopped it up and it back in the pan. I fried the onion in a second pan and then I was ready to dish up. I stirred the fried onions into the soup and sprinkled chopped chives over the top of each bowlful. Verdict: Delicious. I'll definitely make this soup again one cold winter's day. Bee is for Baking I've been very busy lately and haven't had much time for doing some of the things I l...

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...

Cannellini Bean and Carrot Soup It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't made a soup from the Pulses and Nuts section of The Soup Book for a while, not since March in fact. The recipe is by Livia Firth , wife of the actor Colin ( Pride and Prejudice - great series!), who uses leeks as the base of her soups because they are sweeter than onions. The ingredients are leeks, olive oil, butter, canned cannellini beans, carrots and curry powder (optional; I used garam masala). It took me over two hours to prepare, what with slicing, chopping, simmering and whizzing in the blender, rather than the hour and ten minutes stated in the book. The final soup is tasty but bordering on bland. A reasonable warmer-upper on a cold winter's day rather than a meal for a mild summer's day. Where the Bee Sucks While I was away, the oregano and/or marjoram in my back garden flowered and I have noticed bees buzzing around. Meanwhile in the front garden the lavender is also a-buzz with b...