Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Roasted Red Pepper, Fennel and Tomato Soup   The recipe for roasted red pepper, fennel and tomato soup in The Soup Book is by Roopa Gulati so expect spice. The ingredients include fennel, a red onion, red peppers, tomatoes, garlic, rosemary leaves, fennel seeds, nigella seeds (I substituted cumin seeds for nigella seeds), passata, vegetable stock and a red chilli. I didn't have some of the ingredients so I called down to Young Stephen's greengrocery. As soon as he saw me he said, "I've got something for you.!" "Chervil?" I guessed. "No," he replied, "I can't find chervil. It's this - summer savory ." There was no way he could have known I'd be calling to his shop today, but he had the savory in a pot ready to go. It wasn't a gift - I had to buy it but did so willingly. Back to the stove. The fennel, onion, peppers, tomatoes and garlic were sprinkled with sugar, olive oil and the rosemary leaves before being roa...

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...

Onion and Almond Soup This weekend I made my thirty-fifth soup from The Soup Book - onion and almond.  It caught my eye several months ago, but I was put off by one of the listed ingredients, namely nigella seeds (Nigella sativa).  I didn't know what they were and I hadn't seen them any where in the course of my shopping, but eventually I looked them up. They are also known as black cumin, onion seed or nigella and are used in curries.  A suggested substitute is mustard seeds and that's what I used.  The recipe is by Roopa Gulati and listed among its ingredients are onions, almonds, chicken stock, red chilli, muscovado sugar, balsamic vinegar and cream. The preparation takes a little time and that's just the garnish. Preparation consists of finely slicing an onion, sprinkling it with sea salt and setting it aside for at least two hours before deep-frying it. We don't possess a deep fat fryer, so I had to use a small frying pan with about half an inch of oil. Late...