Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Allotment Soup  The recipe for allotment soup by Thane Prince is the first in The Soup Book and in the summer vegetables section. I made it last Wednesday (11th April) in advance of visitors coming the next day, one of whom (a friend of the younger offspring) is a vegetarian. The listed ingredients include dried haricot beans (I used canned cannellini beans), leek, turnip (I don't think I've ever cooked white turnip before), carrots, courgette, celery, potato, tomatoes, garlic and green beans. I increased the quantities stated in The Soup Book , just in case there wasn't enough to go around: I wanted a lot of allotment soup. The most labour-intensive part of the preparation was dicing the vegetables and I'm glad I avoided soaking dried beans. The only things I had to do to finish the soup for my guests on Thursday were to reheat the soup and add in the fresh green beans and cannellini beans. Five of us sat down to eat and there was far too much soup. My guest...

Beef Chilli Soup "Tonight we're having Chief Billy soup," I told the older offspring before recognising my Spoonerism. I meant to say "chilli beef", of course. This is another recipe in The Soup Book by Carolyn Humphries. The ingredients include lean minced beef, crushed dried chillies, fresh red chillies, ground cumin, dried oregano, passata, beef stock, red kidney beans and tomato puree. Humphries suggests serving the soup with tortillas and guacamole. It's a cold day today here in Dublin, so this soup was intended as a warming hearty meal with the added summery twist of guacamole. The four of us sat down to our dinner to the accompaniment of Ennio Morricone's most popular pieces of music. The soup was delicious - spicy and rich. The two older males wanted seconds but there was none left. The younger offspring wrapped as much of his soup as possible into a tortilla, added grated Cheddar cheese, guacamole and chopped coriander, and managed to eat it...