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...

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...

Camembert and Potato Soup   Yes, I know it's only Tuesday and only two days after my last soup-making foray, but I haven't gone back to work yet. I have time on my hands and food in the fridge to be put to good use. I'm having a thrift extravaganza: today I made turkey stock with the bone of the turkey leg the spouse bought the other day and any carrots, celery, spring onions and other items that were beginning to fade. I used the scraps of turkey meat to make a delicious turkey and red onion flan (the red onions were substituted for the leeks suggested in the recipe, but what do I care when I'm using up vegetables?). The Soup Book recipe calls this soup Camembert and celeriac soup with cranberry swirl , but in her introduction Carolyn Humprhies suggests substituting potatoes. I didn't have celeriac but I did have potatoes. And I was being thrifty. Other ingredients include onion, chicken or vegetable stock (I used my freshly made turkey stock), milk, Camembert...

Chunky Turkey Soup Still on the theme of Christmas, today's soup (the forty-first since I began the project and the first of 2011) is Angela Nilsen 's chunky turkey soup. Another theme is thriftiness. In my blog entry of 19th December I mentioned the possibility of buying turkeys cheaply after Christmas and the spouse duly bought a turkey leg for €5! There is plenty of meat on it. He cooked it for our new year's day lunch party. I used some of the remaining meat for today's soup and I'll be using the bone, meat scraps and limp vegetables from the fridge to replenish my supply of stock. Good value or what! The Soup Book recipe for chunky turkey soup calls for onion, potato, carrots, leek, peas and turkey. Then it is served with hot garlic bread. In my prevailing mood of thriftiness, I used leftover bread to make croutons (crush a clove of garlic in olive oil, coat slices of French bread in the oil and "bake" in a hot oven for about fifteen minutes). My ...

Fortieth Soup: Brussels Sprouts Well, it is the 30th December 2010 and just over a year since I first followed a recipe from The Soup Book . I have now made forty different soups! The recipe for Brussels sprouts soup is by Sophie Grigson and calls for onions, thyme, chicken or vegetable stock and a garnishing of soured cream, creme fraiche or yogurt with paprika or cayenne pepper.  I do not particularly like the taste of sprouts but was determined to get this soup over and done with. Yesterday I called down to "Young Stephen's" green grocery, expecting to be able to buy loose sprouts, but no, they were pre-packed. Young Stephen and I swapped tales of cats' less desirable habits then bade each other a happy new year. Back to the soup. I sweated the sliced onions, added sugar, and eventually put in the sprouts, thyme and stock. Once the sprouts were just tender and the mixture had cooled a little, I got out the liquidiser and finished the soup. As a non-sprout eater,...

Pheasant and Apple Soup  The recipe for pheasant and apple soup in The Soup Book is by Carolyn Humphries , who provided the recipe for the Italian wedding soup I cooked in September. It wasn't one I was planning to make when browsing through the book last weekend, but during the week I alighted upon it and thought it would fit the Christmas bill of fare . The ingredients include a small pheasant, onion, sweet potato, a cooking apple, cider, chicken stock, cinnamon, a bay leaf and cream.  Carolyn suggests using other game birds, such as pigeon or partridge, if pheasant cannot be found, but the spouse located a pheasant in a local speciality butcher's shop around the corner from where we live.  We put it in our spare fridge out in the garage so it wouldn't pollute our main indoor fridge. The spouse claims he could smell it in the garage, but I didn't notice anything too horrible.  I brought it indoors this morning and we had a look at it. The spouse made the first in...

Pre-Christmas Soup Break It's the Sunday before Christmas and I've opted to have a break from soups. Yesterday I was very busy, what with chauffeuring the spouse (who had come home "by railing" from a night out) to the shops and hunting more elusive ingredients and baking and cooking.  Later today the mother-in-law is coming for lunch. It will be something of an expedition, the cold and ice having played havoc with her travel arrangements and the logistics for the entire day.  The plan at present is for the spouse to go and collect her. As I write, he's preparing the vegetables for our lunch. We're having some sort of smoked salmon and smoked mackerel roulade to start, followed by roast beef and various vegetables (I'll be making Yorkshire pudding). I spent a lot of time yesterday preparing the pudding for today: compote of figs in port and prune ice cream using Delia Smith's Christmas recipe book (our copy was given to the spouse by one of my sibl...