I have 28 minutes to post, and am going to give it my best shot. Please excuse the haste and the worse than normal editing.
Today’s main event, apart from a hospital phone call (which was a duplicate of the one I got yesterday) was the soup. We had half a dozen manky carrots, a medium sized parsnip and a swede (rutabaga) which was beginning to look a bit grey round the cut end. My solution – root veg soup.
This is a lockdown recipe, because with only shopping every week or ten days I’m not quite getting the supplies right and we needed to get through a few more roots.
I also had the green end of a leek, so I softened that and roasted the roots whilst cooking the tea last night. I then boiled it with stock and spices (2 tsp cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, half a tsp of lazy chilli from a jar) and left it covered overnight. No need for a fridge, we are having a cold spell here at the moment. We always do once we start putting plants outside.
Today I added some lazy garlic from a jar, a touch more chilli and reduced it to a smooth consistency with a stick blender. I tried to leave afew flecks of red, but they didn’t stand uput in the finished soup. Sometimes I use finely chopped red chillis – they stand out better.
The result was a nice beige soup with an interesting flavour and a touch of mild heat. I’m not sure that it needed the ground coriander, as I can never really taste it when I use stronger tasting spices.
Finally I added a spoonful of turmeric to brighten it up a bit. I’m not sure if the photos show it, but you get a slightly brighter orange/yellow soup when you do that.
Things I didn’t add – mushrooms and kale (despite kale being virtually compulsory in recipes these days. I thought mushrooms would be confusing, though they do need using soon, and I couldn’t be bothered to take the kale off the stalks (I didn’t want to spoil the consistency by putting stalks in. I was going to put kale in at the end rather than boil it with the rest of the veg.)
It made far more than we needed and we will be having it tomorrow too. And Friday. However, it’s good and cheap and you can have sandwiches with it so it helps dodge the salads.
The one on the left has no added colour, the one on the right has the turmeric added. The one in the header picture was taken with flash, which made it look a richer colour and wasn’t a fair comparison to the original beige.
This is a very good use for odds and ends of root vegetables, or manky veg as Derrick suggests. My husband is a soup fanatic and bought a soup maker a few years ago. It makes very good broth and creamy soup but has problems with soup with chunks or dried peas and lentils. Hope you and Julia are well.
Yes, we’re well thanks. Hope you are all keeping well too. We have a soup maker but I keep forgetting to use it. 🙂
Yes, all fine thanks. 🙂
That looks really, really good! To my way of thinking, coriander makes everything taste better. I don’t why I like this spice so much. I even put it in chili.
Yes, it’s in the vegetarian chilli recipe I last used. I couldn’t find any. It’s possible that, having been found at the back of a cupboard this jar has lost its taste.
Yes, that is possible. It also has a delicate flavor. But still. It’s one I’m very fond of.
You may have a more sophisticated palate than me. I don’t really do delicate. 🙂
A good use of manky stuff
I need to brush up my ordering technique to avoid the necessity. It’s hard ordering two weeks in advance.
I’m sure it is
🙂
Pingback: Lockdown Diaries | quercuscommunity
We make a lot of soups and stews here using leftover veggies as well as fresh ones from the garden, which right now is kale.
There is also nothing like a good potato, which can be turned into so many tasty dishes!
I keep meaning to make soup out of decent veg instead of using it just to prevent wasting them as they age. 🙂
Yes, potatoes are versatile, and I was worried when I couldn’t get them, but we try not to eat too many.
Looks good and I liked the sound of the spices. Having a curry and rice myself tonight. There’s going to be leftover rice, so I’ll need to figure out a nice fried rice…
Sounds good – I overdid the potato buying a few weeks ago so we’ve hardly had any rice recently. I’m beginning to miss it.