I made more soup this week, using a 1kg pack of frozen casserole mix from TESCO. It comes ready chopped and by the time it has been left to thaw in the fridge for 2 days all the veg is nice and soft and doesn’t take as lot of cooking. It cost £1, which is probably expensive compared to buying the veg separately, but cheap when you consider the time it saved me chopping and cleaning up.
Recipe: Boil the bag of veg with stock and seasonings, liquidise, dilute, eat. Or drink. We had a discussion at work about that – do you eat soup or drink it? My view is that you eat it if you use a spoon, but drink it if you sup it directly out of a receptacle. Anyone have any other views on what is a long-running topic in the shop? (We tend to avoid politics and religion in favour of coin design, soup consumption and the various roadworks in the city).
It came out a little bit beige, due, I think, to the presence of potato and swede and the low quantity of carrot. Apart from that, the basic soup turned out well. The seasoning left a little to be desired as I used garlic, ginger, lime juice and too much chilli. I must buy lemons, as the lime isn’t quite right. I must also restrain my tendency to add a bit more chilli. It never looks to be enough. However, a little goes a long way and soup is supposed to be nutritious rather than a test of fortitude.
Quantity? Well, I had a soup flask of it for lunch yesterday (a bowl and a half or thereabouts) and we had two bowls of it last night for tea. We will be having it for lunch today and for lunch tomorrow (I’m trying to cut more bread out). After that I think we should be about finished, though lunch on Friday is a possibility.
Tips for next time – only use half the bag, add a carrot and use less chilli. Possibly add turmeric, which is always good to bring the colour up.
Making soup always reminds me of the soup sessions we used to do on the farm. I used to do one with schools making vegetable soup from a supermarket bag. Out of a dozen kids it was rare that you could get more than one or two to taste the soup. They claimed to eat soup at home, but didn’t trust anything that had been made in front of them from vegetables, stock cubes and water. They preferred “proper soup” from a can or sachet.