I’ve been reviewing my soup making. The celery was disappointing, but apart from that the others haven’t been too bad. However, at this point I have to admit that “the others” generally means root vegetable soups, and they are difficult to mess up. I’ve also done mushroom, pea, broccoli and cauliflower, which have all been passable. The roasted squash soup I did last week was very good, but by the time I’d finished roasting the frozen squash chunks they had shrunk to almost nothing, and I ended up with just two portions. I know that roasting the veg adds to the flavour, but I feel guilty about using the oven just to roast in a bit of extra flavour.
I really need to extend my repertoire, but that would mean buying ingredients specially and that isn’t how I view soup. Soup is mainly what happens to stuff you have had too long. Yes, the pea soup and the roasted squash soup featured specially bought ingredients, but all the rest were just things I had too much of.
It’s my day off today and Julia has gone on a course to brush up on her Makaton so I am faced with a long boring day. I could look up some interesting soup recipes . . .
Or I could look at some Makaton videos and surprise her tonight by asking her if she wants a cup of tea by signing. Perhaps not. After a day of training she can probably do with a cup of tea without additional difficulty.
Soup recipes then . . .
If you need a little help improving your soup making I wrote a post that might be worth a read. https://chefkevinashton.com/2020/01/30/improving-your-soup-making/
Please feel free to ask questions.
Next time you are making celery soup you might try adding some celeriac also known as celery root which will help depth of flavour to the soup. I’d try to avoid freezing butternut or other kinds of squashes as freezing loses a lot of flavour. You’d be better off making the squash soup and then freezing it afterwards. If kept dry and uncut butternut squashes will last for weeks in the fridge.
Thank you, I will study it. The frozen squash was supposed to be a shortcut – bought from supermarket -, but it was just false economy.
I followed the link to the Mencap Makaton page. Julia is an amazing person. Yes, surprise her with signing to see if she wants some tea! 🙂
🙂
I’m doing soup tonight. Generic….veggie stock, cabbage, spinach, chicken
Sounds healthy. My soup turned out to be distinctly average, as my next blog post will tell.
Mine was bland, but saved by homemade pesto I had in freezer, and an excellent baguette
An excellent baguette is the saviour of many soups. 🙂
And mediocre cheese.
My husband is one of those weird people who doesn’t like cheese
Speechless! How can this be so? How can a man who seems so normal harbour such a shameful secret? 🙂
I know!!
🙂
A fine soup philosophy. Compost soup is a favourite
I keep meaning to try it, but end up using the bits for other things.
Any time I make a soup that I fInd disappointing, I add some garlic, some shredded bacon and make it into risotto. Always works.
Sounds like a plan. We sometimes use it a a base for curry.
I know just how you feel about soup and pretty much making the same one over and over again. That’s what I do with bean soup. Still, it’s tasty, economical, and filling. So…Good luck with the recipes. Let us know if you find any good ones.
I can’t do bean soup because we always end up doing the old joke, ending-
“It’s bean soup.”
“I’m not bothered what it’s been, what is it now?”
I find it hilarious, but Julia got fed up of itn after I’d been doing it for 20 years. 🙂
I’m thinking that’s an English joke, and a funny one, I might add. Around here it would go “It’s bean soup”
“I’m not bothered what it’s bin, what is it now?” Not as clever with our pronunciation.
Yes, jokes relying on the way we say words can be tricky. 🙂
When you say “been,” I suppose it must rhyme with “bean.” Not so over here. 😉
Just one more puzzling thing about Americans . . . 🙂
Tee-hee!
I thought “biscuits and gravy” being neither biscuits nor gravy was bad enough, but the more I talk on WP the more I discover . . .