Tag Archives: soup

Daydreams of Soup and a Troublesome Spellchecker

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Generally Green Soup – broccoli, cauliflower and cauliflower leaves

I made soup today – it’s Bean Soup. Julia has a joke that goes with it, but I will spare you the agony of hearing it again. It contains onion, celery, garlic, red pepper, tinned tomatoes, water and beans. So far I have used chilli powder and Italian herbs to flavour it.It is not so much a recipe as a list of things that came to hand while I was standing by the cooker.

My latest dietary resolution is to eat more soup. This should help me maintain my new lower weight. As a result I have been listing my normal soup recipes. It isn’t really a long list.

Bean Soup 

Now we can get parsnips again, Spicy Parsnip will be on the list, plus Broccoli, Sweetcorn, Generally Greenish Soup and Mushroom. I must resurrect some of the others which I no longer make, including Pumpkin, Sweet Potato and Nettle. That’s three sorts, not one combination, though I have been known to mix various combinations of Sweet Potato, Carrot, Parsnip, Pumpkin and Squash to come up with an Orange Soup.  I’m going to have a try at lentil soup too. I keep meaning to give it a try but never quite get on with it. And Pea. I used to make Pea Soup from frozen peas but the blender tends to leave a lot of pea skins at the bottom of the pan. I tried sieving it but it isn’t really worth the effort. I may try dried peas next time.

To dd tp my frustrations today, my WP spellchecker seems to have resorted to an American format. It’s like the English one but every so often it tries to correct a word that needs no correction. I’m not sure how this has happened, but it has happened before and I have managed to get it back. I ill have to have a look at it tomorrow.

Cauliflower Soup

 

 

The List 02.07.2024

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I got home, blogged about my inability to type the letter “i” in certain circumstances and talked to the garage. The electronic handbrake button fell off my VW. It has been faulty for some years but long experience with cars has taught me to put certain things off as long as possible. As I sat in the car and looked at the gap where it used to be, I wondered why I hadn’t had it fixed before. And why I always let these things build up.

The answer, when i spoke to the garage, was plain. It is going to cost me £130 plus VAT at 20%. I love VAT. After taxing my income using Income Tax and National Insurance the Government then charges me 20% on a lot of the stuff I buy with what remains.  That’s without all the other hidden taxes. And if you save money, despite all this tax, they will tax the money you leave, even though you have already been taxed on it. Yes, we do get some good services for our money, though if you save your money (see above) you do lose out as you are expected to pay for things that are given free to people who haven’t bothered to save. However, “stand for election on a tax reform ticket” isn’t on my list today.

So, to buy a shoddy piece of plastic, which broke with only light use, is going to cost me £130 plus £26 which the Government will doubtless squander on things like nurses and policemen and my pension, plus extra for fitting, and VAT on that cost too. No wonder the Government is loath to legislate on things being durable and repairable – they would lose a fortune in hidden tax.

I am now going to explore the fridge to see what sort of soup I am having for lunch and will think about what is for tea. It’s cool today so I’m not thinking salad.

This afternoon, when the telephone queues are shorter I will ring the doctor and make my blood test appointment for next week.

After that I will spend ten minutes making more plans. At least they haven’t found a way of taxing plans and dreams yet . . .

Soup features high in my plans for the day

I just remembered, it is cauliflower cheese for tea. The cauli is looking a bit jaded and needs using. My memory is shocking these days.

 

Traffic, Tests and That Soup Again

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Last week it was unpleasantly cold. In the space of two nights it changed to uncomfortably warm. This may be a sign about my lack of adaptability rather than global warming, but this a diary and I can only write what fate flings my way.

This morning I was wrenched from sleep by my alarm as it’s one of the days when I take Julia to work. The news was tedious. Traffic was dense. I suspect this might be because they are starting work on replacing part of a bridge over the Ring Road. It is going to take a year. This sort of thing always seems to have a knock-on effect as people look for different routes, even though it doesn’t seem that close to us. If I were still working it would be a nuisance as it was on my route between Julia’s work and the shop. I was actually in the queue that formed when the original damage occurred. An excavator on a low loader (which clearly wasn’t low enough) hit the bridge and then fell into the road. I hope the company responsible is paying for the work. I also hope that the contractors display the phone number and email address of the offending company next to the queues of traffic as they carry out the work.

That meant I arrived home with too much time to go straight for my blood test and too little time to do anything useful.

The blood test went OK and I came home. I used the scales while I was there, and though I haven’t lost more, I haven’t put any on. This is good.

Currently I’m typing and drinking tea as I decide what sort of soup to make. I can do broccoli because, guess what, I have broccoli that needs using up. Or I could make some variation of tomato and red peppers because I’m now building up a lot of peppers. I think the broccoli wins, because I have stalks too, and it always seems more virtuous to use them rather than compost them.

And finally, Princess Anne, who sustained head injuries from a horse a couple of days ago could have a  “serious” problem according to one internet headline. However, in keeping with the low standards of journalism you expect from the internet the diagnosis of “serious” comes from a “royal biographer” rather than a doctor. Enough said. She’s never done me any harm, so I wish her well.

Traffic

 

A Post with No Soup

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Guinea Fowl on guard

There has been a lot of food in my last few posts, and a lot of soup pictures. Soup is a good subject for photography as it is not given to sudden movements and there are no problems of perspective. Buildings are good subjects for their lack of movement, but they do tend to look strange from certain angles. However, easy as it may be as a subject there are still challenges, even with soup. This is mainly the way lenses mist up as the steam rises. professionals will, of course do it all differently.

A Cricket on the cabbage

If I wanted a perfect shot I would let the soup cool down, decant it into a gleaming new pan (if you notice, all my shots tend to be a bit messy as a result of the blending) and I would add an artistic swirl of cream and a scatter of croutons.

I remember reading an article of food photography once. To get a good picture of cheese the photographer hollowed out a block of cheese and then illuminated it from inside. It seemed a lot of hassle just to photograph a block of cheese. I suppose the pursuit of excellence is its own reward. I merely pursue adequacy, and often struggle to achieve it.

Pizza with egg and nettles

As this is a blog post with no soup, I won’t tell you want we’re about to have for lunch – let’s just say that it’s a lot easier to make soup than it is to eat it. a pan of soup takes minutes to make, but can last for three meals. I really must develop the habit of storing some for later, but whenever I think of it, the freezer always seems full.

Californian Poppies

We keep saying we are going to eat out of the freezer instead of ordering more groceries. We have several part bags of seafood and frozen veg, with several store cupboard items such as veggie burgers and others that were thrown in there in a panic as their final day approached (sausages and fish pie mix to be specific). Ween we move I think we must clear the freezer and then develop  system before we start ramming the new one with rubbish.

Dog rose

Photos are from June 2016. My life was so much more interesting then.

 

Bad Start to the Day but Things are Looking Up

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I unwillingly made my way downstairs this morning. Though I had an ambition to do some work, I had a conflicting ambition – I would have quite liked to stay warm in bed. It was a chilly night. This summer is taking me back to the summers of the late 60s and early 70s. I remember that some of them were quite poor, and all the talk at that time was about climate cycles and a new Ice Age. How things change.

It started badly in the kitchen when I tore a pair of  teabags apart to make myself a cup of tea. One tore and released a cloud of tea powder all over the floor. This is doubly depressing – a whole teabag wasted, and its contents revealed to be a long way from the lovely tea leaves of my youth. I always joke about the contents of teabags being low quality floor sweepings, but what I saw today seems to confirm that.

Broccoli Soup taken on “Food” setting

I’m probably wrong. I’m sure that tea merchants across the world will tell me they use the best ingredients in their teabags, but it just looked depressing.

I have just made broccoli soup, as you can probably guess from the pictures. It came out quite green compared to the yellowing florets that actually went into the pot. The Food setting on the camera didn’t do it justice this time, I had to use the Landscape setting. That enhances green but the soup is still actually greener in real life than it is in the pictures. I may go back to photographing flowers. At least the colour rendition is accurate.

I used a stock cube today, as Julia complained about the lack of seasoning in last night’s pasta bake. As a result, the soup tastes quite salty. This is annoying. After 30 years of not using salt in cooking I have grown quite sensitive to salt in things like this. In general though, it tastes quite good and I am about to have it for lunch.

Pale grey version

 

Almost off white

Once again, the camera fails to render the colour accurately.

 

A Day Brimming with Promise (Part 2)

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Before blending

Sub title – Cameras Do Lie

It’s just after 11am and the soup is bubbling away. I will blend it in a few minutes and add the whole beans. While I was preparing it I realised I’d forgotten to put garlic in the Italian vegetables I’d made earlier. Fortunately, we are English and probably won’t notice. It’s not a very English ingredient, despite the fact you can sometimes smell wild garlic when you walk in the woods.

I became diverted by Facebook. I was looking at the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire page when I drifted off and started searching for other coin sites. I wandered into a strange world where spelling and intelligence seem to be optional.

After blending, using the “Food” setting 

It’s like a hellish version of WP. WP has writing and pictures and comments, just like Facebook but WP also has people of wit, intelligence and interest. And they can all spell. Or they can at least use a spellchecker, as I do. FB just has people.  And even then I’d have to compare them to the generally accepted definition of “people” just to be sure.

One of them, commenting on a picture of Nottingham in the 1950s, rambled on about the good old days when everything was British made by British people etc . . . For “British” I think we can probably substitute “white”. Of course, if you think about it we have never grown tea, coffee, sugar or chocolate in this country. The reason we needed rationing in 1939 was because we imported so much of our food. The days of self-sufficiency probably came to an end some time in the reign of George III. I really must look that up.

The moral is don’t go on Facebook if you want to get some work done.

Or simply don’t go on Facebook.

And if you are really determined to get some work done, don’t keep chatting on WP – it’s just a way of delaying things.

Here are some soup pictures taken using different camera settings. All the same soup. All taken within a couple of minutes. The brightest is actually the most accurate. The greyish and beige ones are typical of all my cameras – they really seem to hate colour.

Beige

Greyish

Proper colour

 

A Day Brimming with Promise

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All those lovely vegetables

I’m hoping it’s going to be an industrious day today. I dropped Julia off at work and was home by 9.00. It’s 9.53 now. I have made an Italian style vegetable mix to use in a pasta bake for tonight. I have also had a cup of tea, watched my computer upgrade itself, read my emails, looked at the Numismatic Society Facebook page and read the comments on the blog.

I’m hoping the rest of the day is going to be as productive, but I doubt it. These things have a habit of either petering out or just coming to a full stop as I watch a bit of TV and fall asleep. However, I will try.

The next thing is to stir the Italian vegetables and check they are cooked. Then I will make tomato soup. I’m torn between tomato soup or bean soup, in fact. As I have quite a few small peppers this week, and because I fancy a change I may well go for bean soup. I will still use celery, which I have been using in the tomato soup, because we have some that needs using, so it will be tomatoes, peppers, beans, celery and onions. It’s strange to think that when I started cooking I used to follow recipes as if my life depended on it. Now I just throw in whatever I find in the fridge.

I will be making yellow broccoli soup tomorrow, because I found a head of yellow broccoli in the fridge when sourcing the ingredients for the pasta bake.  No, it’s not a new variety, it’s just the colour that broccoli turns if your wife puts it in the back of the fridge and piles stuff in front of it.

I used to run the vaccine fridge at work. Millions of doses of vaccine that cost a lot of money, and which needed using before it expired. It teaches you about stock control and how to stack a fridge. Unfortunately Julia never had a job like that . . .

Bubbling away and steaming up my lens

 

 

 

The First Day of Retirement

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Vegetable Soup of Indeterminate Ingredients

For the last six years I have had Wednesdays off work, because, with us working weekends, Wednesday was the only day we could have off together. Gradually we have done less, and the NHS has demanded more of my time, so it was often a day for medical stuff.

Today, though the first official day of my retirement, featured no work, a blood test and a trip to the jewellers to drink tea and get a watch battery and a new strap. Thus, it was impossible to tell the difference between work and retirement. Tomorrow, I will be in hospital for 8.30 to have a pre-operative assessment. I got quite excited when I got the booking but it seems that they now last six months (they used to do them the week before the operation at one time).

Mushroom Soup with healthy pumpkins seed garnish

That means that I will have to wait until Friday to notice the difference between working and being retired. Even then, as Fridays had been reduced to half a day, it won’t make much difference. It will be Saturday before I really notice and, to be honest, as Julia will be in Toronto, I’m not really going to have much of a day.

I thought that the hardest part of being retired would be striking a balance between the workload (I know a number of people who work harder in retirement than they did when they were at work)  and the inclination to stay in bed all day. In fact, the hardest part so far has been noticing that I’m actually retired. If Julia were here she would doubtless make some barbed comment about me being semi-retired since the 1990s.

She’s only been gone a day and I’m already missing her.

Carrot & Ginger Soup

Carrot & Ginger Soup

Today’s illustrations are soup. After two days of cake and Chinese takeaway my digestion is pleading for plain food and my brain is telling me to eat more vegetables. Tomorrow, I think, will be a soup making day. I’m thinking mushroom and sweetcorn. It’s a strange combination but I have surplus mushrooms and half a can of sweetcorn in the fridge. Though I also have tinned tomatoes and a bag of lentils, so that’s a possibility too.

 

 

Insurance Renewal Blues . . .

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Bean Soup with tortilla chip bits – my doomed final attempt at being sophisticated

I opened an email from the company that arranges my house insurance today. It’s been lurking in my inbox for a while and I’ve been putting it off. Bearing in mind how my car insurance shot up, I was not looking forward to this. It has gone up by 50%. At least, unlike my car insurer, they spared me the excuses, though they did say that although I had been with them for  while I may be able to get a better deal elsewhere. They are right. I can get insurance cover for about half what I was paying last year. Business is business and I don’t take offence at being asked for an inflted price. That, after all, is the basis of the business I am in. We name a price, the customer names a ridiculously low offer, and so it goes on . . .

However, our prices are based on judgement and we would not ask more than something was really worth. With insurance it’s less clear cut. Despite recent changes in the law, it still seems like companies keep boosting your premium to see what they can get away with. It’s not a pleasant feeling.

My soup flask – itb holds nearly two mugs.

I’m currently with a broker called Swinton. They are a national company that took over the local broker that used to do my insurance.  Their prices for house insurance and business insurance were always OK. When I tried them with my car a few years ago they were great for a year and then it went badly wrong with a quote that seemed wildly out of proportion. I changed provider and even after the latest rise in prices I am paying considerably less than that Swinton quote. I was tempted to move all the business but the household price stayed reasonable.

The new price was a shock, though not a surprise, and I just had a look round. I can do a lot better.

The top of my soup flask – a folding spoon sits in a recess in the lid. I never use it, but I like gadgets.

Of course, there is always an element of fear in swapping insurers, but sometimes you have to move. I can take out insurance with a company that will charge me a lot less than the current quote. I can’t, however, guarantee that they will be any good if the house falls down. On the other hand, having never made a claim, I can’t guarantee you that any of the previous insurers would have been any good either.

I am with a reputable car insurer, and have no worries there. I am with a reputable breakdown service, though I always feel the service may be less good than the AA. So far it’s been OK, but you never know . . .

Nettle soup with a very poor attempt at a swirl of cream

Now I’m changing house insurance. I have been with many people before, as Swinton is only a broker, so it’s not as if I really had a relationship with any insurer. At least by going directly I can select an insurer with a name that I recognise. It’s just a fear of change, rather than a logical fear, but it all adds up. That’s why I’m reading a book about being happy. So far, it’s not really working.

I think it’s broccoli soup. But it might be a failed experiment in producing life from primeval slime. I’m ambivalent about broccoli at the best of times, so it may even be a bit of both . . .

Today’s pictures are soup. Nothing like winter to make soup look attractive. Even broccoli soup.

The Day in Retrospect (and Soup)

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After lunch arrived the activity of the day became a little slower. In fact, for one of us it slowed down to gentle breathing pace interspersed with cups of tea and suggestions from Julia that it might be a good idea to wake up.

So far I have done a bit of washing up and finalised three submissions for The Haibun Journal. It’s not what you’d think of if you had to define the term “workload”.

Currently I’m making soup as a change of pace from editing. I’m going to write this post whilst the soup simmers. One pot is Tomato, Lentil and Chilli. The other is Curried Yellow Pea soup.  Yes, it’s welcome to “What Does Simon have in his Cupboard Tonight?”. I’m hoping they will see me through three lunches and at least one main meal. To be accurate, that’s my second hope. My first hope is that the yellow split pea soup works. I’ve not made it before and the peas take a while to cook. I’m hazy on recipes (just adapting my normal process of boiling and blitzing without bothering too much about the rest of it. My concern at the moment, apart from proportions and cooking time is that the recipe I’m using as a guide refers to “vibrant, spicy, yellow soup”. Mine is red. That’s because I used curry powder instead of spices. Hopefully, by the time I’ve blitzed it and added turmeric and lemon juice it might be yellow, though as long as it tastes OK I’m not overly concerned.

Carrot & Ginger Soup

Carrot & Ginger Soup

The plan is to use soup as a replacement for sandwiches at lunchtime as sandwiches tend to involve bread, cheese, and pickle. Or carbs, fat and salt as they are better known.

Later:

The Great British Sewing Bee has ended for another year. I won’t spoil the ending for you but the winner was the one we suspected it would be. You can generally tell these things weeks before. It’s not generally the standard of sewing but the favouritism of the judges that gives it away. Fortunately the judges’ favourite also produced the best dress of teh final so it was all OK this year.

The soup has turned out alright. It’s a bit under-seasoned as a result of my decision not to use stock cubes but no problems apart from that. Even the Yellow Split Pea Soup came through with a recognisable yellow colour. The lentils have thickened the tomato a little too much but nothing a splash of water won’t fix. Yellow split peas are £1 a kilo, which should do eight or ten portions of soup. It tastes nice and it delights my sense of economy.

Carrot, Parsnip and Swede Soup