Split Pea Soup

 

This soup is a very special one for me - many happy childhood memories surround it. It was what my Mum would make on the coldest, snowy days, as my sister and I ran into the house post-snowman-building, stamping our feet to regain feeling and tentatively holding our hands over the scalding radiator. 

Though childhood is long gone, winter is returning once more. This recipe continues to be a sure favourite - and a definite winter warmer. It’s also really easy (and really cheap!), so you have no excuse.

Ingredients (serves 6):

- 450g yellow split peas

- 1750ml water

- 2 onions, chopped

- 2 celery stalks, chopped

- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped

- 1 clove garlic, crushed

- 1 bay leaf

-  ½tsp thyme

- 2tsp salt

- black pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Throw everything into a large pan. Literally – no oil, no cooking the vegetables first, just throw them all in together. Told you it was easy.

2. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat, put on a lid (or cover with tin foil) and simmer for 2½ hours. You should check on it every half hour or so, but otherwise you can leave it to its own devices.

3. Remove the bay leaf, then blitz with a stick blender (if you don’t have one you could attempt to sieve it, but they’re well worth investing in and you can get them for under £10 online).

Aaaaand serve! With a fresh loaf of bread or rolls if you have the time, but it's great all by itself. If you want to be fancy you can garnish it with some fresh thyme and a twist of black pepper. This soup also freezes spectacularly, so it's definitely worth keeping any you don't eat.

I Accidentally Bought Four and a Half Kilos of Carrots.

Yesterday my Tesco shop arrived and it contained three 1.5 kg bags of everyday value carrots. 

Moral of the story:

 If you're doing an online Tesco shop and you're buying vegetables and you choose "3" and add them to the basket, make sure you're buying individual vegetables and not multipack bags...

Also the lighting in my new kitchen is awful, so please excuse the photos...

Anyway, I had to find something to do with all of these carrots, so I made Carrot and Cider soup. This was an experimental recipe - I added things I thought would work as I was going along, and it turned out pretty well. I was impressed by the cider - usually for soups I use wine but this added an extra layer of flavour. Also this recipe makes a massive quantity because I have so many carrots to use up. This would probably feed about four people. If you have leftovers, just freeze them...

One note about the method - you need a hand blender. I recently bought one of these for myself and they're definitely worth having on hand for soups and smoothies. Soups are so cheap and simple that they make perfect student food. You chop the stuff up, you boil the stuff in stock, you add some flavouring and then you zap it with a hand blender. What could be simpler? And you can buy a hand blender for less than a fiver from Argos. Definitely worth the investment.

SO here's what you need for the soup:

1 onion

A knob of butter and a dash of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed/chopped finely

1.5kg of carrots (unprepared weight)

1 litre of stock (I used a vegetable oxo cube)

150ml cider

1tsp dried sage

1tsp paprika

The seeds from 3 Cardamom pods, finely crushed

Four or five basil leaves, shredded

Cream or yoghurt, and pumpkin seeds to serve

1. Peel and chop the onion into slices. Heat the oil and melt the butter in a large pan. Add the onion and garlic and soften for about five minutes. Add your cider to the pan, and let it reduce by about half.

2. Meanwhile, Top, tail and peel your carrots. Chop into slices and add these to the pan.

3. Cover with stock, and add the sage, cardamom and paprika. Let the soup simmer until the carrots have softened. Add a little more cider as it's cooking if you like.

4. When the carrots are soft, turn off the heat. Using a hand blender, whizz the soup until it's smooth. Add the shredded basil leaves, stir through thoroughly and serve with bread and a dollop of cream or yoghurt.

A Souperior Use for Tomatoes

Life is a bit mad, which is why posting has been a bit sporadic recently. I've been stalking the legend that is Nigel Slater during his visit to my tiny Cumbrian town, and interviewing the lovely Ruby Tandoh from The Great British Bake Off for The London Student. Also, I felt I should blog something savoury, which meant actually cooking something savoury and not just spending my days baking and eating cake.

Last week, Mum came home with LOADS of tomatoes from her friend at work, and they needed to be used. And so, my sister and I made tomato soup. And it was really good.

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 1.5kg tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 large red onion (or two small), roughly chopped
- half a red pepper, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 litre vegetable stock
- large bunch basil leaves, torn

Method:
1. Put the tomatoes, onion, pepper and garlic into a large roasting dish. Drizzle with olive oil and add some salt and pepper and about a third of the basil leaves, then cook for 40-50 mins at 220°C, stirring every 15 minutes.

2. Tip the vegetables into a large saucepan, then pour in the vegetable stock and bring everything to a gentle boil. Add the rest of the basil leaves and simmer for 5 minutes, then take off the heat and blitz until smooth.
3. Season to taste, then serve with lots of bread. Easiest meal ever.

Revision Food

This last week has been crazy - even more so than normal. Zosia and I have both had exams, and there's also been a load of elections (I'm now the Vice President for Media Society and the Lifestyle Editor for our uni newspaper The Orbital. Woo!), and I LOST A HUGE WAD OF MY NOTES. Literally: everything I've written from the end of January up to the end of the Spring term. So all together it's been very stressy and just a little bit frantic.

CUE COOKING.

A few weeks ago I picked up the Sainsbury's magazine (totally not because it had Nigel Slater, Mary Berry and Jamie Oliver all on the front cover) and discovered the wonder that it is. And inside they had a lovely recipe for a carrot and tarragon soup with hazelnuts that I really wanted to try - though of course, being me, I couldn't just follow a recipe. So here's my version:

Ingredients:
- 50g butter
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 sticks celery, chopped
- 1kg carrots
- 1 eating apple, peeled, cored and chopped
- 1.2L veg stock
- 100g blanched hazelnuts
- 1tbsp chopped tarragon (plus extra for garnish)
- olive oil, to drizzle

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Melt the butter in a stock pot/really big pan and stir in the onion, garlic and celery. Cook for about 10 minutes. In the mean time, toast the hazelnuts in the oven for 8-10 mins or until golden.
2. Stir in the carrots, and cook for a further 10 minutes, then throw in the apple, tarragon, vegetable stock and some seasoning and bring to a boil. Simmer, partly covered (if you don't have a lid grab some tin foil), for 30-40 minutes.
3. Leave to cool for 5 mins or so, then blend. Ladle into bowls then drizzle over a swirl of olive oil before chopping up your hazelnuts and the rest of the tarragon and adding those too. Voila! Simple.

Carrot, Leek and Potato Soup

 Soup has a special place in my heart. It makes me think of childhood and snow and freshly made bread rolls and Fridays, and this particular soup is one of my favourites. It's Mum's recipe, and I've lost count of the number of times I've made it at uni - though yesterday we made it at home with THIS LEEK from the garden:

Impressive, right? But onto the soup.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
- 500g leeks
- 2 large carrots
- 250g potatoes
- 25g butter
- 550ml water
- 1 Oxo cube
- 300ml milk
- ½tsp grated nutmeg
- sprig fresh thyme
- salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
1. Wash and chop the leeks, and peel the carrots and potatoes before chopping those too. Aim to have the pieces all the same size - that way they'll cook at about the same time.
2. Melt the butter in a very big saucepan or stock-pot, before adding the veg. Cook gently for about 10 minutes until it's softening, then stick everything else in. I should mention that this is the easiest recipe in the world.
Tip: with the thyme, you don't need to bother picking the leaves off as they'll fall off by themselves as it cooks, then you can just take out the stick (so make sure you don't have teeny little sticks if you're doing it like this). I'm calling this trick 'a thyme saver'. Oh yes I did.

 

3. Mix it all together, then stick the lid (or some tin foil) on and cook for about 30 minutes, until all the vegetables are properly softened.
4. Take out your thyme sticks and blend until smooth-ish, then serve.

This soup freezes brilliantly, so any leftovers can be saved for a rainy day. Or a day with essays due and no time to cook, though I tend to find that's when I do the most cooking... sure that's just coincidence.

 

Something Different: Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Apologies for the lack of posting this month - I know we always say life's really busy but LIFE'S REALLY BUSY. This should make up for it though.

Every Friday afternoon Jamie and I go into Egham for soup and tea at what we call 'Bar-Divisible-By-Three' to celebrate the end of the week and get into the general Friday-feeling. A few weeks ago I got excited by the prospect of 'roasted red pepper and tomato soup', but when we went to order we were told the cafe had run out. The soup we got was awesome but I couldn't stop thinking about the one that got away... so I made my own. Because stubborn is my middle name.

 You will need:

- 2 onions                                                      - 600ml water  

- 2 sticks of celery                                         - 300ml double cream            

- 1 large clove garlic                                     - 1tbsp red pesto

- 4 large red peppers                                     - 2 handfuls fresh curly parsley  

- 10 cherry tomatoes                                     - plenty of salt and pepper     

- 1x 500ml stock pot, or 2 Oxo cubes                                 

What to do:

1. De-seed and quarter the peppers, then place into a baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle over some salt and pepper, then stir it all up so they're coated. Place into an oven preheated to 220°C, and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so so they don't burn. After 20 minutes, add the tomatoes too. This can be done in advance.

2. Roughly chop the onions, celery and garlic and throw into a stock pot (or any big pan) along with a knob of butter and some olive oil. Cook on a medium temperature for 10-15 minutes, until soft.

3. Add the peppers and tomatoes to the pot, and cook for a further 5 minutes. Lots of recipes tell you to take the skins off the peppers, and you can, but leaving them on gives the soup more texture as well as being healthier. Add the pesto, water, stock, and cream (or you could use milk for a healthier alternative) and mix.

4. Bring to a gentle boil, then put on a lid and simmer for half an hour, stirring occasionally.

5. Using a hand blender/food processor/a sieve and lots of determination, blitz the soup. You can obviously make it as smooth as you like, but I think it's best if it's not done too much so you get the textures still. Chop your parsley and add that in, then season to taste.

 

To give it an extra bit of awesome, while you're on stage 4 and it's simmering away, chop a few slices of bread into cubes along with some sun-dried tomatoes (or a few chopped cherry ones) and put into the baking dish the peppers were roasted in. To this, add a bit more salt and pepper, and if you have it some garlic/basil/nicely flavoured olive oil (normal olive oil is fine), then stir to coat and stick in the oven at 180°C. You need to stir this every 10 minutes or so to make sure they crisp evenly, and after about 20-30 minutes you should have some fancy homemade croutons to go along with your soup.

Voila. Super simple, and super tasty. 

And then I made vegetarian French onion soup and gluten free bread because I'm the best housemate ever.

Me again. Zosia's alive and cooking (see what I did there?), honest, but she's currently in Cheshire for Alex's Dad's wedding and is running around like a running-around-person being busy. Also her blogger may be broken. I'm not entirely sure but she promises to sort it all when she has time.

In the meantime, I'm doing more cooking than ever and loving it. And I'm particularly proud of this recipe.

As I mentioned last month in my apple pie post, Fraser took me to Paris in September. Cue being surrounded by endless beautiful food, but also feeling sad because I can't eat it. Being vegetarian sucks in France. I ended up having French onion soup a couple of times - anxiously asking the waiters if it was vegetarian, and being assured that it was - but I'm not sure I'm convinced. Ever since I discovered that the onion soup in a cafe at home was made with beef stock, I'm permanently suspicious. So, I decided that the only way to avoid this conflict and still get the yum-factor was to make my own.

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 50g butter
- 6 onions
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp caster sugar
- 3tbsp plain flour
- 1/2 cup white wine (approx 120ml)
- 1500ml veg stock
- 1tsp smooth French mustard
- approx 200g cheese - jarlsberg or gruyère (or a strong cheddar if you have none)

1. Begin by heating some olive oil in a large pot and then melting the butter. Chop the onions into strips, crush the garlic and add along with the salt.

2. Using a low-medium heat, these now need about 50 minutes to caramelise - thought you need to add the sugar after the first 15. Stir every 10 minutes or so, just to make sure everything gets an even blast at the heat and that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot and burns.

3. When the onions are soft and golden and you just can't stand waiting any longer, add the flour. Stir to coat and cook for about three minutes before adding the wine. Let this bubble, and use it to get all the bits off the bottom of the pot that got there stuck no matter how much you stirred (the chefs call this 'deglazing the pan').

4. Add the vegetable stock and mustard, and cook with the lid on for a further 40-50 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so. Season to taste.

And as for the bread... 

This was the first time I'd made gluten-free bread, so I thought I'd keep it simple and follow the recipe on the back of the Dove's Farm gluten-free bread flour packet. It wasn't bad. And it probably would have worked better if we'd discovered at that point that the oven in our new house is a fan oven and so all the cooking times need to be altered. Also we don't have a bread tin so it was freestyle...

Don't judge me.

Despite its aesthetically-questionable appearance, it worked really well with the soup. Mix it all up before you start, then let it rise while the onions are doing their thing. Whap it in the oven about the time you add the flour and everything should be ready at about the same time.

5. To serve, slice up the bread and stick it under the grill for a couple of minutes until it's going hard. Then grate your cheese (I only had cheddar) and sprinkle over, before putting back under the grill. If you have posh oven-proof soup bowls you can put the bread and cheese in there, but I don't so I used my trusty baking tray and then transferred them. If you have any around then sprinkle with a little herb de provence for a finishing touch, and enjoy.