Tomato & couscous soup - BBC Good Food

Well this was much more of a stew than a soup! It wasa thick and warming and a strange combination of summer-y flavours and winter-y textures. A good soup, then, for spring or autumn! It was tasty although the curry and tomato overpower the rest (I did not use harissa, as I don't like hot food). The bread wasn't really necessary to mop anything up; I would use more stock if you want to make it into a proper soup.

Here is the recipe:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/527628/spiced-tomato-and-couscous-soup-

There's lots of room for variation; a couple of comments suggested leeks instead of celery, you could use different spices instead of harissa (I used a Moroccan spice rub by Schwartz), you can add a dollop of yoghurt or creme fraiche... experiment!

Oh, and if you leave it overnight it will suck up all the moisture. This actually makes it quite a good thing to take to work for lunch.

Cooking for friends - Tomato and pepper soup

A picture-less couple of posts as there isn't really a lot of time or thought for pictures when you're serving up a meal for guests! I might have a picture somewhere of the trial run I did for the soup though.

This tomato soup recipe I adapted from the recipe at Nigella's website, and the main change was to make it serve 5 people and be a bit more peppery. Here is the original:

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/roasted-tomato-and-red-pepper-soup-3238

This is a brilliant soup to make if you have friends over, because once the chopping is done you just stick it in the oven for 40-45 minutes and blend it with some stock in the end. It leasves plenty of time for socialising outside of the kitchen! I made bread rolls the day before to go with it with my usual bread machine method.

The soup itself is quite textured; if you don't like the skins on the tomatoes and peppers you can peel them afterwards by sticking them in a sealed plastic bag for a few minutes and letting the skins steam so they can easily peeled off. It's a lot of effort though, and probably best done with just the peppers. You can add cream/creme fraiche/soft goat's cheese as the end to make the soup a bit richer.


Roasted tomato and pepper soup

Serves 5

Takes around 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete totally


800g vine tomatoes

3 peppers (red is good for colour, but any can be used; I used 2 red and 1 orange)

2 small red onions

5-6 cloves of garlic

650ml stock

1.5 tbsp Mushroom ketchup/soy sauce/Worcestershire sauce

Olive oil and seasoning

The recipe on the website includes tabasco which I didn't use as I'm not a spice fan, but would go very well.

Preheat oven to 200C (180C fan)


* Prepare the vegetables - Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters (depending on size), the peppers into quarters, the onions into chunky wedges and separate the garlic cloves but keep the skin on.

* Put all the vegetables into a large roasting tin, season and drizzle with your preferred amount of olive oil. Mix well.

* Roast the veggies for 40-45 minutes so they become soft and slightly blackened.

* A few minutes before the veggies are due to come out make up the stock and keep it hot it in a large pan.

* When the veggies are out, first squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins into the stock and add the mushroom ketchup. Then plonk in all the veggies and mix around a bit. Heat if required.

* Whizz up with a hand blender or in a food processor.

Soup done!

Creamy green soup

Another soup! I just love soup and it's so easy, plus it's an excuse to eat homemade bread. I was anticipating spring a bit to early with this one, but fancied something refreshing rather than stodgy. The greens used are 'light', spring type greens rather than the heavy leaves of winter.


Creamy Green Soup

Serves 4-5

Takes about an hour if you're speedy with your chopping, took me more like 1hr 10mins


2 Courgettes

2 trimmed leeks

A crown of broccoli

200g french/green beans

3 tbsp green pesto (can adjust to taste)

3-4 tbsp Creme Fraiche

1200ml vegetable stock

2 tsp dried thyme

3 cloves garlic

Salt and pepper to season, although with the pesto, salt isn't too necessary


* Prepare the veg - slice the leek in half lengthways then slice into thin slices (slice, slice, slice). Cut the florets of broccoli off the stem, chop the courgette into small, 1.5cm pieces and cut the beans in half or thirds if you're not blending at the end. Chop the garlic into small pieces.

* Heat some oil in a large pan and fry the leeks, garlic and thyme gently until soft but not brown (about 5 minutes)

* Add the rest of the vegetables and fry for 10 minutes, until just starting to go soft.

* In the meantime make up the stock, then add to the pan once the vegetables have finished their 10 minutes of frying.

* Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 25 minutes. This makes the vegetables very soft! If you prefer not to blend your soup and want to keep a bit of crunch to the veg, adjust the cooking times accordingly.

* Stir in the pesto and creme fraiche, then blend in a food processor or using a hand blender.

Root vegetable soup with barley

Ah December. What a busy, overindulgent month! This is a recipe to soothe troubled tummies, as it is pleasant, yet also bland and comforting, being filling without being rich. It does take quite some effort to prepare the veg though, as they are woody, hard things, so make sure you have a good knife. It actually has a texture more akin to stew, so feel free to add some dumplings if you wish.


Root vegetable Soup with Barley

Serves 4

Takes about an hour to actually cook, but preparing the veg can easily take an extra 15 minutes


2 medium carrots

1 medium parsnip

1 leek, trimmed to leave mostly the white

1 small onion

1 small swede

100g dried pearl barley or other grain mix if you choose

1.2L of good vegetable stock

2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced (or 2 decent tsps of minced)

2 tsp dried herbs of your choice of - savory, thyme or rosemary

A splash of seasoning sauce, such as mushroom ketchup (the bottle just seen on the left in the picture)


* Scrub or peel the carrots or parsnips, peel the swede, peel the onion. Chop all the vegeables into neat little chunks around 1.5cm-2cm, except for the leek and onion which need to be sliced thinly.

* Heat some oil in a large pan, then fry the leek, onion, garlic and herbs for 5 minutes or until softened, but not coloured.

* Chuck in the rest of the vegetables and cook until slightly softened, around 10 minutes.

* Add the stock and the barley, bring to the boil, then simmer for around 40 minutes.

* After the time has passed, check to see that everything is tender. Mash the soup roughly with a potato masher and serve. Add the seasoning sauce into the individual bowls to taste.

Serve with a good bit of white bread.

Beetroot, tomato and goat's cheese soup

Almost a month has gone, wow. Lost the cooking flare a bit, but am getting more into now the weather has well and truly changed.
Beetroot soup! There are lots of things you can change in this recipe to suit your tastes, including swapping out the goat's cheese for something like feta or cream cheese and changing the herbs around. But here are the basics, and flavours which I believe work well together. It makes a thick, earthy soup that's tasty but not too rich. It's so easy to make, yet looks so sophisticated. You just can't beat (har har) that colour.

NOTE: Be very careful as beetroot is a potent dye. Clean up any spills immediately.


Beetroot, tomato and goat's cheese soup

Serves 4

Takes about 40 minutes


A ~550g bunch of beetroot

1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

1 medium red onion

150g goat's cheese

600ml good stock

2 cloves of garlic (chopped) or 2 tsp of minced garlic

2 tsp dried savory


* Peel, trim and chop the beets into small chunks. Chop the onion into small pieces

* In a big saucepan fry the onions and garlic for 5 mintues or until soft

* Add the beets, savory and stock and bring to the boil then simmer fr about 20 minutes or until your beets are soft. Season.

* Stir in your cheese (if it's creamy, stir until it's melted) then add the tomatoes and heat through.

* Use a hand blender or a food processor and blend, then serve. I usually don't blend my soups, but this really needed it.

Healthy veggie ramen

I have recently found out that American ramen is different to English ramen. We here in Britland call American ramen "supernoodles". For us ramen is just standard noodles in soup (although ramen noodles are best). I used Blue Dragon ramen noodles, and they were perfect. This soup is very dependent on the soya sauce and other condiments for flavour, as well as using the right kind of noodle. First attempt I tried with rice noodles, and it wasn't that good. Oh, and big pan alert!



Veggie Ramen

Serves 4

Takes 30-40 minutes


Ramen noodles in amounts as recommended on the packet (if using standard noodles, take about half the amount you would for a normal stir fry)

A crown of broccoli, chopped into florets

500g bag of fresh baby spinach

250g Shiitake mushrooms, chopped

300g silken tofu (the ready cooked kind) sliced into small pieces

8 Spring onions, sliced thinly

2.5 pints of good vegetable stock

8 tbsp soy sauce

2 tablespoons of other condiment, such as mushroom sauce, vegetarian worcestershire sauce, fish sauce if you eat fish. If you can't fnd any of these, then more soy sauce will do fine

4 tbsp Mirin

I didn't feel this recipe needed garlic or chilli, but add to taste if you like things spicy.


* Cook the noodles according to instructions, drain and refresh with cold water and set aside

* Bring the stock, soy sauce, condiment and mirin to the boil, then simmer gently for 5 minutes

* Add the broccoli to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes

* Add the mushrooms and simmer for another 5 minutes

* Stir in the spinach until wilted, then stir in the tofu and spring onions. Leave for another couple of minutes so it's all warmed through.

* Divide the noodles into serving bowls and ladle the soup on top.

Plain Mushroom Soup

A basic mushroom soup. I made it chunky simply because I could not fit the blender into the pan, and clumsy as I am (and lazy), am averse to pouring it to blend in a food processor. This probably affected the flavour, making the broth blander with intense mushroomy hits when you chomp a piece of mushroom; it's up to you how you do it. It's big pan time!


Mushroom soup

Serves 4-5

Total time taken around 40 minutes


500g strong, tasty mushrooms, such as chestnut or portobello, wiped clean

1 pint milk (full fat is best)

1.5 pints of stock

1 onion or 2 large escallion shallots

A couple of teaspoons of thyme (optional)

4 generous tbsp plain flour

Oil or butter for frying

Salt for seasoning


* Chop the onion and put aside, because you'll need room for all the shrooms

* Chop the mushrooms as small as possible

* Heat some oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. When heated, add the onions and fry for a few minutes

* Add the mushrooms (probably in batches) and cook until the final lot is reduced, about 5 minutes after the last fresh pieces are added.

* Add the flour, stirring in so any lumps dissolve, until the mushrooms are well coated. Add the thyme, if using.

* Pour about half the stock in and stir until thickened. Add salt.

* Follow this with half the milk, stirring as you go, followed by the rest of the stock and milk.

* Simmer for about 20 minutes.

* At the end blend if desired.

Spring soup

This is a big, chunky broth that I put together to celebrate the fact that spring was coming! I overestimated the size of my pan though and ended up leaving out some of the ingredients, including some extra stock which would have been useful as I kept it overnight. Make sure you use good quality stock, as the vegetables by themselves aren’t especially tasty. I used Knorr’s premade vegetable stock.

Spring Soup

Serves a generous 4

Time to make close to an hour with inefficient time keeping and inexperienced chopping!

1.5 litres of good vegetable stock

1 crown of broccoli

4 plum tomatoes

100g green beans (French beans)

1 large courgette

Bunch of spring onions

3 measures of garlic (cloves, sliced, or tsps. of Bart’s)

1 bulb of fennel

Few springs of thyme

75g pasta for soup or broken spaghetti

Seasoning

Optional: a dollop of pesto or cream cheese or parmesan (or all 3?) for on top.

Optional: bread to serve with

* Prepare the veg – separate the broccoli into small florets. Slice the courgette thin, long slices. Chop the green beans in half and deseed the tomatoes and slice thinly. Finely slice the fennel and the onions. Heat some oil in a large saucepan.

* Fry the fennel, garlic and spring onions on a medium heat for around 15 minutes, making sure they don’t brown too much.

* Add the rest of the veg, the herbs, the pasta and the stock and seasoning then bring to the boil. Cover, then simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve hot with dollops of pesto (or whatever your prefer) and some good bread.

Pea, potato and rocket soup

This is a very thick soup and best suited to the cold winter nights! It doesn’t look all too pretty - it won’t convince anyone who doesn’t like their greens - but it honestly does taste good, even for someone who is a bit ambiguous about peas. The best way to blend it is in a food processor, but I’m a bit squeamish about handling boiling soup (and I don’t like washing up extra bits) so I used a hand blender. If a food processor is used then it’ll come out a lot smoother. Oh, and use your largest pan for this one! I had to skimp on the rocket because it simply would not all fit.

Pea, potato and rocket soup

Serves 4-6 (A very generous 4)

Took about 40 minutes in all, but I used leftover ready cooked potatoes from the day before.

1 onion, finely chopped

250g potatoes, chopped

500g frozen peas

100 rocket leaves, roughly chopped

1L vegetable stock

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tsp thyme

Oil for frying, salt and pepper for seasoning

*Heat the oil, then add the onion, garlic and thyme and cook for 5 minutes or until the onion is softened. Then add the potatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes.

*Stir in the peas, stock, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

*Add the rocket and lemon juice then blend the soup on whichever way you prefer.

*If gone cold then return to the pan and heat through.

*Serve with some good rustic-style bread.

Notes: You can decorate the surface of the soup with a swirl of sour cream, a squiggle of good olive oil or a sprinkling of multi-coloured ground pepper.

P.S. Happy new year!