Cabbage and spelt soup

I have never before made anything that was so much more than the sum of its parts: this was delicious! And the recipe was posted just after I picked up a big white cabbage, a huge bunch of rosemary and some shallots from our vegetable club, and a little rooting around revealed we also had some spelt in the house... It took a while but it was amazing - I've never enjoyed anything with long-cooked cabbage this much! Strangely reminiscent of pasta+chickpeas, which we also love.

1 lb cabbage, white, savoy or green
olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
salt and pepper
3 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 sprig of rosemary or thyme (used rosemary)
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup uncooked farro (not sure what farro is - used pearled spelt because that's what we had)
c 4 cups veg stock
parmesan rind (optional)
1 tbsp lemon juice
shaved parmesan, to finish (optional)

Cut out the cabbage core and finely chop it. Cut the leaves into fine shreds or about 1/8-inch ribbons. Heat c 3 tbsp olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cabbage core, some salt and pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion starts to soften but is not yet browned, about 5-7 min. Add the garlic and cook another 3-5 min, until the garlic softens too. Add the shredded cabbage leaves and herb sprig, if using. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cover the pot and let it steam a bit to soften the leaves, then toss the cabbage to combine with other ingredients. Cook, covered, until the cabbage is very sweet and tender, approx 30 min. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a small frying pan, heat a glug of olive oil over medium and add the uncooked farro. Toast it, stirring, for a few minutes, until half a shade darker.

When the cabbage is ready, stir in the vinegar. Taste and season with more salt and pepper. Add toasted farro, stock, and parmesan rind. Bring mixture to a lazy simmer and cook for 25-35 min, until farro is tender and all the flavors are married. The soup will be very thick, but if you’d prefer more liquid, add another 1/2 cup stock or water. Taste and adjust seasoning again. Stir in lemon juice. Ladle into bowls and finish each with a drizzle of olive oil and a shower of parmesan (if using), with more parmesan passed at the table.

Soup keeps well in the fridge for 3 days, and for weeks or longer in the freezer.


I ended up making this twice! The first time we wowed over it at home, the second time I made double, and it was 3 meals - one dinner at home, one work lunch for seb and me, and I took the final portion for lunch with C and new baby M.

Pumpkin and apple soup

More uses for our heap of windfalls. This time in soup, with hokkaido from the veg share. I used this recipe.

For the soup:
2 kg pumpkin, cut into wedges and deseeded
2 onions, peeled and chopped into 6 wedges
3 sharp apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves in their skin
100 ml olive oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
salt+pepper
1/2 a nutmeg
2 litres veg stock

To finish:
yoghurt
raw apple sliced into matchsticks
walnuts

Heat the oven to 180C. Add pumpkin, onions, apple and garlic to a large baking tray. Toss in the olive oil. Sprinkle over the cinnamon, salt and pepper and grate over nutmeg. Toss again. Bake for 30-40 minutes until cooked and nicely softened. Remove and let cool a little. When still hot but safe to handle, take the skin off the pumpkin garlic.

Transfer the contents of the baking tray to a large pot. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce and simmer for about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and blend until smooth. Season to taste.


Serve topped with a swirl of yoghurt, some apple and walnuts, and salt+pepper.

Pasta and chickpeas (pasta e ceci)

Our trip to Italy last winter got us excited about more foods than pizza. We did a cantina food tour in the village next to S+C's house. We had seven or eight little courses and glasses of wine in different cantinas (private cellar / bars opened up for the event) connected by a walking map. Far and away S's fave was pasta and chickpeas. It's really simple, like most of the best food we had in Italy: pretty much just pasta and chickpeas cooked in stock to make a hearty soup.

I saw these recipes soon after getting back, and then pasta e ceci went into heavy rotation in our house through the winter months. In the end, I think our fave version was a merger of those two versions: dried pasta, dried chickpeas, rosemary, garlic, olive oil, and perhaps some celery.

250g dried chickpeas
2 garlic cloves
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 stick of celery (optional)
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
200g short pasta, stumpy rigatoni was usually what we ended up with - you're aiming for something chickpea-sized
Salt and black pepper
olive oil and black pepper / red chilli flakes to serve

Soak the chickpeas in plenty of cold water for 12 hours or overnight, changing the water twice if you can. Drain the soaked chickpeas, cover with 2 litres of fresh water, add a clove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary. Bring the pan to the boil over a medium heat, and simmer for 1½ hours or until the chickpeas are tender. Start tasting after one hour. Keep in mind you want 1.2 litres of cooking liquid, so top up with more water if necessary.

In a large heavy-based pan or casserole, heat the olive oil and add the remaining clove of garlic (peeled and gently crushed with the back of a knife), and the other sprig of rosemary. Fry gently until the garlic and rosemary are fragrant. Cook for another few minutes.

Add the chickpeas, and then add the chickpea broth, making sure there is 1.2 litres – make it up with hot water if there isn’t – and a pinch of salt. Increase the heat to bring the soup to the boil.
Add the pasta and cook until tender, stirring, tasting and adding more broth to keep it a nice soupy consistency. Serve with a grinding of black pepper (or sprinkle of red chilli flakes) and a little more olive oil poured over the top.

Note: this works well simplified to use chickpea broth from cooking any amount of chickpeas (the more you cooked, the more intense the broth flavour), and without any measuring - heat oil and fry rosemary and crushed garlic, add cooked chickpeas, add enough chickpea broth to cook pasta (top up with water if not enough) and some salt, add pasta and any additional veg desired (e.g. chopped celery, diced courgette), boil until pasta is done and eat with a drizzle of olive oil and some black pepper or chilli flakes... or even a spoonful of walnut pesto on top if you want to be fancy. Also good with chopped fresh tomatoes added at the end... And our fave pasta shape for this, after testing many, is oriechette.

Sunchoke (jerusalum artichoke) and white bean soup

This is the first time I cooked with sunchokes in ages. They are much more easily available in shops  here than in the UK or the USA. I always thought maybe you didn't see them in shops much because they don't store well, but I guess that is wrong. When I was a kid we had them in the garden, and later L and I had them in our allotment... And they are unkillable (!), so I have eaten plenty of them in the past. I knew them as jerusalem artichokes then, but sunchokes is a better name I think - they are related to sunflowers and nothing to do with Jerusalem, after all. They lend themselves very well to soup. I kept this one simple: sunchokes have quite a distinctive but delicate taste and I didn't want to overpower it / thought they'd play well with white beans.

olive oil
1/2 a large onion, peeled and chopped
4 large sunchokes, well-cleaned and chopped into chunks
500 ml veg stock
1 1/2 cups cooked white beans or butterbeans
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
more olive oil to serve

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and saute for 5-10 min on a low-medium heat, until softened. Add the sunchokes, cover and cook for 10 min or so more, stirring often. Add the veg stock, bay leaf and beans. Simmer for 20-30 min, until the sunchokes are thoroughly cooked and tender. Blend until smooth. Add more water if necessary, and season to taste. Serve with a sprinkling of tasty olive oil, salt and pepper on top.

Red lentil and pumpkin pottage

Pottage is a nice word, isn't it? It evokes thick, lovely, stick-to-your-ribs warmth. Which is exactly what this is. This is from my New Covent Garden Soup Company book. I am not sure I ever made before, perhaps I had dismissed it for its apparent simplicity. It is simple, but it is good. And simple can be wonderful on chilly winter nights.

Also, I just came back from Italy struck by how good simple food can be. Basically every pizza or pasta dish we ate there comprised just one main ingredient besides the pasta or dough, often something cheap and hearty: pasta and spinach; pasta and chickpeas; pizza with aubergine, pizza with zucchini... All so good. I remember the first time I realized what Italian food really is, when I first visited Italy: I ate a dish of spaghetti with oil and garlic expecting to be underwhelmed but instead I got it for the first time after a life of boring non-Italian Italian food.

This little kabocha squash was loitering around from our last vegetable bag before Christmas, and we returned from Italy to a cold, busy day of unpacking and sorting things out, and simple soup from good ingredients, all of which we happened to have at home, was exactly what fitted into the day.

For the soup:
2 oz / 50 g butter
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1 medium kabocha squash (or butternut... 1 1/2 lb / 675 g), peeled and diced
1 bay leaf
red lentils
1 3/4 pints / 1 litre vegetable stock
salt and pepper

To serve:
yogurt or creme fraiche
chopped fresh coriander
toasted pumpkin seeds

Melt butter in a lidded saucepan and fry the onion, squash and bay leaf with the lid on until slightly tender but not coloured. Add the lentils and stock, bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 min until the vegetables and lentils are soft. Taste for seasoning, let cool a bit and blend until smooth. Reheat gently and serve in bowls with yoghurt swirled on top and sprinkling of coriander and pumpkin seeds. Those New Covent Garden Soup Company soups are endlessly great.

Veg onion soup

It's been a busy few weeks. We got our new place, we moved, got furniture, all of that. Then three weeks after moving in, there was a big storm with lots of heavy wet snow. It snowed all night and when we went out in the morning we found several huge (approx 80 cm diameter) branches broken off a tree in our yard. One was blocking the small road beside our place. So then we have been busy clearing that up and sorting it out - finding a tree surgeon, then dealing with all the fallen wood - we've been chopping it for next year's firewood.

Yesterday we finished tidying up (stashing needly bits in the bushes), then started stacking the wood and chopping it. S with an axe, me with a saw. It got dark but we carried on chopping in the garage. At some point he suggested I go in and make french onion soup instead. We'd bought a whole lot of onions at the best and biggest Turkish supermarket in town (Istanbul in København NV), and that had given him an idea... I went in and got going, using the recipe from trusty Delia's veg collection. What we hadn't realized before was that it takes about 3 hours to cook. So it was about 21:00 by the time we got to eat. But it was good.

1 lb 8 oz / 700 g onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 oz / 50 g butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ tsp sugar
2 pints / 1.2 l veg stock
10 fl oz / 275 ml dry white wine
salt and pepper

for the croutons:
6-8 1 inch / 2.5 cm diagonal slices of French bread (used bits of pumpkin seed bread as that's what we had)
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
8 oz / 225 g Gruyère, grated (used blue cheese instead as that's what we had)

Heat the oven to gas mark 4 / 350F / 180C. Prep the onions.

Place a large heavy-based saucepan on a high heat and melt the oil and butter together. When this is very hot, add the onions, garlic and sugar, and stir occasionally until the edges of the onions turn dark – about 6 min. Reduce the heat to low and leave the onions to cook slowly for about 30 min, until the base of the pan is covered with a rich, nut brown, caramelised film (bake croutons during this time - see below). After that, pour in the stock and white wine, season and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping the base of the pan well. When it comes to a simmer, turn the heat to low and leave to cook gently without a lid for about 1 hour.

To make the croutons drizzle the olive oil on to a baking sheet, add the crushed garlic and spread the oil and garlic all over. Place the bread slices on top of the oil and turn over each one so that both sides are coated with oil. Bake for 20-25 min till crisp and crunchy.
 
Sprinkle the grated cheese thickly over the croutons and grill until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling. Put soup in bowls to serve, with a crouton or two on top of each.

Carrot and coriander soup

Since we got here we are eating a lot of simple, warming food: rye bread, butter, yoghurt, honey, tahini, muesli, sunflower seeds, carrots, chickpeas/lentils, celeriac (cheap and easy to find), parsley root sometimes; salad, curry, soup.

I made a chunky soup the other day. This time I wanted to make a blended soup. I'd just bought a big bag of carrots so that was part of the motivation. Aside from that, it's a chilly February day so what do you expect?

It's not quite a classic carrot and coriander. It has both fresh coriander leaves and toasty coriander seed. Ginger, garlic, and a little bit of celeriac add some more depth and warmth. A spot of honey magnifies the carrots' sweetness. And I experimented with using tahini to thicken the soup, and was pleased with the results - I just used a little, but it gives a smooth, subtle nuttiness that I like.

(makes approx 5 servings)

~1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 in piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp coriander seeds, ground
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
~6 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks
~3 in piece of celeriac, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 stock cube made up with ~3 cups of water
1/2 tsp honey
lemon juice
salt+pepper
1 tbsp tahini
~2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Heat the oil in a large, lidded saucepan. Add the onion and cook for ~10 min, until softened and starting to brown. Add the garlic and ginger about halfway through that. Next add the ground spices and cook until fragrant (~1 min). Add the carrots and celeriac and saute for a few minutes before adding the stock, covering and simmering gently for ~15 min, until the carrots and celeriac are tender. Add honey (be restrained), lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Remove a few tbsp of the liquid into a bowl and mix in the tahini. Return this liquid to the pan along with the fresh coriander. Let cool for 10-20 min, then blend until smooth. Taste again to check acidity and seasoning. I've been eating it with a swirl of natural yoghurt on top and a grinding of salt and pepper.


This is so simple I almost wasn't going to bother writing it out. But it was good, and is improving every time I eat it (over a couple of days of keeping it in the fridge). So here we are.

New Year's Hygge Soup (chunky spiced red lentil and root veg)

We live in Denmark now. Since last Sunday. Crikey: nearly a week. After a rush of moving and flying and packing and cases and goodbyes and Christmas and birthday and everything, there we were. It snowed. Amy arrived from Berlin for New Year's Eve - hurrah. We explored a bit. Walking: the Mermaid and the busbies in Amalienborg. 360 degrees of Round Tower. Half-electric bikes to look at the Carlsberg elephant gate. Looks like we can swim and sauna at the harbour baths, but we didn't know in time to achieve it on New Year's Day. Sooo many fireworks.

Discovering supermarkets. Nearest is Rema 1000 (seems to be mid-range), also Aldi; Irma (seems to be more fancy / økologisk). After some foggy outdoor explorations on New Year's Day it felt like enough activity and we went home to create some hygge. With a bag full of red lentils and root vegetables. Soup.

(this served 3 good appetites, with bread, for dinner)

~2 tbsp olive oil (olivenolie)
3 cloves garlic (hvidløg), peeled and chopped
2 medium leeks (porre), sliced
4 medium persillerod (aka petersilienwurzel aka parsley root aka my new favourite thing - seems quite easy to get here; alternatively use parsnips, pastinak), peeled and diced fairly small
6 medium carrots (gulerod), peeled and diced fairly small
1/4 celeriac (knoldselleri), peeled and diced fairly small
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground cumin (kommen)
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (kanel)
1/4 tsp turmeric (gurkemeje)
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground thyme (timien)
1 cup red lentils (røde linser)
1 veg stock cube dissolved in boiling water
more boiling water
6 baby pattypan squash, chopped
6 mushrooms (champignon), chopped
splashes of balsamic vinegar (eddike)
splashes of soy sauce (sojasovs)
salt+pepper (salt og peber)

Heat oil in a large lidded saucepan. Add garlic and leeks, cover and cook for a few minutes. Add the chopped root vegetables, cover and cook for a few minutes more until everything is slightly tender and just starting to soften. Add the spices and thyme and stir for a few minutes until you can smell them. Add the lentils and stir, then add the stock and enough water to achieve a consistency a bit runnier than you'd like to end up with (the lentils will absorb some). Turn down low, and simmer for 10-15 min, until the lentils and vegetables are almost tender. Add the squash and mushrooms and cook another 5-10 min, until everything is done. Taste, and add vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Eat warm with bread (brød). Would be good (perhaps better) reheated the next day, if there is any left.


This came out just as I wanted, and really hit the spot. A big pan of it went down real well.

Carrot, chickpea and ginger soup (with shiso and sweetcorn)

D gave me a big bag of reject carrots from his farm (perfectly good, just broken or slightly nibbled and therefore unsaleable) after a lovely evening at ECO.

I bunged them in the fridge and forgot about them for a few days, but then peeled one and dipped in it hummus, and it was such a tasty carrot I started to think about what to do with them. Some I pickled, and I also decided to make soup, for an unknown reason totally unlinked to the fact it just got hot again...

We had shiso from the CSA last week, and I didn't know what to do with it... I tasted some and I actually like it - tangy and slightly minty, but different. Sprinkled on soup seemed like it could work?

1-2 tbsp olive oil
~5 spring onions, trimmed and chopped
2 in piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
~4 cups chopped, peeled carrots
~2 cups chickpeas
~5 cups water
~4 tbsp chickpea miso
~1 tsp honey
salt+pepper
~4 leaves shiso, shredded
kernels from 1/2 a sweetcorn cob

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the spring onions and ginger. Cook until softened. Add the carrots and cook for a few more minutes. Add the chickpeas and water, bring to the boil and simmer for ~ 20 min, until the carrots are just tender. Let cool, then blend until smooth. Add the miso, honey and salt and pepper to taste and mix well. To serve, sprinkle generously with shiso and sweetcorn kernels. Think it might also be good cold: will test this later.

Parsnip, almond and garlic soup

We got these parsnips in our CSA weeks ago, then started getting loads of greens that required immediate preparation. So the parsnips lurked accusingly in the refrigerator, while temperatures rose and I felt less and less like turning on the oven to make the soup I had earmarked them for, and we ran out of almonds and then out of garlic and I felt guiltier and guiltier about neglecting my little beige roots.

Yesterday S went to watch USA vs Portugal, and I decided to stay home and get on with some stuff, including granola (while the oven was on...) and soup.

300 g parsnip (approx 6 small ones)
1 garlic bulb (10 cloves)
1 onion
~1 tbsp olive oil
125 g / 1 cup almonds, blanched
4 cups hot water, or more to taste
1 tbsp cider vinegar
~1 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper

Heat oven to 400F / 200C. Peel parsnip, garlic and onion. Cut into smallish chunks. Put in a roasting tin and toss with olive oil. Bake for 15-20 min, until tender and lightly browned. When the vegetables are done, remove from the oven and place in a blender. Add almonds, hot water, vinegar, thyme, salt and pepper and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning and acidity.


I haven't decided yet what temperature I like best for this - it could be warm or cold, like a white gazpacho (mmm white gazpacho). Note: may be a good idea to soak the almonds overnight if your blender is not awesome - this wasn't all that smooth (although totally acceptable).

Chestnut soup

I kept a few chestnuts back from my last chestnut-cooking foray. Then started brewing up this recipe for soup. I might have used celeriac (or maybe celery) instead of celery seed if I had it, but the celery seed was quite effective as an essence of celery.

6 medium-large chestnuts
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, fairly finely chopped
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/4 tsp anise seed
few grinds of white pepper
1/4 cup champagne (or white wine)
1/4 cup apple sauce (would have used fresh apple but had none)
1 bay leaf
~1/2 tbsp chopped parsley (and more for garnish)
1 cup veg stock
salt

Submerge the whole chestnuts in boiling water and leave for ~30 min. Cut each in half and remove the outer shell and as much of the inner shell as you can, then resubmerge in boiling water for another 10 min or so before removing the rest of the skin (which can be a right fiddle - don't do this in a hurry).

Once the chestnuts are peeled, heat the oil in a medium saucepan, add the onion and cook gently for a few minutes, until softened and transparent but not coloured. Grind the anise and celery seeds then then add to the pan, stirring until fragrant (~ 1 min). Add a little white pepper, the champagne, apple, bay, parsley, peeled chestnuts and stock, bring to the boil and then simmer gently for ~30 min, until the chestnuts are soft.

Remove the pan from the heat, transfer the contents to a blender and blend until very smooth. Taste for seasoning and add salt to taste. Reheat gently to serve, and sprinkle with a little chopped fresh parsley.


Very creamy and satisfyingly savoury. If I had more chestnuts perhaps I'd have added a few more and / or scaled up the recipe - this made just about enough for a taster for two, but not much, and it could have been a tad thicker / more chestnutty.

Curried parsnip soup

This is a Delia duvet for a cold, snowy day.

1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp refined coconut oil
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 heaped tsp coriander seeds
1 heaped tsp cumin seeds
6 whole cardamom pods (seeds only)
1 heaped tsp turmeric
1 heaped tsp ground ginger
1½ lb / 700 g young parsnips, peeled, and chopped into ~1 inch dice
2 pints / 1.2 l  / ~ 5 cups veg stock
salt and pepper
1 small apple

For the parsnip crisps:
1 medium to large parsnip
4-6 tbsp high heat cooking oil (used safflower)
salt

Heat the oils in a large saucepan and add the onions, cooking gently for a few min before adding the garlic and cooking a bit longer til softened. Meanwhile heat a small frying pan and dry fry the cumin, coriander and cardamom until fragrant. Tip into a mortar and grind. Add to the onions, along with the turmeric and ground ginger. Mix and cook a little longer, until fragrant. Add the parsnips and stir well, then add to the stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer at as low heat as possible, uncovered, for approx 1 hour. When the hour is up, liquidise the soup, taste for seasoning, then peel and grate in the apple.

While the soup is simmering, make the parsnip crisps. Heat the oil in a frying pan until very hot (smoking). Lay the parsnip slices in and fry in batches until golden brown. Remove to a paper-lined plate, sprinkle with salt and let cool.


Notes: I quite like the idea of mixing turnip and parsnips instead of using just parsnips, as well. I am quite amazed: the apple I used for this was one of three I had left from last year's apple harvests.

Aromatic coconut and udon soup

S has rediscovered udon noodles in a big way - currently, they are (almost, besides gorgonzola pasta) his favourite thing. Times have changed from when he bought a packet and they lay unused for almost a year... Last night I was heading home before him and asked for dinner suggestions. He said udon (naturally), and followed up with coconut (inspired, I think, by a soup we had at the Thai place at the end of our road the other night). I started thinking about all the lovely aromatics we had squirreled in the freezer (lemongrass, galangal, ginger...) and the tin of coconut milk I had left over from my abandoned kefir experiments, and realised it was a brilliant idea!

1 star anise
~2 tbsp chopped lemongrass
2 inch piece galangal, peeled and sliced
2 inch piece ginger, peeled and chopped into matchsticks
2 dried red chillies
1-2 lime leaves (optional)
good handful of fresh coriander, chopped (stalky parts and leafy parts separated)
1 tin coconut milk
~1-2 tbsp light soy sauce
juice of 1 lime
water
hot chilli sauce
2 (single serving) packets of udon
1 small onion, peeled and sliced lengthways into bitesize pieces
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
1/2 a pack of extra firm tofu, drained and chopped into ~2 x 2 x 1 cm chunks
3 large-ish button mushrooms, trimmed and chopped into sixths lengthwise
3 smallish tomatoes, cut into sixths (or use cherry tomatoes)

Put the star anise, lemongrass, galangal, ginger, dried chillies, lime leaves (if using) and the stalky bits of coriander into a saucepan and add the coconut milk, soy sauce, and lime juice. Add ~1-2 cups of water and bring gently to a simmer. Taste for saltiness, acid, thickness/intensity of coconut milk, and add more soy sauce, lime juice or boiling water accordingly. Put in the udon, onion, carrots and tofu and bring back up to a simmer. Turn off and let sit for 10 minutes or so before checking the flavour balance again. Adjust as before, also add a few drops of hot sauce if you think it needs to be spicier. A few minutes before serving, add the mushrooms, tomatoes, and the leafy parts of the coriander. Bring back up to simmering point, check all the vegetables and the udon are cooked, turn off the heat and serve the soup. Avoid eating the star anise, the big pieces of galangal, and the dried chillies.


Really good. Quick (veg preparation the most time consuming step), and super easy / minimal washing up - just one board, one knife and one big pan (besides bowls and spoon+forks). Most of the stuff is either always in the storecupboard or basic veg and herbs. Veg could be varied (brassicas nice); as could noodles / it could be served with rice on the side instead. Lovely, warming, filling, aromatic and comforting for a cold, cold, end-of-year day.

Ginger-sesame-miso soup

We ate at Life Alive after sauna and it hit the spot - I had something ('The Fool') rich with mushrooms, kale, sesame, ginger and sprouted legumes (and udon); S had a similar beast but with miso broth. Yesterday we had planned a big dinner (East by Northeast), so I wanted something light but filling for lunch. As I biked back from aerials it was chilly but brightening, and miso soup shaped into my answer as I rode. I've made miso soup before and it's so simple it hardly warrants a recipe. But anyway, for this one I merged S's miso with my sesame-ginger and it was really fresh and delicious while still warm enough for a chilly Autumn day.

(makes enough for one person, for lunch)

3 small carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
3 inch piece of daikon radish, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cups boiling water
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2-3 savoy cabbage (or other cabbage, or kale) leaves, shredded
2 inch cube of firm tofu, chopped into ~1 cm dice
1/2 tsp sesame oil
2-3 tbsp good-quality white miso
~1 tbsp shredded fresh mint (or coriander)

Put the carrots and daikon in a small pan with the water and the ginger. Bring to the boil. Boil for a few minutes, until the carrots are just starting to get tender. Add the cabbage and tofu and bring back to the boil. Turn off the heat and mix in the sesame oil and miso. Pour or dollop into a bowl, top with the mint, and eat (add more water, more miso or more sesame oil to taste).


This is amazing - a week later it's still all I want to eat. I've got S into it too, and we have made various versions, all successful - one with shredded kale, sliced turnip, sweetcorn, peas and edamame; another with noodles as well to make it even more beefy. Yum. Only thing that didn't really work was eating some cold without broth - thought it'd just be like steamed veg with some miso flavour; it turned out to be a bit peely-wally.

Carrots, red lentils and big couscous

While S is away I've ended up spending a fair bit of time in the kitchen, trying to work my way through a backlog of vegetables. Having got more carrots in the CSA this week, I made an effort to get through all the titchy / odd-shaped ones still hanging around in the fridge from previous weeks - in this and piccalilli.

1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 in piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 green chilli, seeds removed, chilli chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped 
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander seed
2 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp cinnamon
~6 medium carrots, peeled and diced fairly fine (~1cm)
3/4 cup red lentils
1/2 cup big couscous
1 1/2 cups veg stock
2 tsp honey
2 tsp lime juice
1 tsp soy sauce
salt+pepper
2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
2 tbsp parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the garlic, ginger and chilli, cover and cook for a couple of minutes until starting to soften. Add the onion and cook for a few more minutes. Add the ground spices and cook, uncovered, for 30-60 sec, until fragrant. Add the carrots and mix / cook for a minute, then add the lentils and couscous and mix well. Add the stock, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the lentils, carrots and couscous are all cooked. Add the honey, lime juice, soy sauce and taste for seasoning. Mix in the fresh herbs. Eat warm.


I was aiming for something between a soup, a stew and a pilaf, which is what I ended up with: a warming, one-pot, Autumn dinner. Processing all those weirdo carrots took awhile but it was kind of nice to be cosy in the kitchen and feel useful.

White gazpacho

With all the recent hot weather I made some kind of semi-logical jump and got to thinking about the food we'd eaten in Catalonia years ago. I want to try making aioli, the proper way, with just garlic, salt and olive oil. I also thought about gazpacho - we were buying it in tetra paks and drinking it in the car, out of the carton, while driving our rented Smart car around the Pyrenees. Both the red kind and the white kind - it was the first time I'd come across the white kind, and we were wowed: fresh, almondy, vegetal, liquid goodness. I don't think I have had it since: it is not available out of supermarket fridges round here, last time I checked. But what better way to work on our excess of cucumbers?

Note: this is my version of a white gazpacho, adapted to what I remembered / what I had in the fridge. I think it is fairly adaptable, but I also think this is not exactly authentic.

1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup water
2 large cucumbers, peeled and chopped into big chunks
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and chopped into big chunks
1 clove of garlic, peeled
1 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
big pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup of slivered, blanched almonds

Put the breadcrumbs in a cup measure, fill up with the water and let soak while you prep the other ingredients. Put the peeled, chopped cucumbers and apple in a blender. Add the other ingredients to the blender, adding the breadcrumb-water mix last. Blend until smooth. Chill thoroughly before eating - and you can add an ice cube per cup or bowl of soup when serving to make sure it is properly cold.


This turned out waaayyy better than I hoped. It is delicious. Perfect combination of sweet, sharp, salty, savoury, tangy, refreshing... Nice and white as well - minor brown flecks from the breadcrumbs but other than that everything was ~white (peeled cucumber and apple, garlic, almonds etc).

Beetroot soup

We had a lot of beetroot, thanks to A. They were a different variety than the last lot: the shape was longer and the colour lighter. After the watermelon radish I half expected to cut into them to find something surprising (Chioggia?), but they were just plain old beets. Not that I am complaining, I love the good old deep pink ones the best. I have been reminding myself to save some for something Valentines pink, and made some into dip at the weekend, but most of the rest became soup last night, in a flurry of slow-cooked comfort food making that also featured mixed grains and sweet and sour red lentils. It's not incredibly cold any more (back up to -3C), but the constant chilliness is starting to drag a little, despite it no longer being January and it almost being still light at 5pm...

S suggested Borscht at the weekend, so I wanted to do something a bit like a borscht. I knew most were with meat, didn't know that most also contain cabbage, carrots etc. Fancied something a little simpler and totally beetroot-focused, and came across this recipe - based it on that.

2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp caraway seeds
3/4 tsp brown mustard seeds
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
2 small onions, peeled and chopped
1 lb fresh beetroot, peeled and grated
1-2 bay leaves
4 cups veg stock
1 1/2 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp dark soy sauce
salt+pepper

horseradish to serve - or horseradish yoghurt (recommended! 4 tsp grated fresh horseradish mixed with 1/2 cup plain yoghurt)

Heat oil in a large saucepan with a lid. Add seeds and fry until fragrant and starting to pop (about a minute). Add onion, cover and cook til softened. Add beetroot, bay leaves and stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Add vinegar, soy sauce and salt and pepper, taste and add a little more if needed. Serve hot, with a tsp or so of prepared horseradish from a jar swirled into the middle.


Something simple and earthy becomes something vibrant and wonderful with the addition of vinegar, caraway and horseradish - I can see why borscht is so popular and so divisive. Now I am daydreaming about more of this for dinner, this time with gnocchi cooked in it and chopped fresh coriander on top... And I did that, and it felt like the best idea for a quick, warming, light Winter supper. I should really make soup more often.

Celeriac and porcini soup

We have lots of celeriac right now. I love the stuff: it's one of the most wonderful and versatile vegetables, in my opinion (despite being ugly as hell): great taste and texture, lovely raw in salads, souped / pureed, roasted, boiled with lentils, I could go on...  Grandma and I bought one recently and made a soup, mixed it with potatoes for mash on a shepherd's pie, blanched and pan-fried some with parsnips, made a salad with apple...

I wanted to try something new, and came across this recipe (slightly adapted here) in my trusty New Covent Garden Soup Company cookbook.

2 oz margarine
1 medium onion, finely chopped
110g / 4 oz celeriac, peeled and roughly chopped
15g (1/2 oz) dried porcini mushrooms, soaked for 20 minutes with 150 ml (1/4 pint) boiling water
290 ml (1/2 pint) water
200 ml fake milk (subbing this and vinegar for creme fraiche)
1 tsp cider vinegar
2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper

'prepared fresh ground' horseradish (the stuff you buy in a jar in the fridge section) to serve

Melt the marg in a large saucepan and add the onion and celeriac. Cook, covered, for about 20 min without colouring. Add the porcini soaking liquor, chop the porcini and add, along with the water and thyme. Cover, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15-20 minutes or until the veg are all tender. Cool slightly, then liquidise.

Add the soy milk and vinegar and taste for seasoning.  Reheat gently and serve swirled with horseradish.


This is interesting. Rich, earthy flavours. S thought I was cooking meat!?! Can't decide whether the porcini or the celeriac dominates, perhaps that means it's perfectly balanced? I felt like the horseradish really brought it to life - strongly suggest adding it (full disclosure: I'm loving horseradish in everything right now).

If making this again in future, I might just use some of the dried mushroom powder I have - would save the whole soaking / chopping mushrooms bit and be a great use for them. I doubled the recipe and used a 25g packet of porcini from TJ's, and one small celeriac (still got 2 large ones left to use!).

Buttercup squash soup

We stopped at a few farmstands when we were out in the country with Karin - we bought loads of onions and potatoes, and also three different kinds of squash: butternut, buttercup and acorn. Butternut are always fine: soft, sweet and nutty. Acorn are perhaps my favourite so far: very smooth and sweet. Buttercup I've used less often: it is also sweet, perhaps a little drier than the other two.

1 medium buttercup squash
1 tbsp olive oil (plus more for oiling the roasting tray)
1 onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1/2 jalapeno chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cups vegetable stock
1-2 tbsp thyme leaves
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp soy sauce
salt+pepper

First prepare the squash: cut it in half through the stem, deseed and place cut side down on a lightly oiled baking tray and roast at 400F for ~45 min or until it gives when poked. Allow to cool then scrape the insides from the skin and discard the skin.

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, then add the onion. Cover the pan and fry the onion over a medium heat until softened and starting to brown, adding the garlic and chilli along the way. Add the cumin seeds and fry for a few minutes while stirring. Add the squash and stir / fry for a minute or two, then add the thyme leaves and the stock and bring to the boil. Boil for 10 minutes or so, until everything is well combined.

Next, add the red wine vinegar, soy sauce and salt+pepper to taste. Allow to cool for a few minutes then liquidise.


This makes a rather thick (++incredibly silky) soup but that's what I felt like eating today - add more liquid (water or stock) to make a thinner texture. The squash is really quite sweet, so I think the vinegar and soy are really important for counteracting that. The cumin and thyme are both assertive tastes, but seem to play together well. All in all pretty good - very warm and earthy and moreish.

Potato, leek and lavender soup

Another New Covent Garden Soup Company old favourite.  I hadn't had any cookable lavender for a while, so hadn't made it for a while, but now I have lavender and now I have made the soup again.

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
2 large leeks, washed and finely chopped
1 1/2 lb potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1.5 l / 2.5 pints veg stock
425 ml / 3/4 pint fake milk
flowers of 3 lavender heads
salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, cover and cook gently for ~5 min til softened.  Add the potatoes, stock, milk and lavender.  Cover, bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 20-25 min until the potatoes are tender.  Cool a bit, then puree in a blender til smooth.  Season to taste and thin with water if necessary.


It's subtle but tasty.  Blended potato does make for a really nice smooth consistency (good for ill 'uns, like S this weekend).  I made the mistake of chucking some beetroot in my last batch of stock, so the colour of this was a little odd, just a little - browner than one might expect...