Category Archives: Soup

Sissy’s Soup

2014-03-25 12.31.12

To call this soup thick is a slight understatement.  You could literally stand your spoon up in it, if your bowl or mug is deep enough.  But we like it that way.  It really is a meal in a bowl, all you need is some good bread and maybe a salad.  My daughter gave her name to this soup when we made it together several years ago when she was around 10.  It’s a beautiful way to get plenty of vegetables into small children and the addition of the tomato ketchup is a clever trick to get fussy kids to try it – they love squeezing that in if they’re your kitchen “helpers” when you make this.

Sissy's Soup
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Soup
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • Quick spray oil / water / stock
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 large stick celery, chopped
  • 1 large carrot, diced
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes, diced,
  • 2 large broccoli florets, chopped
  • 1 can peeled tomatoes, put through the blender
  • 1 cup red split lentils
  • 2 large bay leaves
  • 1 tsp mixed herbs
  • 1 heaped tsp vegetable stock powder
  • ½ cup apple juice
  • 2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
Instructions
  1. Sauté the onion, celery and carrot in a large heavy based pan, cover and sweat for 5 minutes
  2. Add the sweet potato, broccoli, cover and cook again for a further 5 minutes
  3. Add tomatoes, lentils, herbs, stock powder and a litre of water, apple juice and tomato ketchup
  4. Stir well and bring to boil. Replace lid, and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and burning on the bottom
  5. Check vegetables are very tender, blend with stick blender.
  6. Nice garnished with fresh coriander or parsley if liked, and hot toast fingers.

 

Minestrone

This is traditionally a hearty ‘tomato-ey’ Italian soup which generally contains pasta, beans, potato and pesto plus whatever other left over veggies are to hand.  “Peasant food” at its best!  This is a great way to use up odds and ends in the fridge, kids generally love it as it’s got pasta in it and it’s good and filling.  Served with some good wholemeal bread this is a wonderfully substantial meal that requires little preparation and not much involvement once it’s on the hob.

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Minestrone
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Soup
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 6+
Ingredients
  • 2 medium onions, diced
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 medium carrots, diced
  • 2 celery sticks, diced
  • 1 T tomato paste
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes
  • 1 can cannellini beans / similar
  • 1.5 L vegetable stock
  • 375 g potatoes, diced
  • 140 g small pasta shapes, preferably wholegrain
  • 150g frozen peas
  • 180 g French beans, cut into small lengths (or other veg)
  • 1 small red capsicum (or other veg)
  • 150g broccoli florets (or other veg)
  • Handful baby spinach.
  • 2-3 tablespoons homemade basil pesto * (see other recipes)
  • Fresh parsley
Instructions
  1. Heat a large saucepan or stovetop casserole with a tight fitting lid and sauté the onions and garlic until softened.
  2. Add carrots, celery, tomato paste, tomatoes, cannellini beans, vegetable stock, potatoes, and pasta, bring to boil, place on the lid and simmer for 10 minutes.
  3. Add peas, green beans, broccoli, capsicum or other chosen veg and simmer, covered for a further 10 minutes or until they are cooked to your liking.
  4. Adjust liquid if necessary, add more water if necessary. Stir in the baby spinach, pesto, and serve sprinkled with the freshly chopped parsley.
  5. Like most soups / stews, this is even nicer the next day, or prepared early in the day.

Tomato Soup and Kale Stuffed Potatoes

I’ve decided to post most days now and share not just my own recipes but things I find online, from books etc and musings on our food in general.  🙂

I’m making a concerted effort now to simplify weeknight meals.  I have a tendency to get all excited when I’m making my weekly meal plan and then after a day at my desk stumble into the kitchen, when at 6:30 pm that list of delicious dishes is looking rather overwhelming.  SO, I have decided to keep anything very unfamiliar or challenging to the weekend (well, Fri, Sat and Sun) and keep Mon-Thurs of the easy or “done it a million times” variety.

My kids love Heinz tomato soup so I’ve been trying to find a substitute that doesn’t send you into a diabetic coma or sculling a litre of water along with it due to all that sugar and salt.  I found this one online but can I find it now?  Typing in the exact title only takes me to MyFitnessPal where it’s listed as a caloric total someone once added, but no recipe.   Anyway it was called Not Your Campbell’s Cream of Tomato Soup.  I amended it a fair bit anyway, but if you find it, that’s the original source. And thank you whoever you are, it was delicious.
Rather than just having it with bread, I decided to serve it with baked potatoes, this time stuffed with steamed kale.  We love something we call “Stuffily Brocked Potatoes” (due to saying it wrong one day – should have been “Broccoli Stuffed Potatoes”!) so thought I’d ring the changes, and find another way to get the awesome kale into the offspring and the result was perhaps even better.  We also had some good wholemeal sourdough (this is our favourite) and a simple cos lettuce salad on the side.

Potato recipe to follow in next post… 🙂

Tomato Soup
 
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A knock off of that tinned soup, but so much better for you .
Author:
Recipe type: Soup
Cuisine: British
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 5 cups water
  • 2 cups diced sweet potato
  • 2 cups diced tomatoes (no need to peel)
  • 1 very small onion (e.g. golf ball), diced
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • ½ tsp ground coriander
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ cup raw cashews
  • 150g tomato paste
  • 1 tblspn nutritional yeas
  • 1 tblspn agave syrup
  • 1 tsp salt - or to taste
  • black pepper, to taste
Instructions
  1. Put water, sweet potato, tomatoes, onion, thyme, coriander, garlic powder, salt and cashew nuts into a large saucepan and bring to the boil.
  2. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender - about 15 minutes.
  3. Add tomato paste, yeast, and syrup and blend with immersion blender until smooth and creamy. Leave to simmer for longer if nuts need a little more time to soften completely and then blend again.

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