Saturday 22 March 2014

Fridge Raider Veggie Soup

This is more of a "theory of soup" post than a recipe, but it's one of my favourite methods and seeing as it's grocery day tomorrow and I wanted to clear out the fridge, I thought I'd share some veggie soup with you.  This is what I had in the fridge:






A couple of carrots, a couple of parsnips, an improbably long leek (seriously, that bad boy was wider than the veggie drawer, had to bend it to get the fridge closed), half a swede (turnip, rutabaga, y'know the fat purpley-yellow one), and half a celeriac.  There was also half a red onion which I forgot to photograph, some Marigold Vegetable Stock, a splash of oil and some recently boiled water.  The oven was turned on to about 130C.

I used my big old Le Cruset casserole because it can go from the hob to the oven, and my stick blender won't scratch it.  So I heated up a little oil in there, roughly chopped the onion and chucked that in first.  Whilst that had a little sizzle, I peeled the rest of the veg and cut it into biggish chunks, chucking it into the pot as I went.  I totally remembered to turn the heat down a little after a while so the onion wouldn't get burnt (nods).

After the onion didn't burn, I poured in maybe half a kettle of water, finished off the veg, and added a couple of teaspoons of the stock powder and some salt & pepper.  The pot had come to the boil:


so I put the lid on and bunged it in the oven.

Now, this is the variable bit - you can cook it for as long as you like (the longer the better, I've found).  I've put this in at about 4pm, planning to eat it at 6ish, but if I needed it earlier I'd put the oven temp up a bit, if I had longer I'd just leave it in there (checking, and adding a little water or stock if it was drying out).  I usually turn the oven off about half an hour before I want to eat because the residual heat will keep it cooking for at least that long.

I'm a lazy sod, so I love my stick blender.  I took my casserole out and set it on a tea towel on the work surface over by the free plug so I could just blend away until I was happy with the consistency:


If you don't have one of these handy wee doofers, you really ought to let the soup cool a little and blend it in batches in a goblet blender.  I'd advise against a food processor - I've had soup go up inside the blade, down the spindle, and out through the bottom of the motor housing, which is not healthy for you or the machine in question!

So here it is - Fridge Raider Veggie Soup:


If you have some nice crusty bread, dunk it in!  I also like to dunk plain white sliced bread made into a sandwich with a thin slice of cheese.   Mmmmmm!

Other veg I'd chuck in would be celery (the leftover leafy bits are the best for soup) potatoes or swedes, and I have no worries about altering the ratio of the veg I use depending on what I've got left in the fridge.  It's also really good with cheese grated over the top, or crumbled in if it's my favourite Lancashire.

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