Carrot and Garlic Soup

After our long weekend of cooked breakfasts, filling, tasty evening meals and a lot of chocolate cake we both fancied something simple when we got home on Tuesday evening. 

I had a few carrots in the fridge and we stopped and picked up some more and some butter. I already had a mountain of garlic at home.

I love this recipe, it's so simple and very flavoursome and creamy despite the lack of cream (OK there is quite a lot of butter instead).

So to make this soup you need:
1kg of carrots, chopped into thick chunks
120g butter
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp dried oregano
1litre of stock

1. Boil or steam the carrots until just tender.
2. Melt butter in a saucepan and cook for one minute with the minced garlic and oregano
3. Add the carrots to the melted butter mix and cook over a medium heat for five minutes
4. Add the stock and simmer for 10-15 minutes
5. Blend and serve

Vine Ripened Tomato Soup with Puy Lentils

On Saturday I was still feeling full from the lovely meal at Spinacio's the night before but was also very excited to finally be meeting a new addition to our friend group who was born on 7th June. We took some lunch round to his parents and ate with them some soups (not home made I'm afraid), bread, cheese and crackers. I ate mine while cuddling the tiny new addition in one arm - a lovely way to eat a meal (although I am sure the novelty wears off for parents!). It was a special day. Mr VST and I weren't very hungry that evening when we got back. He had some veggie burgers and I had a couple of slices of soda bread toast.

Celery, Tomato and Apple Soup

I posted that last weekend when we went to my Mum's we had fennel, tomato apple soup. It was delicious but I was wrong about the main ingredient, it was celery not fennel (same family I think?!). I got the recipe from my Mum and decided to make it this weekend.

Ingredients:
60g butter
1 onion
170g/ 3 medium sized tomatoes, quartered
170g celery
2 apples, quartered, cored
600ml swiss bouillon vegetable stock
Pinch ginger
Pinch nutmeg
splosh of sherry/brandy


1. Melt the butter in a pan, cook off the onions
2. Add the tomatoes, celery, apples, spices and sherry

3. Wet a piece of greaseproof paper, fold it over and cover the vegetables with it. Leave on a low heat for 30  minutes until the fruit/veg are soft

4. Add vegetable stock and bring to the boil.
5. Blend together.

 The result is a lovely tangy, creamy, tomatoey soup. I can't quite describe it well enough to do it justice. It is very flavoursome in a subtle way.

Fennel, Tomato and Apple Soup

Friday night we travelled to my Mum's in Nottingham after work. She had prepared us a delicious soup that she said was really easy to make. It was very flavoursome and healthy feeling although I haven't got the recipe yet so I may be wrong on that front.

Parsnip and Carrot Soup with Cheese and Crackers

A lovely smooth creamy soup with crackers and cheese for dinner this evening. The recipe is here.

Carrot, parsnip and cumin soup

My first semi-original recipe! This is a variation on my friend's Carrot and Garlic Soup recipe. It's soooooo creamy and smooth, a perfect Winter warmer.

500g carrots
500g parsnips
4 large cloves garlic, crushed
120g butter
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 litre swiss bouillon vegetable stock

1. Boil or steam the carrots and parsnips until just tender and drain well (remembering that the parsnips only need about half the boiling/steaming time of the carrots).

2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and cook for one minute with the garlic and cumin.

3. Add the carrots and parsnips and cook over a medium heat for five minutes.

4. Add stock and simmer for 10-15 minutes

5. Blend together and serve.

Red lentil, chick pea and chilli soup

I made this for lunch today and am still full up so won't be cooking supper tonight. It was a nice soup. I'm never sure about blending lentils, they always seem to go bitty to me. Might not blend it up next time. Second time of making the spelt bread was more successful though. The tin was well greased and the bread came out easily!

Sweet potato and chilli soup with home made spelt bread

Two new recipes tonight. The one for spelt bread was printed off ages ago and never got around to making.

I also got a bit over-enthusiastic on the sweet potato buying last week as they were on special offer at my local market stall. I found this recipe for sweet potato and chilli soup on the BBC Good Food site to go with my bread.

I made a schoolgirl error with the bread in that I didn't grease the loaf tin well enough. The three minute preparation was very easy. I didn't have all the seeds but made a plain loaf instead. The problems came when I tried to turn the loaf out before putting it back into the oven for the last 5-10 minutes. I destroyed it getting it out of the tin and patched it together before putting it back into the oven. It came out a bit hard on the outside and doughy on the inside but that might be because I didn't make adjustments for my fan assisted oven. It was still tasty though and went well with the soup and mature cheddar.

The soup was really more like a sweet potato purée. Mr VST likes it this way but I think I would add more stock if I made it again to make it a bit thinner. I made it with chilli flakes and it had a nice kick. Good for a chilli Autumn evening.