Still we get the same old gruel

[venta]

Another recipe request: anyone got any good ideas for interesting vegetarian soup which will also appeal to committed carnivores? Must be something which can be easily prepared in advance and reheated with minimum fuss, possibly more than once.

Your answer must not include lentils :) (I don't have anything against lentils, just two of us are supposed to be making soup so there is a choice, and the other soup-maker is planning lentil and vegetable).

For bonus points, any tips on making good vegetable stock appreciated. I usually make vegetable soup with meat stock of some kind, and when cooking soup for vegetarians I always find the results are just less tasty than I'd hope. Last time I made leek and potato soup it was really quite woefully bland with vegetable stock. I assume this is a resolvable problem which is just me doing it wrong.

Some of the committed carnivores are also the sort of people who are liable to look askance at anything which might be regarded as "a bit funny". So the ideal recipe will avoid outré ingredients like, say, anything which has not been commonly used in Britain since the 1950s. Identifiable ingredients, that is :) What they don't know won't hurt'em.

Comments

[ladylizbet.livejournal.com]

OK, my recipie is pretty simple. Feel free to substitute pretty much any veggies on this list for others, it all works.

2 onions
2 carrots
1 bell pepper
1 parsnip
1/4 cabbage
1 leek
1/4 turnip
2 small potatoes
1 can chopped tomatoes
2 veggie bullion cubes
1 can mixed bean salad

Peel and chop veggies. brown them off in the bottom of a deep sauce pan. Add stock made from bullion cubes, and can of tomatoes. (I like to add a glass of wine at this point too)
Allow this to simmer for a while until all the veggies are properly cooked. Drain and add the mixed bean salad. Simmer a while.
Scoop out a cup of soup and keep to one side. Blitz the rest to a liquid, season if req, and pour the cupful back in for texture.

For more texture, you can add some teeny weeny pasta, or broken spaghetti.

Reheats well. keeps for about 5 days. Freezes well. If you add red pesto it works as a pasta sauce.

Feeds about 6 or 8. We make a pot and just keep it on the stove.

Enjoy!

xx

[venta.livejournal.com]

Do I need to worry about there being dressing on the bean salad ? Or is that part of the fun ?

It sounds a bit like my default tomato-and-bean soup plan, only with more vegetables and more blending. Might have to give it a try :)

[ladylizbet.livejournal.com]

It tends to be a variation of the default veggie soup, but it never fails.

The mixed bean salad I buy doesn't have a dressing. It's just a fancy way of saying 'beans in a can' I think. According the the can, it's 'mixed beans, sweetcorn, red pepper & chickpeas in water. Sugar, vinegar & salt added.'
Tesco's own. Really good to bulk it all out and get veggies into unsuspecting males. Will happily live in the cupboard until Armageddon

xx

[ladylizbet.livejournal.com]

I found the recipie for the best tomato soup. I made this a few times last year. It takes ages to prepare but it's SO worth it.

2.3kg fresh tomatoes
24 large basil leaves
170g salted butter
Salt & pepper to taste
85g fromage blanc.

Blanch the tomatoes, skin them and throw away the skin. the flesh goes in one bowl, the seeds in a sieve. Chop the flesh, and add the juice from the sieved/squished seeds.
That's the hard bit over.

Chop most of the basil leaves, chuck into a pan with the tomatoes & the juice. add half of the butter. When the tomatoes breaks up more, add the rest of the butter and continue to cook gently. Season.

Use the fromage blanc & remaining basil leaves to serve.

So yummy. Takes forever to do the tomatoes, but do them the day before and they'll be fine.

xx