Vaguely Iranian chicken, lime and rice soup

My first frugal recipe of 2014 is not an unfamiliar one. Chicken soup made with the carcass of last night’s roast chicken. You might think there wasn’t much new to say about that but a couple of twists transformed it from the commonplace into something quite satisfyingly exotic.

First the stock - made the usual way (carcass in a saucepan, half an onion, a bayleaf, a few peppercorns, cold water to cover, brought to the boil and simmered very slowly for a couple of hours).

I then drained and skimmed the stock which tasted so good it seemed a shame to use it as the base for something rather than a soup in its own right.

I had some leftover carrots and about 100g of brown chicken meat. I added a handful of rice and two dried limes which I pierced with a sharp knife. A handful of chopped dill (also in the fridge), a squeeze of lemon and that was that. A fragrant, nourishing Sunday night supper for next to nothing*.

The point is you could take this anyway you choose - you just have to work with what you’ve got. Which is why it’s useful accumulating a good collection of spices and seasonings.

Makes 4 bowls though we managed to demolish it between the 2 of us

1 chicken carcass
1 small or half a medium onion, peeled
6-8 peppercorns
1 bayleaf
Leftover cooked carrots or one carrot, peeled and finely sliced
About 100g of leftover chicken meat, preferably brown meat
a handful of basmatti or other long grain rice
2 dried limes (available from Asian and middle eastern shops)
A handful of fresh herbs. I used dill because that’s what I had in the fridge but you could use parsley, coriander, mint or tarragon or a combination of two or three of those (not mint on its own. Too strong). At a pinch you could use dried tarragon.
Salt and a squeeze or squirt of lemon

Put the chicken in a large saucepan with the onion, peppercorns and bayleaf. Cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat right down and simmer for at least an hour and a half, maybe two. Strain and skim the stock.

Return the stock to the pan with the carrots and chicken, season with a little salt and bring back up to simmering point. Pierce the dried limes in two or three places with a sharp knife or skewer and add to the pan along with the rice and simmer for about 20 minutes until the rice is cooked. Remove the limes and add the chopped dill or other herbs, Add more salt and a squeeze of lemon if needed. Serve with flatbread or pitta bread.

* and a real flu-beater, I reckon.

3 meals for two from a £1 bag of veg

Having bought a £1 bag of veg at the Feeding the 5000 event last Saturday I decided to make it the basis for the next day's meals - fortunately a quiet Sunday at home with just me and my husband to cook for. I decided I wouldn’t buy anything extra and make do with what we had in the house.

The tomatoes went into a tomato bruschetta - simply quartered, seasoned, anointed with olive oil and, at the last minute, a drizzle of balsamic (you could use a few drops of wine vinegar instead). Oh, and a sprinkling of fresh thyme - I didn’t have any parsley, basil or chives.  I split two of the rolls I'd also picked up, toasted them and rubbed a clove of garlic on the cut sides as the base. If I’d had some feta or goats cheese I’d have crumbled a bit on top.

I could alternatively have fried the tomatoes, added a dash of chilli sauce and served them with eggs for breakfast. Or turned them into a fresh pasta sauce or a tomato and rice salad like this one on the blog.

Next, what to do with the lettuce and leeks? I washed the lettuce and decided to make a soup with the outer leaves and two of the leeks along with a handful of frozen peas from the freezer to give it a bit more colour and texture. This is roughly the recipe I used though you could easily vary it. It was so delicious I'll make it another time.

Leek and lettuce soup

(enough for 3-4)

1 tbsp olive oil or other cooking oil
A slice of butter (20g or thereabouts)
2 leeks, trimmed and sliced or a large sweet onion
A handful of frozen peas (about 50g)
Outer leaves from a round lettuce, washed and roughly sliced
700ml vegetable or light chicken stock
sprig of fresh mint (optional but unnecessary if your peas are minted)
Salt and pepper, preferably white

Heat a saucepan over a moderate heat, add the oil and then the butter. Once the butter has melted, stir in the sliced leeks, put on a lid and cook over a low heat until the leeks begin to soften. Add the peas, cook for another couple of minutes then tip in the lettuce and the mint, if using and stir. Pour over the hot stock bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until the leeks and peas are cooked.

Take the pan off the heat and cool slightly then ladle the lettuce and a few other chunky bits into a blender or food processor. (Leave some behind for texture*). Whizz then return to the pan. Adjust the seasoning and reheat gently but don't cook it too long or you’ll lose the colour. If you had a little leftover cream to stir in at the end or some extra herbs to scatter that would be extra good.

You could also add some fried bacon or ham if you had some for the final heat-through which would make it more substantial. Even then we had enough for 4 bowls.

The remaining leek went into a favourite pilaf along with the mushrooms (could have sworn the recipe was on the blog but I can’t find it. It’s in the book though). It wasn’t as good as usual as I didn’t have any cashew nuts (I used walnuts instead which were a touch too bitter), had to use tomato paste instead of fresh tomatoes and had no fresh coriander.

As you can see it was all a bit brown, relieved only by the remains of the lettuce which I served as a salad with a yoghurt dressing (see below) and a slosh of hot pepper sauce which I acquired from a guy in a pub. As you do . . . Easily enough for 3 though, especially given the soup we had first.

What else could I have made with the mushrooms? A pasta sauce. Garlic mushrooms on toast. A sort of stroganoff if I’d had a dash of cream. Mushrooms à la grecque. And with the leeks? A frittata. Leeks vinaigrette, This smoked cod and leek chowder. Leek bhajis, maybe (I did think of that but didn’t have any gram flour).

The main thing, as I said at the beginning, was I didn’t buy anything I didn’t already have in the fridge or the storecupboard even if it meant altering an idea or a recipe. And that’s the whole point - to adapt what you cook to what you have available, which is easy enough to do assuming a basic set of spices and seasonings (though I accept this is tough on a really tight budget). For most of us though it’s primarily a question of not wasting what we have. And that’s what this event was all about.

What would you make from these ingredients?

For more information about Feeding the 5000 and Fare Share UK visit their websites. 

* Or, if you prefer or don't have a blender, just serve the veg un-whizzed which also preserves the colour better. (Note how the arty photography app Oggl I was playing about with also improves the look of the dish ;-)

** (1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 tbsp cider or wine vinegar, 3 tbsp olive or other oil and 2 tbsp plain yoghurt - and a splash of water to thin it)

Spiced root vegetable soup

I know I've been banging on a lot about 5:2 lately so here's a recipe which isn't part of the diet or that you could run up after a fast day on which you've made yesterday's dal.

The only ingredient you need if you've already bought a bag of mixed carrot and swede and have the spices in your store-cupboard is an onion. Which makes it super-cheap.

Serves 4

3 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and roughly chopped
400g mixed carrot and swede, cubed (see previous post)
1 tsp cumin seeds or ground cumin
1 tsp coriander seeds or ground coriander
1/4 tsp chilli flakes or a pinch of chilli powder
1/2 tsp salt if using whole spices
1/2 level tsp ground turmeric
750ml light vegetable stock made with 1 tbsp Marigold vegetable bouillon powder
chopped fresh coriander or parsley
salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok and stir in the onion and diced carrot and swede. Cook over a low heat until the vegetables start to soften*.

If you're using whole spices grind the cumin, coriander seeds and chilli flakes together with a pestle and mortar with 1/2 a teaspoon of salt then mix with the turmeric. Otherwise simply mix the ground spices then add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the spices to the vegetables, stir and continue to cook until they begin to colour. Stir in the stock and cook until the veg are completely soft.

Strain the vegetables over a bowl then place the cooked veg in a food processor or blender and whizz until smooth, adding as much of the reserved cooking liquid as you need to get a smooth purée. (You may need to do this in two batches.)

Tip the puréed vegetables back into the frying pan - or a clean saucepan if you don't mind the extra washing-up - and add back the remaining stock plus as much liquid as you need to make a smooth soup (I added another 150ml).  Reheat and adjust the seasoning.

Serve with a few chopped coriander or parsley leaves if you have some and a dash of hot sauce if you fancy it.

* You could also roast the veg if you wanted to. I did as the Aga is on all the time and it gives the soup a nice roasted flavour but it's not necessary.

5:2 diet: Cutting down portion sizes

It is, of course, not just what you eat on a fast day but how much you eat of it. 500 calories a day (or 600 if you’re a lucky male) is not a lot so every calorie counts.

Surprisingly one of the easiest ways to do that is to cut down on the recommended portion size on ready-made products. The manufacturers of big 600ml tubs of soup, for example, assume you’re going to divide the pot between you. In fact you can divide it into three - 200ml is quite enough for a bowlful, especially if you add a splash of water to thin it out. (Most ready-made soups, I find, are too thick and gloopy*)

40g of porridge oats clocks up 138 calories. Reduce that to 30g - and allow yourself a teaspoon of cinnamon sugar which at least makes it palatable - and you’ve only used up 123.

The recommended 75g helping of rice (190g cooked weight) amounts to a scary 260 calories. Weigh out 50g of cooked rice - enough to bulk out a meal - and it’s an affordable 56.

Of course it doesn’t work with everything. 20g of cheese - hardly worth having which is why I rarely bother with it on fast days - is still ridiculously calorific but you get the point . . .

*While on the subject of soup - watch out for the sugar content. Sugar in soup? Absolutely. I was perplexed as to why Waitrose own brand soups were so much more calorific than the Tideford soups that my local health food shop stocks. (Their tomato, red pepper and lentil soup, for example, is only 52 calories for 200g.) The answer seems to be that most contain sugar.

Chestnut, chorizo and lentil soup

I meant to post this just after Christmas to suggest what you might do with your turkey stock and other leftovers but events overtook me (including rather disastrously spilling a glass of wine on my computer) and here we are on New Year's Eve. Still, this is a great soup, whether you have turkey stock or not, which I've adapted from Sam and Sam Clark's excellent Moro cookbook.

The point I was going to make about turkey stock - and which you might like to bear in mind for next year if you haven't thought about it already - is that it's really rich and strong and therefore doesn't lend itself well to delicate soups or sauces. This one includes chestnuts, though in lesser quantities than the Sams use, chorizo and saffron and I also added some outer Savoy cabbage leaves I'd saved after making a slaw to go with the ham on Christmas Eve which adds a bit of colour as well. When I heated up the leftovers of the soup I dropped some torn pieces of sourdough toast which were also a good addition. (Note: this is less of a soup than a stew. You won't need much else, if anything, to eat!)

Serves 4-6
3-4 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions or one large one, roughly chopped
1 carrot, chopped into small pieces, roughly the same size as the onion
125g semi-soft chorizo, chopped (Tesco has a good one in its 'Finest' range)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chilli flakes or a crushed whole red chilli
1 tsp finely chopped thyme leaves or 1/2 tsp dried thyme or oregano
1/2 a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes or a couple of whole tinned tomatoes, chopped
200g vac packed or roasted or boiled chestnuts, roughly chopped
75g green or brown lentils
a pinch of saffron threads infused for 10 minutes in 3-4 tbsp hot water (optional*)
about 1 litre turkey stock or water
4-5 outer cabbage leaves or cavolo nero leaves
salt and black pepper

Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion, carrot and chorizo, season lightly with salt and cook for about 10 minutes over a low to moderate heat until beginning to brown. Add the garlic, cumin and chilli flakes or crushed chilli and thyme and cook for a minute, then add the chopped tomatoes, chestnuts, lentils and saffron, if using. Add the stock or water, bring to the boil then turn the heat down and simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the lentils are cooked. Remove the central rib from the cabbage or cavolo nero leaves, shred finely and drop into the soup about 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

* If you haven't got any saffron you could use half a teaspoon of turmeric which I'd add at the same time as the cumin. If you want to keep the soup veggie use 1-2 tsp sweet pimenton or paprika instead of the chorizo and maybe a touch of hot if you've got it.

Why isn't soup sexy?

This week I ordered a chilled watercress soup (not the one above) in a smart London restaurant. Nothing remarkable about that you might think but in fact it's an all-too-rare occurrence. So rare in fact that they clearly didn't know how to make it. Blending it with cucumber rather than with some sweated off onion and potato, chicken or vegetable stock and a dash of milk or cream, resulted in a dark green pool of what looked - and I suspect tasted like - pondweed.

So why don't we see soup more often? It's great for restaurants - a cheap and easy dish to make and good for lunchtime customers who want something light to eat too.

The French have always appreciated soup more, as a way of keeping down the cost of a fixed price menu - this picture was taken a couple of years ago at a Parisian bistro called Les Papilles. But now restaurants seem to want us to go for starters for which they can charge almost the same price as a main course.

I suspect many of us take the same attitude at home, preferring fancier, flashier starters instead of one that could really keep down the cost of a meal - and be made ahead rather than at the last minute. When was the last time you had soup at a friend's house - or served it at your own?

Anyway here's my watercress soup recipe, first published in the Daily Mail back in the early '90's which I remember feeling very proud that my local watercress grower stuck up on his wall. (It is of course much better to buy watercress by the bunch rather than pre-washed in a packet.)

Easy watercress soup
Serves 4
1 large or two smaller bunches of watercress
2 tbsp olive oil
15g butter
1 medium to large mild onion peeled and chopped or a large leek, trimmed, washed and sliced or half a bunch of spring onions, trimmed and sliced
1 medium floury potato, peeled and finely sliced
About 600ml chicken or vegetable stock
A little creamy milk or double cream (optional, but nice)
Salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon

Wash the watercress thoroughly, chop off the stalks and roughly chop the leaves. Heat a saucepan or casserole and add 2 tbsp olive oil and a small slice of butter. Add a chopped onion and cook for 3-4 minutes then add a finely sliced medium sized potato, stir, cover the pan and cook on a low heat for another five minutes or so. Add the watercress stalks and 600ml chicken or vegetable stock, bring to the boil and cook until the potatoes are almost cooked (about 10 minutes) Add the chopped watercress leaves bring back to the boil, cook for a couple of minutes then take off the heat and cool slightly. Pass the soup in batches through a liquidiser until smooth then return to the pan and reheat gently without boiling. Add milk or cream if you want to thin the soup or give it a creamier texture. Season to taste with salt, pepper and a small squeeze of lemon juice. You can serve it hot, warm or cold. I prefer the former.

How to make 2 meals out of a 15p bag of carrots

One of the problems of buying cheap veg, particularly ones that have neared their sell-by date is that they don’t taste of much. Which means they’re not going to taste that exciting raw or steamed. There’s also the challenge of ringing the changes enough not to tire of them, particularly if you’re catering for one.

The best way to overcome that, I reckon, is to apply fierce heat to them - i.e. roast, grill or fry them over a high heat - and/or spice them up. That’s exactly what I did with a bag of carrots I picked up in the Co-op for 15p.

I roasted enough to make two recipes - a roast carrot and chickpea soup and and a roast carrot houmus recipe I’d been eyeing for a while in Alice Hart’s Alice’s Cook Book.

I don’t think the carrots had quite enough flavour for the houmus - or else the tahini I was using was too strong but the soup was great. Here’s how I’d go about the two recipes another time:


To prepare the carrots you need
450-500g carrots, peeled and sliced thickly on the slant
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into eighths
1 rounded tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp sunflower oil
Pre-heat the oven to 400°C/Gas 6 (or better still use it when it’s on for something else). Put the carrots and onion in a small roasting tin with the oil and cumin seeds, mix well and roast for about 25 minutes until the carrots are tender and beginning to colour. Set aside and cool for 5 minutes.

For the roast carrot and chickpea soup (enough for 2 bowls)
a quarter of a 400g can chickpeas
half the roast carrots and onion
375ml vegetable or chicken stock
a pinch of turmeric
salt and pepper
Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Put the roasted carrots, onion and chickpeas in a blender with just enough stock to blitz to a smooth paste. Gradually add the rest of the stock and whizz until smooth. Tip into a pan, season with salt, pepper and a pinch of ground turmeric and bring to simmering point. Leave over a low heat for 5 minutes, season and serve.

For the roast carrot houmus you need (enough for 4)
the other half of the roasted carrots
the rest of the chickpeas
about 2 tsp tahini paste
1 tbsp plain yoghurt
a clove of garlic, crushed
Salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste
Whizz all the ingredients in a food processor or blender. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste adding a little more tahini or yoghurt if you think it needs it. I'd serve this with wholemeal pitta bread.

For more ideas about what to do with carrots check out this post

Do you have any favourite ways of using up carrots or other cheap veg?

Anti-flu soup

Having sailed through the winter so far without a cold I've fallen victim to one just before Christmas. Isn't that always the way? The only consolation is I'm not alone. Practically everyone I know is coughing and spluttering including most of my family.

In a vain attempt to ward it off I made what I hoped would be a healthgiving onion soup. It didn't work in the end but it made me feel a lot better at the time and - who knows - I might have been more lurgified still without it.

It's basically a French onion soup with extra garlic and without the croutons and cheese which makes it lighter though you can obviously add those at the end if you have time and/or are feeling more robust. I also used French onions - one of those strings of Brittany ones - which I think improved the taste and texture as they're not as wet as English ones though obviously you're not going to set out on the ice looking for an onion man if you're feeling like death.

Onions, like garlic, have anti-bacterial compounds and are a recognised method of treating colds and flu according to this site although getting any definitive answer on health out of the internet is always an uphill struggle. But I seem to remember reading it elsewhere.

Onion, garlic and thyme soup
Serves 2-4

5-6 medium-sized onions, preferably French
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 tsp dried thyme (optional)
3 tbsp olive oil
About 15g butter
800ml vegetable, chicken or beef stock
Salt and (preferably) white pepper though if you're stuffed up you may not be able to tell the difference

Peel and finely slice the onions and garlic. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or casserole, tip in the onions, garlic and thyme, stir and cook uncovered over a low heat for about 20-25 minutes until the onions have completely collapsed and begun to colour. (It will depend on the onions and how fast you cook them how brown they get but it's better to keep the heat low. Having said that I cooked them in the top oven of the Aga.) Pour over the stock, bring to the boil then turn the heat down and simmer for about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in warm bowls, adding some grated cheese if you like. To make it more of a meal, top with baked bread slices and grated cheese and return to the oven or melt under the grill.

I'm sure I've asked you this before but do you have any favourite ways of dealing with lurgies?

A salad, a stir-fry and a soup

It's been a super-frugal week in the Beckett household so far, thanks not to me but my husband who has been trawling for bargains in the local Co-op/Somerfield. As you may know the Co-op took over Somerfield some months ago and finally seems to be in the process of introducing its own lines. That seems to be good news in the case of fresh fruit and veg which have improved in quality and gone down in price.

At the weekend he managed to pick up a decent-sized cos lettuce for 25p which I turned into a faux-Caesar salad (above) then yesterday proudly brought home some reduced sprouts (35p) and cheap parsnips (50p for a 500g pack) - with no particular purpose in mind, it has to be said.

I initially wondered whether I could turn them into okonomiyaki (but then I'm wondering whether I can turn everything into okonomiyaki since my induction last week) but having consulted a couple of recipes I realised I hadn't got vital ingredients like tempura flakes. However I knocked up a makeshift stir-fry instead which actually wasn't half bad and which I've just posted on my student website here.

The remaining veg together with some green beans I found lurking in the fridge went into a hearty minestrone-style soup along the lines of my Sad Unloved Vegetable Soup. I added a spoonful of tomato paste (diluted with some stock) as I didn't have any fresh tomatoes, a frozen tub of home-made chicken stock I hadn't got round to using and a tin of cannelini beans and topped each helping with plenty of parmesan. It made easily enough for four so there are leftovers for my husband today while I go waltzing off to London.

In both cases I grated rather than chopped the parsnips which I think gives a better texture - unless you're going to boil and purée them or roast them. In fact I'm wondering if you could add parsnip - and even sprouts - to okonomiyaki . . .

Storecupboard soup

I had a bit of a shock yesterday afternoon when I remembered that the stock I was making from Thursday's leftover chicken carcass was still simmering away in the lower Aga oven. Panic call to my husband who had thought of it a minute earlier and removed it (how's that for telepathy?)

I thought there would be just an inch or two of liquid left and that the pan would be totally destroyed but not at all. What I found was an unbelievably concentrated dark stock, almost more like a veal stock than a chicken one.

It was too strong for the delicate vegetable soup I was planning for today's lunch however so I had to change tack and rustle up a different kind of soup from what we had in the fridge, freezer and storecupboard.

I sweated off an onion, added a large clove of garlic, stirred in a couple of teaspoons of mixed cumin and coriander then added just under a litre of stock. In went 125g of Puy Lentils which I cooked until they were just done then the chopped remains of a pack of frozen broccoli* I tested out for the site a while ago - along with a handful of fresh basil leaves (I'd have used coriander instead if I'd had some).

I resisted the temptation to blitz the lot in the blender which would have turned it into an unappealing pond-like sludge and fried up a few slices of leftover chorizo and some more basil leaves to garnish what was by now more of a stew than a soup. But it was very tasty and perfectly suited to this odd, cold sunny/showery spring day. There's even enough left for tomorrow - though no more chorizo so I'll have to add a bit of bacon. Oh, and a final drizzle of olive oil à la caldo verde is good too.

* Spinach would have been even better if I'd had some.

Smoked cod, leek and watercress chowder

If you're a) not a haggis-lover, b) haven't decided what to cook tonight but feel like something vaguely Scottish and are c) reasonably near the shops, here's an idea. It was prompted by a reduction on a pack of smoked cod in Somerfield yesterday which made me think of making Cullen Skink. Not that I could remember exactly what went into Cullen Skink but I bought a couple of leeks, a potato and a carton of soy milk (my husband is dairy-intolerant) and hoped for the best.

I was just bemoaning the lack of parsley to finish it off when I remembered I had the tail end of a pack of watercress which proved a very good addition. As did a few shavings of parmesan. The result: more of a chowder rather than a Scottish fish soup but none the worse for that.

Serves 2-4 depending whether you're eating anything else.

1 medium to large potato (about 250g)
2 medium leeks
1 tbsp olive or sunflower oil
15g butter
200g smoked cod or haddock fillets
450-500ml whole milk or soy milk
A handful of roughly chopped watercress or some finely chopped parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Grated parmesan to serve (optional)

Peel the potato and cut into smallish cubes. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until the potato is just tender. Meanwhile trim, wash and finely slice the leeks then give them another rinse. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan or casserole, add the butter then tip in the leeks and stir. Put a lid on the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes until the leeks start to soften. Add the cod or haddock fillets, pour over enough milk to cover, bring up to simmering point then leave over a low heat for about 4-5 minutes until the fish is cooked. Remove the fish with a fish slice and set aside. Tip the potatoes and about 100ml of their water into the leeks and add the watercress or parsley. Leave over a low heat while you remove the skin and any bones from the fish then return it to the pan and warm through. Check seasoning adding salt (it should only need a little, if any) and pepper to taste. Serve in warm bowls with a little shaved or coarsely grated parmesan if you have some and fancy it.

Lentil and chestnut soup

Most of my new recipes these days are inspired by an ingredient that needs using up. So it was in the case of this substantial soup (more like a stew, actually) which I thought would make the best of a batch of really tasty goose stock.

Like all recipes it can be fiddled around with depending what you have available. If you haven't got bacon use chorizo or up the amount of pimenton. You don't have to use a carrot. You could use celery if you have some. You could use duck or turkey stock instead of goose - or even vegetable bouillon powder. Shredded cabbage makes a good substitute for parsley or you could, as I did, use both. (You need something green, though, otherwise it is a bit unrelievedly brown.) I also added a bit of fried up sliced chorizo as I had some lying around but you could of course make it entirely vegetarian.

Serves 4
2 tbsp olive oil
4 streaky bacon rashers, finely chopped
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 carrot peeled and finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
75g cooked chestnuts, chopped
150g Puy or other green or brown lentils (or a drained can of lentils)
500-600ml turkey, goose or chicken stock
Handful of shredded cabbage leaves or chopped parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a deep casserole or heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the streaky rashers and cook until the fat starts to run. Add the chopped onion and carrot, cover the pan and cook over a low heat until the vegetables start to soften. Stir in the garlic and cook for a minute then stir in the paprika. Add the chopped chestnuts and lentils then add the stock and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer the soup for about 20 minutes until the lentils are tender. Add the shredded cabbage leaves if using and continue to simmer until they are lightly cooked. (If you’re using parsley instead or as well add that 3-4 minutes before the end of the cooking time.) Add a little extra stock if you need it and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Enjoy and a Happy New Year to you all!

A frugal weekend’s eating

Off to visit my mother-in-law in France this week so we spent the weekend using up odds and ends from the fridge and freezer. On Saturday night I made a pea and lettuce soup which sounds pretty unseasonal but I like salad even in winter and this is a good way to use up the outside leaves

You simply trim and chop up a bunch of spring onions and soften them in a little oil and butter, chuck in a handful of lettuce leaves and some chopped parsley stalks, let them wilt then add about 200g of frozen peas, a cooked, sliced potato, a handful of parsley leaves and about 500ml of vegetable stock, bring to the boil and simmer for about 3 minutes until the peas are cooked. (You need to cook the potato first otherwise the soup will take too long and the peas will lose their fresh green colour). Cool for 5 minutes then whizz in a blender or food processor, return the soup to the pan then add another 200ml or so of stock or milk and heat through. You can sieve the soup if you want a smoother texture or whisk in a bit of soft butter or cream for a more luxurious taste. A squeeze of lemon juice doesn't go amiss.

With it we had some crostini topped with fromage fort, a brilliant French way of using the assorted odds and ends of cheese from the fridge. No exact quantities. I used a bit of leftover goats cheese log and Brie (both with the rinds removed and a rather sad bit of Appenzeller which had seen better days. You simply blitz a clove of garlic in a food processor, add the cheese (sliced or crumbled) and whizz till you have a smooth paste then add just enough white wine to give a spreadable consistency. Season with cayenne pepper, chilli powder or hot paprika.

There was enough soup left over for a couple of extra little cupfuls last night before a main course of a shepherds pie-like dish salvaged from the remains of last week’s braised beef topped with celeriac mash which I’d stashed away in the freezer. I must say it felt good not to be chucking out food this morning.

Communication may be spasmodic this week. Back next weekend, if not before . . .

Two thrifty soups

This week has been dominated by the produce I bought from the Organic Food Festival. Cooking it hasn’t quite gone to plan as I had to go to London for two days but earlier in the week I used the beets to make a favourite soup which my daughter Jo invented - carrot borscht. The addition of carrots - and a skinned tomato - is an inspiration. It sweetens the soup and rounds out the flavours.

I used the chicken stock I’d made from the carcass of the organic chicken I bought which wasn’t quite as strongly flavoured as the game or beef stock I’d normally use so added a scant teaspoon of Bovril stirred into three tablespoonfuls of stock. (Eurrrgh, you may think but Bovril makes perfectly decent beef stock - far better than most stock cubes.)

The original version also had bacon in it. No bacon, so I added a couple of slices of some smoked Manx Loaghtan lamb I’d been given to try. A reckless extravagance in a way but a) it was free and b) had the requisite smoky flavour I was looking for. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Speaking of which, last night’s soup was even thriftier if anything. Got back early evening from London and couldn’t face sploshing (it was raining of course) down to Tesco. So I rooted around in the storecupboard and fridge and came up with the recipe below.

The starting point was a packet of chard which I’d forgotten and was on the verge of going off. I thought of combining that with cannelini beans (happily found a can in the cupboard) then remembered there was still some chicken stock, a couple of slightly squishy tomatoes, some really pungent basil and those fabulous parmesan rinds. Voila, an Italian-style bean soup. Hope you enjoy it!

Bean, chard and tomato soup
Serves 2-3
2 tbsp olive oil + extra for drizzling
1 medium onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
2 medium-sized fresh tomatoes, skinned and chopped
A small handful of basil leaves (optional)
A piece of parmesan rind (optional)
About 300ml chicken or vegetable stock or water
1 x 400g can of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
A handful of chard or spinach leaves, stripped from their stems
Shaved or coarsely grated parmesan to serve
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over a low heat and add the onions and garlic. Stir, cover the pan and leave over a low heat for about 5 minutes until the onion has started to soften. Add the chopped tomatoes, replace the lid and cook for another 5 minutes until the tomato starts to break down. Roughly chop the basil leaves and stir them in then add the parmesan rind and stock and bring to the boil. Add the beans and simmer for another 5 minutes or so. Finely slice the chard or spinach and add to the pan. Cook another few minutes then remove the parmesan rind and season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve the soup with some shaved or grated parmesan or with a drizzle of olive oil.

What happened to the onions

Just in case you wondered if they were mouldering away in the veg rack I used a handful of the green stalks to make a green onion and goats cheese omelette a bit like the wild garlic and chervil omelette I made a couple of months ago and used the rest to make this tasty green onion soup.

Green onion, bean and bacon soup
Serves 2-3

2 tbsp olive oil + extra for drizzling over the soup at the end
75g pack pancetta cubes or 2-3 rashers of chopped streaky bacon
A good handful of green onion tops (about the equivalent of a bunch and a half of spring onions), trimmed and roughly sliced
1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
A pinch of hot pimenton or paprika (optional)
1 x 400g tin of borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
500ml vegetable stock made with 2 tsp vegetable bouillon powder or 1/2 a stock cube
Salt and pepper
Fresh Parmesan, Grana Padano or Pecorino for grating

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the pancetta or bacon for a couple of minutes. Add the sliced onions, cook for another couple of minutes then stir in the garlic and pimenton or paprika. Tip in the drained beans and add the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 7-8 minutes then season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and/or some shaved or grated parmesan

I've still got the onion bulbs left to use for something else. Probably a tomato and raw onion salad. Although they were expensive for onions (£1.75 a bunch) they have a fabulous flavour and are inspiring a whole week's cooking

Courgette, leek and cauliflower soup with Manchego

We were out last night so the veg box experiment resumed this morning. I discovered that one of the courgettes was already going mouldy at the end (not good) so thought I'd better use a couple of them up along with the rest of the cauliflower. This was the result. The Manchego - another fridge leftover - was a last minute addition because the soup tasted a bit bland. Rather good though.

Serves 4
3 tbsp olive oil
2 medium leeks, trimmed, washed and finely sliced
2 medium courgettes, trimmed and sliced
1/2 a cauliflower cut into florets (cooked or uncooked) or a small potato, peeled and finely sliced
2 sprigs of mint
600-700ml vegetable stock made with 2 rounded tsp vegetable bouillon powder or an organic vegetable stock cube
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 heaped tbsp chopped fresh parsley
About 20g grated Manchego, Pecorino or other hard sheeps' cheese* + extra for serving
Olive oil for drizzling - optional

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the leeks, courgettes and potato (if you're using that rather than the cauliflower), stir, cover the pan and cook over a low heat until the veg start to soften. Add the cauliflower if using, a couple of springs of mint and 600ml of the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer until the vegetables are tender (about 15 minutes) then rest off the heat for 5 minutes. Remove the mint and pass the soup through a food processor or blender or whizz up with a hand-held blender. Reheat and check for seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste and a little more stock if it's too thick. Stir in the parsley and grated Manchego and recheck the seasoning. Serve in warm bowls with extra Manchego grated on top and/or a drizzle of olive oil.

I have to say this is not the prettiest soup I've ever made but it's quite tasty. Any leftovers can be frozen.

* or parmesan or even good old cheddar. Just don't make it too cheesy and gloopy.

Two vegetable minestrone

Today is one of those rare days when the weather is worse in France than it is in England. It's simply chucking it down. Cue soup for lunch.

A quick raid on the fridge reveals some outer leek leaves I'd felt moved to save for an occasion like this, some celery (with a lot of leaves which is good) and some chopped serrano ham (like bacon bits or lardons). That looked a bit insubstantial so I also unearthed a large tin of flageolet beans thinking I could use half for the soup and half with tonight's supper of leftover roast lamb.

I simply fried the serrano ham in olive oil for a few minutes (could have used chopped streaky bacon), added the chopped leeks and celery and a pinch of dried thyme and cooked them slowly with the lid on the pan for about 7 or 8 minutes. I then added half the tin of beans - drained and rinsed - and about 600ml vegetable stock made with an organic (but as it turns out rather over-salty) stock cube. However hadn't added any extra salt so OK.

Once that was cooked (another 7-8 minutes) I chucked in a handful of chopped celery leaves and tasted it. Quite a predominant bitter celery note which needed correcting - with what? Diced fresh tomato, ideally, or a dash of passata but none to hand so in went a small squirt of ketchup (I don't want you to think I'm obsessed with ketchup - it's just an ingredient you generally have to hand if there have been kids anywhere in the vicinity.) Worked anyway along with plenty of freshly ground pepper and a drizzle of olive oil to serve. Could have scattered over some freshly grated parmesan if I'd had some.

When I thought about it afterwards I realised what I'd created was a two vegetable minestrone which you have to admit sounds a lot nicer than leftover vegetable soup . . .

How to stop your soup looking sludgy

The problem with making soup from leftovers is that they invariably look murky. Yesterday's parsnips actually made a very good soup, along with some fried up onion, carrot and celery - and a generous sprinkling of cumin and coriander but it didn't look pretty. But you need to liquidise it to make it taste good.

The answer, I think, is not to put too much green and red or green and orange into a soup which, as you'll remember from nursery school, makes brown. The proportions I used - 1 onion, 1 carrot and two sticks of celery - along with around 350g of cooked parsnip, I would guess (about 1 1/2 cooked parsnips) is just about right. 

You also need something to contrast with the uniform smooth texture of a liquidised soup. I hit on the idea of a slick of garlic-flavoured raita - plain or, as it happens, soy yoghurt mixed with crushed garlic and salt which was really good. If I'd had some fresh coriander or parsley I'd have added a scattering of that. Or some roasted whole cumin seeds, come to think of it. With some warm naan or pitta bread it would have been a real feast. But ordinary bread was just fine