Saturday soup

At last the weekend has arrived, after a very busy week at work I’ve been waiting for some time to chill out. I popped outside into our courtyard this morning to see if the onions I planted a few weeks ago were surviving the cold weather. I’m glad to report back that they are surviving and have started to sprout small green shoots from the bulbs! Luckily we haven’t had a lot of snow here and the plants are slightly sheltered in our courtyard, fingers crossed they will continue to grow! I bought a little bunch of daffodils yesterday and I’m hoping they start to open soon to brighten up the kitchen.

Despite the glorious sunshine that we have had today it was just too cold to go out for long. It was so cold the windows steamed up and so the decision to stay inside and keep warm was made. I’ve spent my day pottering around the house, listening to the radio, reading some magazines, flicking through my craft and interiors books and making some soup! We had lots of carrots in the fridge and a pack of coriander needing to be used, so I decided to make something for a late afternoon lunch.

So here’s my recipe for the soup I made today. I just took a basic recipe and changed a few bits. It makes quite a large quantity, I’d say for about 4 huge bowls if not more! I’m looking forward to having more for my lunch during the week.

Lucy’s Saturday Carrot and Coriander soup

A big splash of olive oil 1 onion 1 potato 1kg of carrots 2 pints stock (one chicken stock cube and one vegetable stock cube is preferable) 1 tsp of ground coriander A bunch of fresh coriander Big pinch of salt and pepper

To start get all the ingredients chopped and prepared so you can spend the rest of the time clearing up and enjoying a mug of tea and a magazine.

Chop up the onion, and peel and chop the potato and the carrots.

Add the onions to the pan and stir for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the ground coriander and stir into the onions and then add the chopped potato and stir. Add a bit of seasoning too.

Cook this for a minute or two and then add in the chopped carrots and stir the vegetables so that the carrots and onions and potato are well mixed and all the lovely ground coriander has been mixed through the carrots. Make up the two pints of stock.

Add the stock to the pan, bring the carrots, potato and onions to the boil and then turn down the heat to simmer until they are soft. It took about 20-25 minutes to cook.

While you wait for the soup to finish slice a nice big chunky piece of bread from a fresh loaf, lightly toast and treat yourself to a little bit of butter. I love butter on toast and love dipping in the buttery toast into the warm steaming soup. Mmm.

Rip up some coriander to add to the veg mixture before blitzing the soup in the food processor until smooth. I like to take out some of the liquid before I blitz the soup as I don’t like soup too watery. You can always add it at the end if it is too thick.