SOUPS

Hot soups, from earthy vegetable to any creamy soups can be a treat for cold winter days.

Here are some soups that I cooked in my kitchen, and a couple of recipes for you.

Hot Soup for Winter

Earthy and chunky vegetable soup is comfort food for a cold winter day,
simply add a lot of fresh herbs to serve.

Chickpea and Vegetable Soup
Garnished with Grilled Pancetta and Apricot

Creamy celery soup served with a poached egg.  Another treat for a cold day.

Pumpkin soup, smooth vegetable soup, served with sour cream.  A very satisfying
food for lunch on any day.

Smooth pumpkin soup, garnished with shredded vegetable pancakes, and sour cream.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Recipe

Ingredients:

Roasted pumpkin, about half pumpkin (medium size)

2 cups vegetable stock, one bay leaf and a tablespoon olive oil.

Herb and spices, a bay leaf, nutmeg and freshly ground pepper and ground bay leaves (optional)

Milk and sour cream to serve.

Method: Discard the seeds and skin, mash the pumpkin, put it in a heavy based pot.
Add in the stock, bay leaf and the oil, and cook for a few minutes to bring to simmer.

Put the lid on and continue to cook over low heat for 45 minutes.

Add in the dry spices: freshly ground pepper, nutmeg, a pinch of ground bay leaves, and salt to taste. Stir the soup, keep it hot on the stove.  Add some milk for extra creaminess.

To serve: serve hot,  garnish with sour cream.

Another way serving the soup is, garnish with roasted apple or peach. Also, it is delicious to be served with crouton, fried crispy bacon, and chopped fresh herbs.

The Cooking Preparation

Roasted pumpkin, skin on

 Roasted pumpkin meat, skinned

Cooking the soup, bring to simmer.

Pumpkin puree with stock

Cook the smooth pumpkin soup over low heat to a very gentle simmer.

Add nutmeg, black pepper and
ground bay leaf

Stir in the milk, mix until the soup is
very smooth and silky

Serving the Pumpkin Soup

Chickpea Soup

Chickpeas and mixed vegetables soup, with Moroccan flavours.  Delicious, flavoursome soup for the family.  It can be served as it is or serve it as a creamy smooth soup with extra garnishes.

These are what you need: a tin of chickpeas (400g), a cup diced the sweet potato, a cup diced potato, half red capsicum - diced and fresh spinach or baby silverbeet, 2 cup chicken stock, and 4 cup water.  One brown onion, peeled and diced.  The spices: teaspoon turmeric, 1/3 teaspoon of each-cinnamon powder, nutmeg, and ginger.  A quarter preserved lime/lemon, and a spoon shredded lemon rind, 2 bay leaves and rosemary.  Two tablespoons olive oil to saute the herb and spices.

400 g chickpeas

diced sweet potato and potato

baby silverbeet

onion, red capsicum, lemon rind

and preserved lemon

What I did was, simply saute the onion in a large pot with the oil until softened, add in the rest of the spicy powder, stir together, add in the chicken stock and bring to simmer.  Put the chickpeas, all the diced vegetables in, the preserved lemon, lemon rinds and the water, continue cooking over medium heat for ten minutes, add in the spinach.  Reduce the heat and keep on cooking over low heat for one hour to get a rich and flavoursome broth.   Serve hot.

Chickpeas and vegetable soup

Serve the soup hot and drizzle extra olive oil if you wish to

Blend the soup with a blender to make smooth and creamy,  reheat the soup before serving.  Add garnishes as you like.

chickpea soup

Smooth Chickpea Soup
Garnished with Grilled Pancetta and Grilled Apricot

Hot and freshly homemade soup is not only delicious, but it is also a comfort food and winter warmer, excellent food for the season.

Give a recipe a go, you may enjoy it too.



Thank You for Visiting
Until Next Post
Susy