SOUPS and SOUPS

Good cooking for spring, at my place soups, are apart of our diets, and light soup is the best for the season. There are warm and cold days during spring but personally, love soups at any day, it is easy to cook.  Soups and buns, I never get enough, they are influenced by Chinese cooking.  The bun is steamed instead of baked, and the soup can be a clear soup with dumplings or vegetable.  Two types of dumplings I cook, one contains lots of meat and a white egg, and the other one contains less meat, more starch, and using a whole egg.
This is my peasant cooking, it is so yummy, one of my favourite peasant foods is the meatballs dumplings in a clear broth.

Susy Meat Balls Dumpling.

200 g minced meat (beef and pork)
45 g arrowroot flour
1 whole egg
1/2 teaspoon salt and white pepper to flavour
(Place all ingredients in a food processor, mix them well to make a smooth and sticky paste)

2 litters light meat stock

To cook the meatballs - the dumplings
Put the stock in a pot, place on a stove,  cook over medium heat,  bring it to simmer
With wet fingers, shape the meat paste to small balls, as large as a walnut.
Put them in the hot stock, cook them until they are floating to the top
Take them out and place the balls on a clean bowl
Do the rest of the meat paste until it's finished
You will make  24  meatballs dumpling.

Wait until cold, keep them in an airtight container to freeze (freeze very well)

Serving the soup dumplings
Bring stock to a simmer, put the dumpling in
Keep on cooking in lower heat, let them stay for 30 minutes or longer.
The dumpling will be floating and puff up during the cooking, and when you cut it, will show a pinkish colour in the middle.  It is so soft but scrumptiously delicious.
Place the dumplings in a bowl, ladle in the broth, garnish with chopped coriander leaf or flat parsley and sprinkle with fried shallots on top.

Since late winter, I have been cooking soup every Friday. I was committed to the Veteran Competition of Table Tennis.  Healthy and natural food to have was important. We know to eat a big meal before the game is a no, no.  So the soup was my choice to cook, and served with sandwiches or merely crusty bread.

The Friday Journal.
The week one-the 27th of  July, chicken, salad and mayonnaise sandwiches.  The soup was not prepared, a light meal; instead, we were settled with a hot drink instead of soup. But it was sufficed.

Week two, the third of August, a delicious and nutritious Zucchini Soup, served with ham and mustard sandwiches.  Vegemite sandwich is one of my favourites.  Love the simplicity of it.

Week Two: Zucchini Soup

Ingredients for the soup is very obvious, zucchini.  The flavour-garlic and fresh herbs and stock-chicken stock.  I thought it would be nice to make the soup thicker I added one mashed potato, and milk to have a touch of creaminess.

The ham sandwiches was a basic standard sandwich-fresh bread spread with butter, put ham with whole grain mustard in between the bread for the filling.

 Ham and Vegemite Sandwiches.

We have not been playing in the competition for a long time, it was good to see everyone in the sports games, I was so surprised that one of the members remembered us, and greeted us well.

Week three, the ten of August.  Baked vegetable soup with saffron,  it's healthy, but that was not successful cooking.  The soup was too sweet, due to too many sweet potatoes, carrots, and pumpkin.  Fixed the soup by adding the extra potato, butter, water and milk. The second round the soup served with chopped fried chorizo sausages, that was different, the flavour was much better.

Baked vegetable soup 
A Tip:

The Soup garnished with fresh herbs.

The Soup garnished with Feta cheese.

The time you cook a roast dinner, add extra vegetables, that way the vegetable soup can be prepared quickly or straight away.

Cooking the Soup.

Parsnips, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin, potatoes and onion frizzle with oil, ready for baking

Place all the roasted vegetable in a large pot, mashed the vegetable roughly and add hot water to have a lighter mixture.  Cook for ten minutes also bring to a gentle simmer, add in the liquid saffron, and cook the soup for 25 minutes, taste and season. For a touch of creaminess, add a cup of milk, stir, and the soup is ready.

To add some milk to the vegetable soup for a creaminess.

The day runs well by the organisation.  In the morning, the sandwiches were prepared and refrigerated until dinner time.

Chicken and avocado spread to make for sandwiches.

Fixing the soup for a better flavour was easy enough, I got the chorizo sausages, chopped into small pieces, add in the hot simmering soup, leave to simmer for a few minutes then serve the soup.

Week four, the seventeen of August.  Cauliflower baked was prepared too, and lentil soup, a tiny pot of soup and consumed on the day.  A very ordinary lentil soup using red lentil, mixed diced fresh vegetables, added water instead of meat stock.  It was delicious.

Week four: Lentil and vegetable soup

Had a big lunch, missed the dinner, supper what I had instead. That's alright.
Friday has been busy for the past weeks, we settled for our routine comfortably.

Week five, the twenty-fourth of August.  Cooked green lentil and chickpea soup, another small pot of soup enough for two.
The Ingredients: light chicken stock, red onion, fresh curry leaf, green lentil, pumpkin, chickpeas, red capsicum, lemon rind, spinach and lots of fresh herbs-flat parsley and mints.

Fresh curry leaf and shredded lemon rind to add to the soup together with the chickpeas a diced pumpkin.

Cooking the Soup

The soup is served

Week six, the thirty of Augustus a salad and little food for the dinner.

Our group was on duty to bring plates. Prepared two varieties, one sweet an the other was quick baked bread with a topping.  We stayed back and were able to catch up with friends and enjoyed the supper.

Our team, the Silver of section five, has been doing so well, so far sits on the top.

The week seven, the seven of September,  Just as well I prepared the dumplings in the morning, so we enjoyed the soup for our dinner.  It's the last games, I have been trying so hard not to miss the games considering I have the knee problem. I had to be there on Friday last to support my partner to get the trophy, and I hope I won't let her down.  My observation during the competition, people, tends to be courteous, kind but still competitive, it's very encouraging.

Fiona-my partner did get the trophy as I wished and predicted. She won the best player of all in section five, congratulations, Fiona, it was fun to work with you.

Together we won the Premiership, the Blue Ribbon we got and also a special gift.

Clear soup with meatball dumplings
and the bun

Steamed Bun with Sweet Pork Filling

The last Friday games and the dinner was the favourite soup - and the steamed bun.

Soup has been our sustenance on Fridays for the past weeks, almost, as I had missed twice not to prepare, it may become our tradition from now on - Soup dinner for Friday, instead of Fish for Friday.

As said, soup is so good as it is food in itself!

I had posted lots of cooking about soups previously and also about the meatballs soup, please look on the older posts, but I will post about my peasant cooking, meatballs dumplings,  soon.

Have a good weekend everyone, enjoy the break.  Relax and Rest Well.  Time is so precious, and we are blessed to have.

Next Post Soon.

Susy