Carrot and lentil soup

It's been raining for what seems like a year so I need to stock up my freezer with a selection of soups for lunch at work. While the best soups always contain cheese (cauliflower/broccoli and blue cheese, leek and potato with cheddar), lentils can turn an essentially dull vegetable soup into a satisfying meal, while still being healthy.

I was feeling lazy when I made this soup, and couldn't be bothered to dry roast and crush any fresh spices so I used pre-ground spices instead. The result was disappointing, until I upped the quantity used considerably. 

 

Carrot and lentil soup ingredients

• 3 large carrots, peeled and grated
• 2 sticks celery, finely chopped
• 1/2 swede or a turnip
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 3 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon turmeric 
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon asafoetida
• 1 teaspoon sambal oelek or other chilli sauce
• 2 JOTs fresh root ginger, peeled and grated
• I teaspooon fresh ginger paste
• 150g red lentils, rinsed
• 2 teaspoons Swiss bouillon stock powder
• Rind of 1 orange
• Plenty salt and black pepper
• About 1 litre water 

 

How to make carrot and lentil soup

1. Heat a little rapeseed oil in a large pan till hot.
2. Add the chopped onion and celery and fry till soft and golden.
3. Add the grated carrot and ginger, and cook for about 5 minutes over a low heat.
4. Add the spices, approx 1 litre cold water and the lentils.
5. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.
6. Add some boiling water to the Swiss bouillon stock powder and mix till dissolved and you have a watery liquid then pour this in the pan. 
7. Add the grated orange zest and ginger paste. 
8. Turn off the heat and allow the soup to cool slightly before tasting and adding seasoning. 

Magic number tomato sauce

The magic cooking number is 190⁰C fan assisted. If in doubt about oven temperature, this is what you use. But sometimes, just like in life, 3 is the magic number. 

Here is my 3 is the Magic Number utility tomato sauce recipe.

I used to make tomato sauce using approximate quantities of 2, but this leaves an annoyingly small amount of leftover sauce which is not quite enough for another meal. So I thought I'd make one and a half quantity, which also happens to be an easy recipe to remember. 

Magic Number tomato sauce ingredients

• 3 onions
• 3 tins plum tomatoes (not chopped - this makes the sauce to watery)
• 3 very fat garlic cloves
• 3 celery sticks
• 1.5 carrots. The 3 ratio slips a little here as 3 carrots would make a very sweet sauce, unless they were very small. I hope you can remember to use 1.5 carrots instead.
• 3 herbs: parsley, thyme and oregano
• 3 small bay leaves
• Splash red wine (optional)

A very bad photo of tomato sauce

This is a basic tomato sauce that goes with a myriad of dishes. Today I am making a batch for vegetable lasagne so will add some grilled veg, but will have enough to stick in the freezer for another meal. This may be sausages and lentil, pasta and feta, gnocchi and cream, pizza base, white fish...

How to make 3 is the Magic Number tomato sauce

1. Heat a little olive oil in a large casserole dish.
2. Chop the onion as finely or roughly as you want.
3. Chop the celery into very fine slices - some people hate cooked celery so it's best to try and make it look like pieces of onion and deny its existence. 
4. Add these to the pan and fry till soft. 
5. Finely chop the garlic.
6. Grate the carrot. 
7. Add the garlic and the carrot to the pan and stir everything round. 
8. Cook for a further 5 minutes till softened.
9. If you want to add a little richness to the sauce, add a splash of red wine to the pan and turn  up the heat till most of the wine has evaporated (otherwise it will taste harsh and horrible).
10. Add the tins of tomatoes to the pan.
11. Add a little water to one of the empty tomato tins and swill it round to dislodge any remaining juice from the side of the tin.
12. Pour this into the next empty tin and repeat, till you have rinsed the remaining juice from all 3 tins. Pour this into the sauce.
13. Bring the sauce to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes.
14. Break up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.
15. Leave to simmer for a further 15 or so minutes till the sauce thickens slightly. 

Your tomato sauce s now ready to use.

Carrot and cardamon soup

Soup 2 of my soup frenzy Sunday, and another adaptation from the New Covent Garden's Soup and Beyond book.

I'm surprised the recipe included a teaspoon of sugar, which I omitted, as it is still very sweet for my liking. It took a bit of tweaking to produce a little sharpness - I added lime lime leaves and tamarind.  

I also added some red lentils to make this soup more substantial for lunch, so you don't need any bread with it.  

Purple carrots, disappointingly orange on the inside

On a whim I bought some purple carrots which I used for this soup - maybe they are sweeter than orange ones? Apparently back in the day all carrots used to be purple, till William of Orange made them all orange. Sounds like a QI not true alert to me.

Carrot, lentil and cardamon soup ingredients

• About 3 medium or 2 large carrot
• I large onion
• I clove garlic
• 1/2 litre vegetable stock
• 50g red lentils, rinsed
• Juice 1/2 lemon
• About 2 tablespoons coconut milk
• Seeds from 8 cardamon pods
• 1 tablespoon tamarind paste
• 1 tablespoon chopped lime leaves

  How to make carrot, lentil and cardamon soup

1. Chop the onion finely.
2. Add a little rapeseed or olive oil to a pan to warm.
3. Add the onion and cover with a lid to sweat for about 5 minutes.
4. Grate the carrot and add to the onion.
5. Crush the garlic and add to the pan.
6. Fry for a few minutes till the carrot starts to reduce and you can smell the garlic.
7. Add the stock and coconut milk and lentils.
8. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.
9. Add the cardamon seeds, lime leaves and tamarind paste.
10. Season with salt and pepper.
11. Simmer for about 30 minutes. 
12. Add the lemon before serving. 

 

Carrot, cardamon and lentil soup which looks like any other soup

Lentil and pumpkin soup

The delicious dahl and pumpkin soup

It's winter and work is busy so I want a good selection of soups in the freezer for easy (and free) lunches. If you make just one type of soup you'll soon get bored and and be put off eating soup for months. Having a variety of soups in the freezer (frozen, of course, in individual tupperware-shaped portions) will stop your heart from sinking when you contemplate a homemade lunch.

Last Sunday I made three different types of soup, giving me about 10 portions in total. I used instant vegetable stock as the base for all of them. I use reduced salt Swiss bouiIllon stock and add my own salt, as I find the normal stuff too salty.
I adapted this dahl-type soup from one in the New Covent Garden Soup and Beyond book.  

There's a long list of ingredients, but they're pretty standard spice rack staples. You can of course use fresh chillies - the recipe suggests 1 red and 1 green one, but I hate getting chilli juice on my fingers, or worse, in my eye, so use Lazy Chilli or  chilli paste from a jar.

Dahl and pumpkin soup ingredients

• 1 small pumpkin
• 1 medium onion
• About 125g red lentils
• About 1 litre vegetable stock
• 1 thumb root ginger, grated
• 2 teaspoons lazy chilli
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon ground tumeric
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3 tablespoons coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon tamarind paste
• lime juice, to finish, to taste 

Method for making dahl and pumpkin soup

1. Heat about 1 desert spoon of vegetable oil in a pan.
2. Add the onions and fry over a medium heat till a little browned at the edges.
3. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli, tumeric, coriander and cumin; fry for about 1 minute.
4. Add the vegetable stock, lentils and pumpkin and bring to the boil.
5. Simmer till the pumpkin is tender and the lentils are cooked. 
6. Mash to your liking with a potato masher. You can liquidise if you prefer, but I like a little texture in my soup. It makes it seem more like a meal and lesslike baby food.
7. Add the coconut milk and tamarind and warm for a minute or two.
8. Add the lime juice after you have removed from the heat and are just about to serve.

I actually wish I had made more of this soup as it is so tasty, and it feels like a real treat having 'curry' for lunch at work. For free.

Stuffed peppers

It’s blazing hot weather, the Olympics start tomorrow, and I want an accompaniment for hot smoked trout and salad.

The idea of stuffed peppers probably draws a sigh from most vegetarians, but as a non-vegetarian I actually quite like this dish once in a while.

 

The recipe below assumes the dish is part of selection of salads.

Stuffed peppers ingredients

• 1 yellow or orange pepper. Go on then, use red if you insist.
• A handful of cooked Puy lentils
• Slightly larger quantity of cooked giant couscous
• An even larger quantity of cooked bulgur wheat
• 2 spring onions
• 1 small garlic clove, crushed
• A few chopped nuts – I used cashews today but pine nuts or mixed nuts would also work
• About 3 sundried tomatoes (optional), chopped into really very small pieces
• A few chopped herbs – I used a few thyme leaves tonight but oregano or Greek basil would also be good

How to make stuffed peppers

1. Finely shop the spring onions and lightly fry for a few minutes in a little olive oil till soft.
2. Add the crushed garlic clove and fry for another minute or so.
3. Mix together with all the other ingredients
4. Slice the peppers in half and remove the stalk and seeds
5. Fill the pepper halves with the stuffing
6. Bake for about half an hour to 40 minutes at the Magic Cooking Number (fan 190)

Dahl

Dahl

The only red dahl recipes I could find included ingredients I didn't have so I made this one up. A couple of tomatoes would have been a good addition.

Dahl ingredients

• 1 teaspoon whole cumin
• 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
• red lentils, rinsed – somewhere between 100 and 150g. No need to be precise here, we’re not making a cake
• ½ thumb’s worth of ginger (mine not Jamie’s), finely chopped
• 3 small garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 large onion, half chopped finely and half sliced thinly

How to make dahl

1. Dry roast the cumin seeds for a few minutes till fragrant, then remove from the pan and crush is a pestle and mortar.
2. Add a little flavourless oil such as groundnut or vegetable and warm before adding the mustard seeds. Fry for about a minute or until they start to pop.
3. Add the chopped onion and fry for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add the spices (including the roast cumin seeds), garlic and ginger and fry for about a minute.
5. Add the lentils and stir to coat them, then add enough water to cover.
6. Bring to the boil then simmer until the lentils are cooked and the dahl is the consistency you like it, stirring occasionally. If it becomes too dry add more water.
7. While the lentils are cooking fry the sliced onion in a little oil till crispy.
8. Top the dahl with the crispy onion slices to serve. 

I like a little dahl as an accompaniment to another curry, but it makes a great lunch too and freezes well so its worth making in a large batch.  For lunch, you only need a toasted pitta bread and maybe a squeeze of lemon or lime juice to make a tasty, filling, healthy and incredibly cheap lunch. Lunch for free at its best. 

Asian mushroom soup

Marshroom soup

Today I got a text from my blog chum Mars saying I had inspired her to make vomit soup. Since she is full of cold I thought I’d make up a new slightly less vomit-looking recipe for her with a good kick of ginger and chilli to make her feel better.

Asian-tasting mushroom soup ingredients

• Approx 150g red lentils
  Unlike most pulses, lentils require no pre-cooking soaking or rapid boiling.  
• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• I stalk lemon grass, finely shredded, or, in my case today, a squeeze of lemon grass paste (not as good as the real thing but an OK substitute for soup)
• A piece of root ginger, about the size of Jamie Oliver’s thumb*
• 200-250g chestnut mushrooms (I happened to have 127g, yes I actually weighed them). Oriental mushrooms would be good but you would need to reduce the quantity as things like oyster or shiiake mushrooms are expensive.
• Small can coconut milk – Blue Dragon do a 165ml can which is the perfect amount. The tin looks dinky too
• Approx ½ litre or 1 pint chicken stock. Vegetable stock will be fine for this recipe. In fact, non-vegetarians may not even notice the lack of meat since there are so many other strong flavours in here.
• Fish sauce – a large dash
• Coriander leaves and stalks, chopped (if you have the roots from the plants, all the better)
• Mint leaves, chopped
• Lime juice from 1 lime
• Fish sauce, a splash

*Thumb-size is the international measurement for root ginger. Although this recipe isn’t Jamie’s, he frequently uses this measurement so I assume his thumb is the accurate size.

1. Gently fry the shallots and the ginger for a few minutes in some light-flavoured oil, such as groundnut or sunflower.
2. Add the mushrooms and fry until they have started to collapse and release a deep mushroomy smell.They will sizzle like sausages or, if you are vegetarian, like mushrooms. 
3. Add your chicken stock, lemongrass, chilli and rinsed lentils, then bring to the boil.
4. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes or until the lentils are cooked.  
5. Add a splash of fish sauce and the coconut milk and cook for about 5 minutes. 
6. Turn off the heat and add the lime juice.* 
7. Ladle into serving bowls and sprinkle each with some chopped coriander and mint.

This made enough for 3 portions, ie 3 free lunches.

*Don’t add the lime if you’re going to reheat this soup at work – take half a lime to work with you and squeeze it in after its been reheated.

Soup - lunch for free

I almost always make and take my lunch to work, so when I don’t I’m shocked at the price that people pay for a salad or a bowl of soup. That’s why I consider lunch made at home to be ‘free’. If you tried it for a week you could save yourself £25.

The inspiration for starting this blog came after a veggie single mum friend asked me for some meat and fish recipes to cook for her daughter. Although I rarely get home before 7, the odd fish finger sandwich aside, I always have a homemade meal. So I thought I would share my ideas, tips and shortcuts for creating quick, tasty and inexpensive meals.

My friends think I am a great cook but I am not – I’m just capable of following instructions. Admittedly I sometimes ignore those instructions and make things up myself.

The recipes will be written in easy to follow steps and include explanations where I think they are needed. I will unashamedly rely heavily on recipes developed by others, adapting them as I see fit.

The contents of my freezer, my friend

Today I took an inventory of my freezer and was ashamed at how disgusting the top drawer was.

There are strict rules about what goes in the middle and bottom drawers of my freezer but the top drawer is full of items such as half-melted ice cream, pine nuts, coffee beans and random objects that have since lost their identifiable purpose.

Throwing out the crap and cleaning the drawer was strangely satisfying and put me in the mood for making soup.

Split pea soup

I love soup. It is the perfect delicious nutritious solution to clearing out your vegetable rack and making free lunch.

However my soups do have a tendency to end up all the same. I need to expand my soup repertoire and introduce different ingredients.

My standard soups are generally based on some combination of the following vegetables:

Basic soup vegetables

• Onion
• Carrot
• Leek
• Celery

The vegetables are gently sweated until soft in a little oil.

Olive oil does not need to be extra virgin for cooking, though my mum always uses extra virgin which she buys from Lidl. I have recently started using rapeseed oil, which is produced in the UK. It has an earthy, apply taste – if Somerset was a taste, it would be rapeseed oil.

Then I add either:

Liquid for soup

• Stock, vegetable or chicken, or
• Water with Parmesan rind (thank you, Nigel Slater). I store these in my friend the freezer.

and add one of the following to thicken:

Thickening agents for soup

• Lentils
• Chickpeas
• Split peas
• Pearl barley

Potatoes can also be used, but I tend to reserve this exclusively for leek and potato soup which is possibly the easiest and most satisfying soup to make of all. My brother showed me how to make leek and potato soup after he was taught at primary school.

I add spices and herbs depending on what other ingredients I use. Here are some guides

• Coriander goes well with carrot or parsnip
• Cumin goes well with chickpeas
• Chilli goes well with pumpkin and squash
• Thyme goes well with mushrooms

Today I used the following:

Split pea soup ingredients 

• 1 large onion
• 2 sticks of past its best celery
• 2 carrots
• Stock made from boiling a gammon joint in water with a sliced onion, carrot and celery stick, bay leaf, peppercorns and rosemary sprig
• Split peas, rinsed and soaked overnight in cold water, drained, and rinsed again in cold water. This means you need to plan ahead the day before you want to make the soup but it takes no effort at all. Dried split peas are very cheap and make a good thickening agent. They are a good source of roughage.

How to make split pea soup

1. Fry the onion in a large pan while you chop the celery into small pieces.
2. Add the celery to the pan and sweat – this means you cover the pan with a lid while the vegetables cook slowly in the oil till soft.
3. Grate the carrot then add that to the pan, cooking till soft.
4. Add the stock and the split peas.
5. Season with pepper only. Don’t add salt – the peas will be tough and you will fart.
6. Bring to the boil.
7. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes
8. Reduce the heat and simmer till the peas are cooked.
   This could take 30 minutes or longer, depending on how long the peas have been in your cupboard.
9.  When the peas are cooked, turn off the heat. 
10. Leave to cool.
11. Liquidize in a blender or use a hand-held blender to puree.
    I like to leave some texture in the soup but make it however you like.

Notes on split pea soup

I suspect that my split pea soup is too salty because I had to cook the split peas for so long in gammon stock, thus concentrating the salinity of the stock.

O says the soup looks like sick. It does. I pureed the soup in response to this comment and it now looks like pureed sick. However it is yummy tasty and will provide me with five free lunches at work.