In our house we eat a lot of soups. Soups are great - they are cheap to make, very filling, easy to make, you can use all those lonely vegetables laying at the bottom of the fridge, they are normally healthy, my little one likes soup, the variations are endless, they keep well and make excellent food for a few days and, let me just mention it again. They are cheap and easy to make!
What is not to love about soups?
So the other day, as I wrote about in a earlier post, I had a quiet house, sun shining though my window and lovely vegetables waiting, hoping, longing to be used in my fridge. And who am I to disappoint vegetables?
Okay, you start out with onions. All great things start with onions ... or bacon!
I used 3 red onions which I finely chopped along with 1 clove of garlic. You can easily use more garlic, but since my better half claims he doesn't like garlic I try to be a little careful with my use of garlic.
Put it in the pot, add 2 tablespoons butter and let it chill there for a few minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
Look at that ray of sun right there in the pot. How can that not make you happy? It is the simple pleasures in life.
Anyway, back to the cooking.
While the onions and garlic are slowly getting a little bit of color, get out your vegetables. This day I had these lovely potatoes that my better half and the little one got at the farmers market.
They are new potatoes and not as starchy as could have been preferred but since I wanted to leave some nice big chunks in the soup these worked out great as they kept their shape and texture even after 45 min of cooking. I also had 2 leeks that I halfed and cut in small pieces.
But you can add whatever vegetables that rock your boat. I made a mushroom, potato, onion, sellery, carrot soup the other day that was to die for. The sky is really the limit, when you make soups. See, another reason to love soups.
When your onions look clear and maybe even a tiny bit browned, it is time to add some stock to it. I normally use half vegetable stock and half chicken stock, but feel free to do whatever you prefer.
Because I had cut up quite a nice amount of vegetables I used 1½ liters of stock (6 cups). After I added that to the pot, I turned up the heat a little and admired my vegetables soaked in sunshine.
Yes, I might need help with this sunshine obsession.
I then added all the vegetables to the pot, added salt, some lemon pepper and put on the lid and went to take a little nap while the contents of the pot slowly turned into a lovely, tasty soup.
Right after I added the vegetables. It just doesn't look that interesting yet.
After 30-45 minutes I returned and took the soup off the heat. Right before we were about to eat, I took half of the soup and put into my blender. You can also use an immersion blender, but I think you get a nicer and creamier result with a normal blender. Just be careful not to fill up the blender and not put the lid on completely, as the warm soup can ... ehmm, I am not quite sure how it happens, but it is something to do with the pressure inside the blenderpitcher. I know what if you fill it up all the way with warm soup and put the lid on completely, you will end up with warm soup all over your kitchen. Personal experience! Don't try that at home.
So be patient and take it slowly. Rather that than finding dried up soup on your walls several days later.
In our house the time right before we eat is pretty hectic and so I didn't get any pictures of the whole blending proces. But honestly, how exciting is that anyway? Besides I have this fancy chrome-blender where you can see every speck of dust and every fingerprint on, and I wouldn't have been bothered cleaning and polishing it to look nice in a photo shoot.
I know I wrote that soups are healthy, and so this step is completely optional. However, I am pregnant so I don't really worry about minor details like weight gain right now, and so I went for it.
I think you should too. Add cream to the soup. Just do it. It does nice things to the soup.
I finally heated it up. Because I had only put one half of the soup through the blender, the other half still had some nice chunks in it. I like to have a little something to chew on in my soup.
Check the seasoning and add more of whatever you feel like. I often add a little lemon juice at this stage. Since I also have a serious crush on nutmeg, I also add some of this. Just remember to let the soup boil, after you add nutmeg, to really get the flavour out. Ahh, the lovely, lovely smell!
Because I love bacon, and the crispy salty bacon goes so well together with the creamy texture of the soup I fried some bacon, and served it on the side.
This is my plate right before I am about to start eating. The sunshine was gone, the family was hungry and the light was not good. But don't worry, it taste so much better than it looks. If you want to jazz it up a little, add some chopped flat-leaf parsley. That will go well with the taste, and make it look really yummy and fresh.
It was quite a big hit with the little one. I think he managed to eat 3 plates that evening.
We had soups for 3 days, so I guess this portion could feed 8 people or so. Probably more if you served it with bread or added meat to the soup.
And now, go forth and make soups! Enjoy.
