Since I learned how to make soup I pretty much haven’t stopped! Although soup is one of the easiest things to make, Â was afraid of attempting it for a long time. I think I felt a little ‘left behind’ and didn’t like to ask, as if I’d be laughed at because, hey, everyone knows how to make soup, right?
It turns out it really is one of the easiest recipes out there, and it’s very VERY hard to get it wrong, which suits me just fine! Last night I went to my local supermarket (I know I should shop at a farm shop/green grocers but I’ll cover my reasons in a separate post) and bought a load of the reduced vegetables. At around 6.30pm they take all of the limp, sad looking veg and reduce the prices quite substantially, so I always pop down there before making soup to stock up. Not only am I saving a huge amount of money, but I’m also saving some perfectly edible vegetables from going in the bin.
I like to keep my freezer stocked with portions that  I can take for lunch and use as ’emergency’ meals should we run out of food money for whatever reason, although this is rare as we’re quite good at budgeting our cash these days. Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to make a good, hearty soup:
1. You will need vegetables (really, any vegetables will do. Just bring what you like to the table and go from there!). I bought a red cabbage, leeks, 2x cauliflower, carrots and onions. My total bill for all of this was £2.08.
2. You’ll also need something you can use to make some stock. A large saucepan of soup will need about 1 litre (1.75 pints) of stock. I use Boullion powder with a large dollop of Marmite. I also add in some herbs or spices as required. For this soup I used cumin, as it compliments the cauliflower well.
3. Crumble a few stock cubes/pop 4 teaspoons of Boullion powder/pop a big dollop of Marmite into a jug. Personally, I use 3 heaped teaspoons of Boullion powder and a dollop of Marmite, but you can use all sorts of things to make stock. Do some experimenting and see what suits you best. Boil 1 litre of water.
4. Pour boiling water into jug up to 1 litre or so (it doesn’t have to be perfect, that’s the beauty of soup!). Mix everything together well until everything is completely dissolved.
5. Chop up your vegetables! The smaller you dice them, the quicker they’ll cook. Chunky veg is always good if you like a chunkier soup though, so it’s really up to you how you do this bit. In the picture you can see chopped leeks (top left), cauliflower leaves and red cabbage (top right), sliced carrots (bottom left) and chopped cauliflower hearts (bottom right). I waste as little as possible, so I always use the leaves, stalks and skins.
6. Chop an onion and fry it in the saucepan first.
7. Once cooked, add in handfuls of your chopped veg until the saucepan is nearly full. Remember to leave room for the stock and for moving about whilst cooking. What you add in is up to you. You could put in loads of carrots and only a little bit of everything else. Or you could use completely different vegetables altogether. Some of the yummiest soup can be made by just chucking a load of random veg in a pan!
8. Pour the stock over the top of the veg. It should just about cover it without overflowing the pan. If your saucepan is smaller then just don’t add all of the stock. If your saucepan is bigger then you may need to make up a little more.
9. Pop the lid on the saucepan and bring to the boil. Leave it to simmer for around 10 minutes (longer if your veg is chunkier). Once everything is cooked through turn off the heat and pop your stick blender in.
10. Activate the blender in short, sharp bursts. Move it around the pan but always ensure that the head is submerged before you start whizzing, or you’ll have vegetable soup flying all over the kitchen! Do this until you’ve reached a consistency you’re happy with. I prefer my soup somewhat smooth, but despite my best efforts there are usually one or two chunky bits left.
11. Serve up the soup straight away if you want to eat it hot. Otherwise, leave it to cool before decanting it into tubs and popping them in the freezer.
I made 3 saucepan’s worth of soup with my cheap vegetables and I managed to get 9 portions (1 portion eaten straight from the saucepan, 8 put in the freezer for later) out of them. The paler soup at the back on the right is some leftover chickpea soup I made a couple of weeks ago.
The vegetables cost a total of £2.08, which means that each portion of this soup costs about 23p. This doesn’t count the cost of the stock, but I have half a bag of carrots and most of the red cabbage left for another time so that makes up for it! These soups will keep me fed at lunchtimes for nearly two weeks.
If you don’t like the particular ingredients I’ve used here then don’t fret – there are plenty of different soup flavours you could try:
- Leek and potato
- Butternut Squash and pepper
- Aubergine and mushroom
- Carrot and coriander
- Sweet potato and onions
What are your favourite soup flavours? Do you cook soup differently from me?
Until tomorrow,
Coral xxx
P.S I apologise for the poor picture quality. My kitchen does not have a window and the lights are pretty bad too.
most good least harm 