A Wonderful Winter Warmer!

It's a truth that cannot be denied... I am a Winter person! Now, I can hear many of you poo pooing the idea... (What? Of course I can say that. It's a real saying and nothing to do with something yucky and deeply personal... go back to your martini and be quiet)... where was I? Oh yes, with many of you not agreeing with me. You see, I don't like being too hot and after all, even if you're starkers, you can still be totally too hot! Not. That. I. Will. Be. Getting. Starkers. I'm sure that some well-meaning nature types may try to protect the rare albino specimen that will be my untanned self!! But enough about that. Basically, in Winter, you can always grab a warmer jumper (sweater) or sit next to a roaring fire and then there's all the yummy food and drink... like hot chocolate and mulled wine - that got the Other One's attention! Even with rain or snow, it's a far more personally comfortable time of year, but that's just me. If you're a Summer person, you'll have a whole slew of reasons why that is and that is good too. For the record... I like ice-cream in Winter 'cos it doesn't melt so fast :-)

Anyway, this wasn't just an opportunity for me to tell you dodgy personal things or my theories on weather, but actually about food. In particular, a particularly good Winter Warmer that you'll always find in our home throughout the season. Hearty Vegetable Soup! Now... there are some cooking shows that will claim that you can make this by using up whatever is in the crisper of your fridge, but I can tell you for free that I wouldn't recommend trying it with the contents of MY crisper (chocolate, garlic butter and an ostrich egg. It's a long story. No. I said no.). To be honest, I use up my veg for my meals or I freeze the extras, but if you're the kind of person (yes YOU Miss Twinset... I've seen your OCD fridge!) that regularly has these things in your fridge, you'll save yourself the step of going out to buy the ingredients (or defrosting them). For the rest of us and in particular, the Other One, we'll need to go and buy the ingredients. Now, as you can see, they don't look like much, but for those of you who know the story of "stone soup", you'll know that you can make a lot with very little. In particular, we're going to make a delicious and nutritious meal out of just the simple ingredients you see above. Yes, you could use celery instead of the celery leaves, but it's all the same in the end.

What you need to do is peel and chop all the veggies to about the same size. I'm not suggesting that you measure them and draw attention to the under-achieving bits, but as long as they're roughly the same size then it'll all cook at the same speed. Heat up a little oil in a large pot and start by frying the onion. How large? Well, my darling Miss T, that depends on how much soup you intend to make... I use a 5litre pot and make about half. Now, back to the onions. You want them to be "sweated down", but as my Dad often says... if it's brown it's ok, if it's black ... it's buggered! So preferably, before they get brown and definitely before they go black! When the onions are ready, add the carrots, potato, turnip etc and fry them up for a bit. Add the tomato towards the end of your frying period and don't worry if the veg are still crunchy. After all, it's a soup and you're going to be cooking it a bit to get all the flavour to mature (and to give the veg time to soften lol).

Now at this point, it's important for me to make sure that the Other One doesn't chuck a quart of vodka into the pot. I know that many soups and stews incorporate alcohol and I have every intention of trying a few this season, but vodka is NOT an ingredient in my veg soup... although I'm touched that she was willing to sacrifice some of her stock for my meal :-) Anyway. While the veggies have been frying, you need to prepare your stock. You can use fresh or powdered - whatever you prefer. In fact, you can choose beef stock or chicken stock or vegetable stock according to your personal taste. I use a veg stock cube infused with olive oil and black pepper and mix (roughly) as per directions. Pour this into the pot and add tomato paste which will enhance the taste and give it a great colour, along with fresh cracked black pepper, seasoned sea salt, garlic salt and any other herbs or spices that you'd like to add. Just remember that the flavour will mature as all the ingredients cook up, so don't over spice at the beginning of the cooking process! The final touch is to add the celery leaves (unless you used celery, in which case it's already in) and an ingredient that has recently been introduced to the recipe... corn! You can either cut corn off of a fresh cob or you can do like I do and buy a tin of fresh corn and chuck it in! Less clean up :-)

It's important to taste the soup regularly and add more salt or pepper if necessary and equally important to remember not to leave the soup to boil for too long. You bring it all to the boil and then turn the temperature down low and let it simmer gently for a few hours until the veg is soft and the soup is just right. You may ask what you can do while you're waiting for the soup to cook... well, with the Tipsy Tarts around, this is never a question I have to ask and I can almost guarantee it's going to involve alcohol in some form or other. In Winter, a great red wine is never far from Miss Twinset's hands, although she likes to indulge in a warming sherry (or 10). The Other One swears by her spirits (and not the ones that go bump in the night), but she's intrigued by other options like Gluhwein or Irish coffee and the only way to get her to be quiet was to promise to try them with her... so keep a look out!

Ok, so when you've staggered from the drinking side of the kitchen back to the stove and discovered that the soup is ready, dish yourself a large bowl full, grab some home-made seed loaf and curl up next to a roaring fire. Enjoy a little Winter Warming!

Until next time....