Souper soup - Tomato and cannelini bean

Soup is a staple of my diet. M sometimes says it practically forms it's own food group. When I work from home it's nearly always my lunch, and I have a flask to take it to work when I'm training. Unless I'm poorly, I make all my soups from scratch. I don't usually blog the recipes, as in the main I don't use one, but it's come up on a couple of emails and comments that making your own seems a bit daunting or that cuppa soup was people's first Home Ec lesson.

Really? Who on God's earth planned that one? Lesson outcome: By the end of this session students will have boiled a kettle & safely added hot water to a packet soup.(!) Don't get me started - Mum, Mandy and I were having this discussion on Sunday - Mum's cookery at school was epic. Proper, old style learning to cook. Mandy describes her Home Ec classes as 'a catering course' and she covered some amazing skills. Mine started with apple crumble, and then we focussed on cakes for the first term, then did CDT, then textiles. And in the second year our Home Ec covered Child Development.

So as a starter in Souper soup... here are some things I think it's useful to know, and at the end a really yummy tomato and cannelini bean one.

Making soup is quick, easy and cheap. You can put in it exactly what you like to eat, use up those veggies languishing at the bottom of the salad tray or your leftover roast dinner, bulk it up with lentils or tins of beans... the possibilities are endless.

You don't have to make your own stock - cubes and bouillon powders are fantastic. My hero product would be Swiss Marigold bouillon (I use the reduced salt version) but I also happily use Knorr stock cubes. I do make my own chicken stock, but that's a personal preference and a way for me to eek out every last bit of value for money from a roast chicken - it's absolutely fine to use a stock cube or pot (I haven't tried the new stock pots but my Mum absolutely sings their praises!) Also, if you've got nothing in the cupboard - use water, it's by no means the end of the world. The only thing I do find with stock is just to taste the soup before I add salt as cubes can be a little salty for my taste buds.

You don't need any special equipment. A big pan - mine is an Ikea 365 pan - it was about £15 and I use it loads. A wooden spoon. A knife and chopping board. If you like your soup smooth, then a hand blender. For years I used a Tesco economy hand blender. It was £5 and never let me down, lasting for near on 10 years. If you like chunky soup, then you don't need a blender at all.

So - there's your need to know for soup. The first thing I do each week is open the fridge and look to see what veggies are hanging around. Inevitably at this time of year it's mainly root vegetables; carrots, swede, parsnips, sweet potatoes and then some butternut squash, the occasional leek, onion or a sad looking bit of celery all make appearances.

I will normally use a base of 2 sticks of celery, an onion and carrot to start off any soup. That said, it's not cast in stone... If I don't have celery I'll use a leek, if I don't have an onion I'll use a leek. Sometimes I just use an onion and carrot. It's all negotiable.

Then I have a look in the Pantry, red lentils, green lentils, tins of cannelini beans all bulk out those veggies.  And my stock options - bouillon, a cube, water or a quick dart over to the freezer for some chicken stock.

The recipe below is based on one I cut out from a magazine and then promptly found that I was missing some of the bits for.

Tomato and cannelini bean soup

Olive oil
2 celery sticks
2 cloves of garlic
1 red onion
1 tin of tomatoes 400g
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved (I had these in the fridge as they were reduced in the supermarket)
Splodge of tomato puree
1.5 litres of chicken/ vegetable stock (or water)
1 tin of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
Salt & pepper
Dried oregano

Chop the celery and onion as finely as you can, and put in the big pan with the olive oil, crush in the garlic. Cook these through until the onions start to go transparent and soft.
Add the tinned and halved cherry tomates, a splodge of puree and the dried orgeano
Add the stock, and cannelini beans
Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 45 minutes
Taste, and season as necessary
If you like smooth soup, blitz

Serve hot with bread and cheese for a fantastic lunch. I have a pinterest recipe for some cheesey pull apart bread that would be amazing with this. I'm going to try it tomorrow and will let you know.

For me this was storecupboard cooking as I had everything in the house - but I understand that if you don't have frozen bags of stock, or a packet of stock cubes around the house it's not a frugal dish in terms of initial outlay. If you're trying to cook more from scratch or try new things then it's definitely worth the investment.

Meal Planning Monday: April showers got me down

Well I think we can all agree that it's wet, windy and miserable out there. Anyone who has good weather? If you could please just not mention it, that would be great. 

So another week of work, blogging, baking, guiding, sleeping... and so it goes on. I feel a bit like I usually do in November; slightly devoid of any inspiration. This week will be a challenge on the meal planning front, I'm sure. 

You'll be pleased to hear that baby sourdough is proving ever so slowly in the kitchen at the moment. Not quite doubled in size, but hopefully the warmth of the kitchen will keep her going. 

The other baking I've done this evening (that I will blog this week) are some granola/ energy bars for M. He runs around like nobody's business on building sites and burns up more energy daily than I'm sure I do in a week. Hopefully these should give him some oomph at 3pm when he needs that kick to get through the rest of the afternoon. They're loosely based around something I saw on River Cottage the other week, and the flapjacks I used to back as a child. 

So, this week:

Breakfasts: Cereal and Toast for M. Fruit for me, hopefully moving to sourdough (if it ever proves that is) 

Lunch: I think I'll be making soup this week - the weather is just too foul to try and manage on salad or veg sticks. 

Dinners:

Monday: Fortunately we had roast chicken tonight so tomorrow will be leftover chicken, stuffing with veggies and a baked potato. 

Tuesday: Chicken and mushroom risotto (mental note to self: get chicken stock out of freezer) and then I'll make stock from this chicken

Wednesday: Possibly a butternut squash soup using the soup, and with the sourdough and some cheese. 

Thursday: Butternut squash, chorizo and cannellini bean chilli

Friday: Leftovers of the chilli - with cornbread (don't tell M but I'm going to introduce him to the wonders of Nigella's cornbread)

Now we've got no plans next weekend, except my Mum is coming to visit, so I think I'm going to do slow roast pork, but also a bit of batch cooking, maybe a lasagne, chilli and cottage pie (we just cleared M's freezer out, there was a lot of mince). Hopefully I'll have a better handle on the sourdough so will be able to bake for Saturday morning, which will mean we can have poached eggs on toast. 

Not a terribly exciting week I'm afraid, but it's just that kind of weather really - I feel like I should be in summer skirts skipping around, but I'm wrapped up in woolies and wellies. Sad times. 

However, make sure you pop over to At Home with Mrs M and see what everyone else is up to this week. 

Meal Planning Monday: a somewhat truncated week in the pantry

Hello. I've had a couple of weeks off meal planning as life has just been too hectic here at Pantry HQ. That's not to say that meal planning hasn't been taking place - it has to, in order for me to budget and shop, but it's had to be flexible as I'm still in the completely exhausted camp. Any suggestions for overcoming permanent and overwhelming tiredness are incredibly welcome.

This week and next week are somewhat short weeks in the Pantry due to my work schedule, once again I'll be at the mercy of Premier Inn and their fantastic breakfasts, yet somewhat dubious and bland dinner menus. That said, the steak was lovely last time but I'll start mooing if I eat steak every night!

Monday: Chorizo, Butternut Squash and Cannelini bean chilli (possibly with cornbread depending on when I get in tomorrow)

Tuesday: Probably leftovers, although if not it'll be freezer surprise.

Wednesday - Thursday I'll be working away

Friday: I have a packet of lovely local bacon to use, so possibly Nigella's carbonara

Saturday: I'm not sure what we have planned this weekend so possibly a casserole of some description and on Sunday I've promised Mark the roast he missed out on tonight.

So that's us, hopefully the freezer surprise, and using up what's in the fridge and pantry will keep costs down, as well as make life a bit easier for me. Be sure to head on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what she and everyone else is up to.

Those you've known, and lost still walk behind you

A post brought to you by sadness I'm afraid. But I guess it's better than no post at all which is all I've managed of late. Sorry about that. Shocking I know. But life, well just gets in the way sometimes.

So, last weekend I lost my Grandpa, which was a bit of a shock to the system, not least as it went hand-in-hand with a rejection for a job that I'm more than qualified to do (and that internal politics seemed to have more than a slight hand in the outcome of) Despite being knocked sideways by the joint devastation, over the week I've tried (and just about managed) to pull myself together, or at least together enough so that no one notices the cracks.

Anyway, some cathartic batch cooking was in order, as for some reason, bread products and chicken stock seem to make up most of my freezer at the moment, and I seem to be largely surviving on hot cross buns (Morrison's own brand, not so hot - to0 little spicing, and no sweetness despite a lot of fruit, and believe me if I want hot cross buns without sugar, I can make my own!)

The first dish to be tackled is Waitrose's Chorizo, Bean, Pepper and Butternut squash chilli. Catchy title Waitrose. It's easy enough to make, a one pot meal, and freezes up beautifully.

Serves: 4

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
225g Spanish chorizo (from the deli counter), peeled and diced
1 large red chilli, chopped
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp dark brown muscovado sugar
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped
1 butternut squash or pumpkin, about 500g peeled weight, deseeded and cut into 3-4cm dice
410g can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
20g pack fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Method
1.Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion and garlic for 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the chorizo and red chilli, and cook for a further minute until the chorizo releases its red juices.
2.Add the tomatoes, sugar, pepper and 150ml cold water. Cover and simmer gently for 10 minutes.
3.Stir in the squash, cover and simmer for a further 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the squash is tender. Finally, add the cannellini beans, simmer for 5 minutes and stir in the parsley. Serve immediately

My notes:

I omit the sugar, and have no parsley today. The dish is plenty sweet enough from the squash, tomatoes and pepper and won't suffer from the lack of parsley.

I find the chorizo and chilli give it a good heat, so serve with yoghurt, soured cream or cheese to mellow that out.

Don't forget to peel the chorizo.

Also, I find that these easily stretches to 6 servings without stinting.

It freezes up beautifully aswell, I just take it out either the night before or the morning I want it for dinner, leave it on the side and it's easy enough to heat it through on the hob.

Next to be tackled is an Atul Kochher Malay lamb curry from Saturday Kitchen (yes, I still nurse a prolific crush on James Martin. Still being since University when he lived down the road from me.)

The title of this post is brought to you courtesy of Spring Awakening. Well I'm feeling sad, what else am I going to be listening to? And which was also what I quoted when I wrote to my Grandpa after my Nanny died. I guess I know that they have found each other now.