Its cold, its dark, the supermarkets are panic-buy bare. Lets swap soup recipes. If you like a recipe you read then add a recipe you like. And say why its nice.

Carluccio’s Pasta e Fagioli

Had this is Carluccio’s in Glasgow, but then found the recipe online and theres so much less to it than eating it would make you think. It has a very meaty, brothy taste but its totally veg, vegan even. Its pretty much all store cupboard stuff too

Chop and onion or two and fry gently in olive oil for a while while you…

chop some rosemary, a bit for fresh chilli (enough for a nip, not too much) and a few leaves of fresh basil.

Then open a can of borlotti beans – pour half the can into a blender / food processor and blitz (or mash with a fork).

put these and the un-blitzed beans, and the herbs and a squirt of tomato puree and a litre of veg or chicken stock in with the onions and bring to the boil

add about 1/4 a packet of small chunky pasta shapes of some sort.

Simmer for 8 mins

the turn off the heat and leave on the hob with the lid on for half an hour

Serve. In the restaurant they added a sprinkling of ham hock (I think), you wouldn’t miss it though.

So. dip yer bread in the STW Soupy Swap Shop

Put the following in a muslin square;
Cardamon pods
Peppercorns
Cinnamon sticks
Sliced garlic
Bay leaves
Couple of cloves

Tie it up and put in to a large pan. Pour over two tins of good quality tomatoes and a chopped onion. Add half a pint of water, and a good veg stock. Bring to boil, simmer for half an hour. Remove the bag, squeeze out the juices in to the mixture.

Remove from the pan, in to a blender. Zap it smooooove. While doing so, melt a knob (hur hur) of butter in the pan, and stir in a little curry powder. Pour it all back in, along with a few bricks of frozen spinach. If required, add a tad of single cream before serving.

Top nommage.

Spicy squash soup ftw.
Butternut squash cubed
Onion diced
Carrot diced
Celery diced
Red chilli diced
Bunch of sage
Decent stock – vegetable or chicken is fine
Cream
Stale or sour dough bread
Butter
Parmesan or some other hard cheese
1. Bit of olive oil in your pan, get it hot and put in around 6 sage leaves. Leave them in for about a minute til they go very dark green and start crisping. Take the leaves out and put them on a bit of kitchen roll.
2. Put the celery, onion & carrot into the sage oil and fry til softened NOT browned.
3. Add chilli and squash. Cook for a couple of minutes.
4. Add stock. Did I mention it should be the best you can find?
5. Simmer the lot for half an hour or so.
6. Get your blender/masher out! Blend the lot into a smooth consistency. Add freshly ground salt, pepper and a swirl of cream to taste. Add the toasted sage leaves to the top.
Serve with thick slices of toasted bread & butter and handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan.

flashy (and Yoss), you’ve missed the lamb off your list 🙄

Honey Roast Veg Soup.

I did this with some Christmas leftovers and it was lovely.

Roast some veg in the oven, carrots, potato, parsnip, onion etc. While roasting, drizzle lots of honey over the veg.

Transfer to a pan, add veg stock, allow to cool then blend.

Edit – add lamb if you want.

We get veg delivered every Tuesday so anything that’s left on a Monday night I just blitz up into a soup. Red cabbage and beetroot was interesting…

Love these soup/recipe threads. I unfortunately get pretty much all my soup recipes from STW so have nothing original to contribute!

Love these soup/recipe threads. I unfortunately get pretty much all my soup recipes from STW so have nothing original to contribute!

The 8th rule of soup club is – you have to soup

Soup!
Soup!
Soup!
Soup!
Soup!
Soup!
Soup!
Soup!

(The 9th rule is if you made the soup you don’t have to wash up)

I generally make chicken soup but after christmas I made turkey.

This assumes you have leftover chicken/turkey from Sunday lunch

1 Make stock from the carcass. Just boil it up with an onion and a carrot and simmer for a few hours. Strain and leave in fridge to set (this makes removing any fat easy)

2 Fry some chopped bacon until crisp. Add the chopped chicken meat. Cook for a few mins then add chopped onion and cook until soft. I sometimes chuck in some chorizo at this point (most dishes are better with chorizo). Add some herbs. Also cumin is good.

3 Add whatever finely chopped veg you want. I generally go for carrot, potato, celeriac and celery. Sweat down a bit.

4. Add some dried beans (or use pre-cooked if your in a rush). I generally go for cannellini.

5. Add the stock and sufficient water to cover. Bring to boil and simmer for a hour or so. Slow gentle cooking is the key.

6. When the beans are soft, puree a few ladles full of the soup and mix back in.

7 Add salt and pepper at the end or the beans will never cook.

Buy Heinz can of tomato soup.
Open.
Empty into saucepan.
Heat up.
Serve with nice bread.

Eh Wallaaa!

I don’t have the recipe to hand but Jamie Oliver’s Christmas turkey chowder is worth seeking out. Basically all your Christmas dinner left covers, sweet corn, some chilli peppers, stock, boiled up and then blitzed as far as you like (we like ours quite chunky)

Nomnomnom……

I read somewhere that tinned soup makes you prematurely grey.

Thread favourited.

I had an attempt at recreating Baxter’s spicy tomato, sweetcorn and rice soup the other day. Happy with the result but it’s all scribbled in pencil so I need to type it up.

In the meantime, I’ll give you my all time favouritest soup recipe.

Cougar’s Thai Chickenless Noodle Soup.

(Serves two hungry people)

Ingredients

75g creamed coconut
1L veggie stock (5x green OXO cubes or equivalent)
1tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
175g Quorn sweet chilli strips
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp hot chilli powder
30ml (1 tbsp rounded) crunchy peanut butter
30ml (2 tbsp) fresh / 15ml (1tbsp) bottled lemon juice
60g fine egg noodles, broken into ~6cm lengths.
1tsp dried / 1tbsp fresh coriander
1tbsp spring onions, chopped
Black pepper

Garnish
Desiccated coconut
Dried chilli flakes

Method

Dissolve the creamed coconut and peanut butter into the hot stock. Thoroughly mix so that there’s no clumps. This takes a while.

Meanwhile, fry the chopped garlic in the oil for a couple of minutes, in a large soup pan on a medium heat. When the garlic starts to brown, add the Quorn strips, turmeric and chilli powder. Fry for five minutes, stirring constantly to prevent the Quorn from sticking.

Add the stock / coconut mix to the pan, stir and then add the lemon juice and noodles. Partially cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the coriander, spring onions and a few twists of black pepper, and allow to simmer for another five minutes.

Whilst the soup is finishing cooking, make the garnish. Fry a spoonful of desiccated coconut together with a sprinkling of chilli flakes in a dry frying pan, stirring constantly until the coconut turns brown but not burned.

Decant the soup into bowls, and sprinkle with a little of the garnish. Serve with the rest of the garnish separate to allow seasoning to taste; chilli flakes are hot.

(For a carnivorous version, substitute the Quorn for cooked chicken pieces.)