This soup is a winter staple in our house. I make a big pot of it on the woodburner every week or two, enough for the two of us for two or three meals. It is tasty, economical, nutritious and energy efficient to prepare (depending on how you cook it!). It is also very versatile and can be changed up in a number of ways.
The basic soup
I usually make it in our 3.5 or 4.0 litre pot, first putting in a tablespoon or so of butter and then frying of a medium to large diced onion, with or without a bit of garlic, until it becomes translucent.
I then add in the fluid, about 1.5 litres of stock which is composed of water flavoured with our vego ’chicken’ stock powder, and bring it to the boil while adding in the other veg.
The ‘other veg’ can be any combination of potato, carrot, choko, Jerusalem artichoke, beans, peas, broccoli, carrot, sweet potato, celery, corn kernels or cauliflower, all depending on the time of year we are cooking it, what we have in the garden and what other stuff we have on hand. I just dice the veg up into 1 cm – 2cm cubes, obviously peas and corn kernels go in as they are! We will also add some pearl barley from the pantry on occasion to add variety.
We do not put much in the way of extra flavourings in as we like the flavour just as it is with the stock and the veg, maybe just a bay leaf or two and perhaps some mixed herbs.
Once everything is in the pot it is just a case of simmering it for 30min – 45min or until the veg is tender. Then go for it!
Additives
To change things up when eating the soup for the second or third time around, we can throw in various additives –
Cornflour – if the soup was served ‘au naturale’ originally, thickening it up gives a different texture and experience when eating it the second time around.
Red Kidney Beans – we keep serves of cooked red kidney bean in the freezer ready to go and they will add extra protein and flavour, but you could just as easily throw in a tin of red kidney beans, chickpeas, black beans or whatever takes your fancy.
Pasta – adding in some pasta on the second cook will not only add new texture and flavour, but thicken the soup as well without the need to add cornflour.
Tomato paste or tomato pasta sauce – either opened specifically or if perhaps not the whole jar was used for a previous meal, tomato leftovers can be added on the second cook (or the first!) to supercharge the flavours.
Cooking
While, for the most part, we use the wood burning heater to cook up our winter soup, it would be just as easy to use a rocket stove if you’ve got one. This recipe also lends itself very well to cooking in the stored heat style of cooker, thus saving energy as well.
