Kitchen Garden Forum

We have had a few cauliflowers go to seed latley I normally pull them up and give them the chickens, last week the girl I share the chickens with asked for one said she would make soup with it, next day I was given a carton of the soup she had made it was better than good I was impressed, this week I bought one of the soup makers that seem to be the in thing at present, today I brought one of the failed cauliflowers home and had a go, ive made the deepest green water imaginable no tast or body at all the wife is still rolling around the floor laughing back to the drawing board

i use my pressure cooker to make soup. cauli soup is fairly simple.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cauliflowersoupwithc_90939

I've no idea how you ended up with green water though, that's a puzzler!

Hi Robo
The secret to a good soup is in the stock as you can see from the recipe and some lightly fried onion usually helps. I never bother with all this double cream but use a knob of butter instead. With these as your base you can make a soup out of almost anything and vary the proportions to suit your own tastes.

John

PS Homemade stock can be made easily and freezes well. Freeze in small blocks and these can then be added directly to your soup mix. Stock cubes are double yuk and will give your soup the same taste as the packet/tin stuff. A blitzer is very useful as well - blitz half of the mixture to keep the texture or the whole lot for a smooth soup.

This thing ive bought cooks and blitz it in one go, ive made loads of soup in the past and they are usually good, as there is only the wife and myself now I thought this gadjet would be handy I will try again over the weekend but it will probably be gazpacho

The green wasn't from cabbage white caterpillars was it!

Westi

That made me laugh westi, I dont think so although I did find 3 on some kale I cut at the weekend even though ive grown everything under netting, because the area around our allotment is wild we get more than our fair share of cabbage whites they come over in swarms some times you would think it was snowing

My OH is not a great soup eater, so I make myself a large pot of soup every weekend and have a mug of it for every lunch from Monday to Friday. Next week's soup was made today from the following: shallot and garlic, slightly softened in a dash of olive oil, then topped up with potatoes, a baby leek, a few cubes of courgette, a small kohlrabi, a 'sprig' of calabrese, a few dwarf beans, parsley, summer savory, thyme and oregano (all home grown) and then a bunch of bought watercress, seasoned and then blitzed with a hand-held mixer.

In winter I do the same but then it's usually root vegetables and also (bought) dried beans.

Because of my origins, my OH describes these cauldrons of soup as "central european summer/winter soup"!

I agree that a good home made stock makes all the difference to the flavour and texture of soup. If you have a good butcher who can let you have chicken carcasses or other bones , they are worth boiling up with some onions, peppercorns and chopped carrots or celery and water in a pressure cooker. I store the resulting liquid, which turns to jelly , in one pint plastic milk bottles in the freezer.

With rain stopping play today I decided to have another go with the soupmaker, I decided on a courghette and patatoe soup, put everthing in the maker topped up with stock then spent an hour and half trying to get it to work, put all the ingredients into a pan simmered for an hour while I parcelled the soupmaker up for a return, after around an hour turned the heat off let it cool then give it a go with the handblender stirred in quater of a pound of grated chedder then proceded to slop it down my shirt
ingredients
1kilo of courghettes
Half a kilo of patatoes
big onion
2 cloves of garlic crushed
a couple of mushrooms (they where lying on the shelf doing nothing)
enough stock to fill the pan so as it overflowes and gets the wife chirping
chedder cheese
black pepper
well worth doing
meanwhile ive orderd another soupmaker but a different make

How was the soup?

It was good

I love soup. I think it's the Irish in me.

It needs a few core ingredients - onions, butter, olive or rape seed oil, sherry, potatoes and good stock. Then the rest depends on what type of broth you're looking for - a creamy soup, a chunky one, meat or fish based soup, clear stock/Jewish chicken version or a substantial blended soup.

My favourites are mushroom and mustard, Cullen Skink, multi veg and beans, Chowder, lentil and lemon, cream of chicken, cauliflower and apple, leek and potato, curried parsnip and roasted butternut squash.

Hi Tigger,

It looks like you really do like soup

Arnie

I didn't think we were allowed to make soup until we light the first evening fire, I love soup and good bread but it's all a bit working class at a time I'm trying to impress a few that I made it.

Only joking, of course. Fact is, soup is a fantastic way of getting nutrients into your system without to much digestive energy.

In the olden days we lived on soup, we were healthier in those days regardless of TB and other stuff that's been largely dealt with.

Our basic soup is onion sautéed in olive oil then celery, leak and potato plus whatever might go with it.

I almost forgot to mention garlic, always masses of garlic.

Richard you might be very happy next year. There is a new strong garlic coming out ! I'll post you details!

Westi