Sprout & Almond Soup

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. After all the rich festive food I always crave a few days of simple, lighter meals. Soup fits the bill perfectly. It’s warming, comforting and in this case, packed full of veggies.

Sprouts have a bad reputation, but I personally love them. I think they only taste bad when they have been overcooked and start of give off the musty damp smell of old socks. Anything that smells of stinky socks and is graying in colour is never going to taste good. Cooked so they are only just soft and still green in colour they are delicious. I even love them cold, yes I know people are probably reeling back in horror now, but trust me, try them sliced and eaten with some warm crusty bread with houmous, or in a cheese and mustardy sandwich and they’re delicious!

As I went home to my parents for Christmas when I returned to my flat I was sadly sproutless. A quick visit to the shops to stock up on supplies and I came away with a huge bag of sprouts that had been reduced to 30p. There was no way I could eat through such a big bag myself so sprout soup it was to be. I know some people are already turning their noses up in disgust, but if I’d said leek soup or even broccoli or spinach, no one would have batted an eyelid. This is not just a sprout soup, it is a sprout and almond soup. The nuts added the same creamy nuttiness that chestnuts do and sprouts and chestnuts are often a classic (and much loved) Christmas side dish.

In this case the almonds come in the form of almond milk, added just before blitzing and also from a splash of almond liqueur. The alcohol itself gets burnt off during simmering, but the flavour remains and it just gives it that little something extra. I’ve seen Brandy used in soups before, so I decided to try Amaretto for an almondy touch and I loved the results.

If you have lots of leftover sprouts, or someone who insists they ‘hate’ sprouts, give them a bowl of this soup and I bet it will change their minds. Just don’t add carrots to the mix, orange carrots and green sprouts = murky brown soup and murky brown sprout soup is never going to convince anyone!

If you’re not much of a soup eater use them in place of cabbage to make bubble & squeak or how about trying some creamy blue cheese & sprout pasta that I made last year?

Sprout & Almond Soup

Ingredients

600g sprouts

3 medium or 2 large potatoes

1 red onion

25g butter

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp ground coriander

1½ tsp dried thyme

1 litre vegetable stock

250ml almond milk (or regular milk)

1 tbsp Amaretto (optional)

To Serve

Chopped almonds

Double cream, crème fraiche or yoghurt

Bread for dipping

Method

Heat the oil and butter together in a large saucepan until the butter is melted, then turn to a low heat.

Peel and roughly dice the potatoes and red onion. Add to the pan, stir briefly and then place the lid on the pan and leave them to sweat for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove any dirty of damaged outer leaves from the sprouts, but don’t be too fastidious as the more you remove the less you add to the soup. Cut the sprouts in half from root to top.

Stir the potato and onion mixture in the pan and add the sprouts, don’t worry if a bit of the veg has stuck to the base of the pan, this adds flavour later. Add the herbs; replace the lid and leave to sweat for 3-4 minutes longer.

Add the vegetable stock and Amaretto if using. Bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce to a simmer, replace the lid and leave to bubble away for 15 minutes.

Remove the lid and stir the soup mix well, scraping any stuck on bits from the base of the pan. Test a potato chunk for tenderness. If it is soft, then remove the pan from the heat. If not, then leave to simmer for 2-3 minutes longer.

Once the veg is soft, stir in the almond milk (or regular milk) and blitz until smooth using a liquidizer or hand blender.

Serve the soup in bowls topped with a swirl of cream and a sprinkling of chopped almonds.

Makes approximately 6 servings

Spicy Sweetcorn Soup

Autumn has definitely arrived. The leaves are turning red and golden, falling from the trees to be crunched underfoot. The nights are drawing in and the weather is turning cold and blustery. This weekend (so far) it has rained constantly and an icy wind is whistling past my windows. In weather like this it is the perfect time to stay snugly indoors and lock yourself away in the kitchen. I normally resort to baking but in such wet and windy weather I was craving a big bowlful of soup. There is no other food that is so comforting and warming on a cold day than soup. It seems to warm you from the inside out.

Root vegetable soups are one of my favourites, but it’s not quite cold enough yet for parsnips and other winter veg, so I decided to make use of a big bag of frozen sweetcorn and make sweetcorn soup. I’ve seen this on a few blogs in the past but ever attempted one myself. To give my soup an extra warming kick I spiced it up with a couple of green chillies, which lent a slow warming heat that lingered pleasantly rather than being a fiery heat.

I like my soups to be thick and smooth, but I also wanted a little texture and hit upon the idea of reserving some of the sweetcorn, chilli and red pepper to use as a topping. I fried it until it became toasted and bronzed and sprinkled it on the soup when serving. This worked well and I loved the look of the red, green and yellow colours together.

The soup was thick, creamy and comforting. The sweetcorn added a wonderful natural sweetness, while still being savoury. It’s so creamy you would almost suspect it had some cream stirred in at the end. Why not hug a big bowlful of this and snuggle up on the sofa for a lazy weekend? There are some perks to the rain.

Spicy Sweetcorn Soup

Ingredients

1 tbsp, plus 1 tsp oil

1 large onion

1 clove garlic

1 small potato

2 green chillies

1 red pepper

1½ pints vegetable stock

600g frozen sweetcorn

Salt and pepper

Method

Start by reserving ½ green chilli, ¼ red pepper and 100g sweetcorn and set aside for toppings later.

Heat the 1 tbsp oil in a large pan. Peel and roughly chop the onion and garlic and add to the pan. Place the lid on and leave to sweat gently for a few minutes.

Peel and dice the potato. Cut the remaining 1½ green chillies into chunks (you can remove the seeds or leave them in for an extra kick). Add to the pan, stirring to ensure nothing is sticking to the base and cover with the lid once more.

Roughly chop the remaining ¾ red pepper and add to the pan and leave everything to cook for 10 minutes.

Stir in the vegetable stock and bring to the boil, before reducing to a simmer and then leaving to cook for 15-20 minutes, with the lid only slightly on the pan, until all the veg is softened.

Stir in the remaining 500g of sweetcorn and leave to cook for 5 minutes more.

Remove from the heat and blitz with a hand blender or in a liquidizer until smooth.

Return the soup to the pan over a low heat to keep warm while you make the topping.

Very finely dice the reserved green chilli and red pepper. Heat 1 tsp oil in a saucepan and add the chilli, red pepper and reserved 100g sweetcorn. Fry over a high heat until the sweetcorn is lightly bronzed and going golden at the edges. Season with salt and pepper.

Ladle the soup into warm bowls and top each bowl with 1-2 tbsp of the toasted sweetcorn mix. Eat and enjoy.

Serves 4 generously

Butternut Squash & Ginger Soup

What a week it’s been, so busy and the next couple of weeks don’t look like being any different. The weather has also been pretty miserable, damp, windy and cold. Parts of the UK even had snow early this week – snow! It’s May for goodness sake!!

Hard work and cold weather make me crave warm comforting foods, rice puddings, stews and soups. Feeling a little careworn I decided to make soup to give my body an extra wholesome boost. I love making soup, I find the process almost as therapeutic and comforting as eating the soup itself. There is something calming about a gently simmering pan of savoury veg.

 

Having recently bought a large butternut squash I decided to use this as the base of the soup, replacing the usual potato as the starchy thickener. This not only gave the soup a wonderfully rich orange hue, but also an incredible smoothness and natural sweetness.

 

I considered adding some chili to the soup to make it extra warming, but decided instead to use the fresher warming kick of fresh ginger. I’ve never used fresh ginger in a soup before but the results were lovely. The ginger wasn’t immediately apparent, but it left a lingering tongue tingle and aromatic freshness after each spoonful.

 

I topped my soup with a swirl of buttermilk and used some crunchy roasted spiced chickpeas in place of croutons. They added a lovely contrast to the soup, much better than a bit of soggy bread. Wholesome, healthy and spirit lifting. A delicious soup for the soul.

Butternut Squash & Ginger Soup

Ingredients

1 large onion

2 cloves garlic

2 carrots

400g butternut squash

1 inch piece of fresh ginger

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Small knob of butter

2 pints vegetable stock (check any stock or stock cubes are gluten free)

½ tsp dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Method 

Peel the onion, carrots and garlic cloves. Roughly chop the onion into chunks, it doesn’t need to be that neat as you blitz everything later.

Heat a large saucepan with the oil and butter and add the onion. Stir, put the lid on the pan and leave to sweat.

Chop the carrot and butternut squash (leave the skin on) into chunks and stir into the onion and replace the lid again.

Finely chop the garlic and fresh ginger. Stir into the veg along with the thyme and replace the lid again. Leave to cook for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare you stock, ideally you want it hot so it doesn’t destroy the heat in the pan.

Once the veg is starting to soften and take on a bit of colour, pour over the vegetable stock, stir well and replace the lid, this time ajar so some of the steam can escape. Bring the mix to a boil then reduce it to a simmer and leave to cook for 25-30 minutes.

Check the butternut squash and carrots are cooked by fishing a bit out with a spoon and tasting it. If it is, remove the soup from the heat, if not, leave to cook for a further 5 minutes before testing again.

Ladle the soup into a liquidizer and blitz until smooth, you may need to do this in batches. Alternatively, use a hand blender to blitz it straight in the pan.

Return the soup to the pan and warm through if needed. Taste and add extra salt and pepper if desired.

Serve in warmed bowl and top with a swirl of buttermilk or cream. Add a few croutons or gluten free alternative. (I used roasted spiced chickpeas for a nice contrasting crunch)

Serves 4-6 depending if served as a starter or main

Carrot & Tomato Soup

As the days are getting wetter, colder and darker it’s time for warm and wintery soups to make an appearance. At the weekend I bought a huge bag of carrots on offer and knew they were destined for soup. Lentil soup is one of my favourites and I was sure I had a tin of lentils in my cupboard so planned on making carrot and lentil soup. On returning home I discovered the tin was actually a tin of chopped tomatoes. Darn.

Carrot and tomato soup still sounded wonderfully appealing and so I carried on regardless. To compliment the tomato element I added some oregano and paprika and a little cumin to add a warming note.

The finished soup was lovely. I left it slightly coarse rather than super smooth, as I like the texture this gives for eating it as a meal. Perfect for mopping up with a bit of gluten free bread.

At the last minute I added just a smidge of balsamic vinegar and it really lifted and enriched the flavour of the tomatoes.

I live on top of a hill in Sheffield, meaning it’s quite open and exposed. I often get a bit battered by the wind and rain and in these situations a big steaming bowl of soup is just what’s needed. With winter starting to draw in, there will be lots more soup on the horizon I think!

Carrot & Tomato Soup

Ingredients

1 onion

1 large potato

5 carrots

1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp olive oil

1½ pints of vegetable stock

2 tsp dried oregano

½ tsp ground cumin

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tbsp tomato puree (or ketchup)

½ tsp balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

Method

Peel and roughly chop the onion. Also dice the carrots and potato, although you don’t need to peel them.

Heat the oil and add the vegetables, stir to coat them in the oil and then place the lid on and allow the veg to sweat in the steam they produce.

Cook for 15 minutes, stirring every so often to prevent the veg from burning.

Add the herbs, spices, water/veg stock, tomato puree, the tin of chopped tomatoes and a little salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a simmer and place the lid partially back on, to allow the steam to escape. Simmer for 30 minutes until the veg is soft and tender.

Remove from the heat and blitz in a liquidizer or using a stick blender. You can make it as smooth or as chunky as you like. Season to taste.

Stir through the balsamic vinegar and serve with bread for dipping.

Serves 4-6

Butternut Squash & Red Lentil Soup

Winter certainly seems to be closing in. It’s not been overly cold, but the days have been dark, damp and dreamy. Filled with three endless days of mist and drizzle that seems to seep into your clothes and skin making you feel cold and miserable. On waking up to yet another day of swirling mist I decided there was only one thing for it – a nice big bowl of steaming hot soup!

Ahh soup. Is there anything more warming and satisfying on a cold dreary day than a bowl/mug/ladle/bucket full of piping hot soup?! It seems to warm you up from the inside out, from the tips of your fingers down to your very soul. Ideally it must be thick soup too, rich and satisfying, not those horrible watery packet mixes. But a soup packed full of winter veg and goodness.

One of my favourite soups is red lentil soup. It’s thick and creamy with a bit of texture and bite from the lentils. Lentils, being rich in protein and fibre also help transform the soup into a filling meal that keeps the winter chills away.

I had a hunt through my fridge and basically comprised the soup from whatever I had to hand or that needed using up. That’s one of the perks of soup, it can transform even the most tired or gnarled shaped vegetables into something delicious. This time the main flavour component of my soup was a whole baby butternut squash. I simply scooped out the seeds and membrane from the middle and diced it up, leaving the skin on. As it all gets blitzed into a puree you can’t detect the skin so it’s not worth the hassle. Plus, there’s a lot of extra goodness hidden in those skins, the same applies to the parsnip, although I would recommend peeling the papery skin off the garlic.

The vegetable base is cooked and pureed first, before the lentils are added and cooked in the soup for a further few minutes. This means they add texture while being suspended in a creamy velvety smooth soup. The soup base looks a little thin when puréed, but once the lentils are added, they swell up, absorbing some of the liquid and releasing their starch, creating one glorious thick and satisfying soup.

Creamy, comforting and warming to the soul. There’s nothing better on a day like today.

Butternut Squash & Red Lentil Soup

Ingredients

1 onion

4 spring onions

1 parsnip, skin left on

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small butternut squash, 600-700g whole

2 sticks celery

3 sprigs fresh thyme

3 pints vegetable stock, hot

150g red lentils

1 tsp salt

Freshly ground pepper

Method

Chop the onion, spring onion, parsnip, celery and butternut squash into a chunky dice. You can leave the skin on the parsnip and butternut squash, although remove the seeds and membrane from the centre of the squash.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan pan, add the veg and the thyme and stir together. Place the lid on the saucepan and allow the veg to cook over a low heat for 15 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the edges of the veg is starting to take on a little colour.

Roughly chop the garlic, add to the pan and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Pour over the vegetable stock, stirring right to the bottom to ensure you get up any stuck on bits. Replace the lid and allow to simmer for 20-25 minutes until all the veg is soft and tender.

Remove from the heat and puree the soup in a liquidizer until smooth. It should be quite runny/thin at this stage.

Return the soup to the pan and add the salt and pepper to taste. Pour in the red lentils, turn the heat to low and bring the mixture to a gentle bubble. Stir constantly for the first few minutes to prevent the lentils from sinking to the bottom of the pan and sticking.

Half cover the pan with the lid and allow to bubble gently for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are cooked. Stir every 5 minutes to prevent the lentils from clumping together. The soup will thicken up considerably as the lentils cook and swell.

Once the lentils are tender, remove from the heat and serve steaming hot.

Serves 6

Pea Pod & Mint Soup. Plus a visit from the Fairy Hobmother!

The humble pea is one of my favourite vegetables. There is just something irresistible about its vibrant green colour and sweet flavour. I love how each tiny pea is encased in its own outer jacket, each one a mini vegetable in its own right. A bag of frozen peas is one of my staple freezer ingredients. There is nothing wrong with frozen peas, if fact in most cases they are actually tastier and more nutritious this way than fresh, as peas very quickly loose all sweetness and nutritional quality from the minute they are picked. Frozen peas are usually picked and frozen within 4 hours, meaning you get them almost as fresh as can be. Packets of so called ‘fresh peas’ in supermarkets have probably been sitting around for at least 4-5 days, meaning those once sweet peas will be hard cardboard bullets by the time you eat them.

However, if you can get your hands on some fresh peas, home grown, picked and eaten within a few hours, they are sublime! I am fortunate enough to know someone who has a farm growing veg and last weekend she was selling bags of freshly picked peas – still in their pods – at a farmers market. I snapped a bag up instantly and sat their happily devouring the peas like sweeties. Gently popping open the pods and scooping up the delicate row of peas inside. So sweet and tender.

After munching all the peas I was left with quite a pile of empty pea pods. I hate throwing anything away and so tried eating one – not really a good idea – very tough and stringy and it didn’t beak down no matter how long I chewed. Despite its unappetising texture, it contained a wonderful pea flavour and so I decided to try and turn them into soup.

Lightly cooked with simply an onion, a potato and some pea loving mint my soupy broth mixture was ready in a matter of minutes. After blitzing I sieved the soup which removed all the tough fibres from the pea pods and resulted in a rich velvety soup with a thick creamy texture.

The taste was amazing. Pure essence of pea and so fresh and summery. The mint wasn’t overpowering and gave just a slight lingering aftertaste which complemented the pea. I loved its beautiful pea green colour and pure pea aroma.

Amazing to thick I got such a pea packed soup for practically nothing as the main ingredients are water and empty pods which I’d normally discard. So remember, after munching those fresh peas – don’t throw the pods away, make pea pod soup!

Pea Pod & Mint Soup

Ingredients
500g empty pea pods – eat the peas first!
1¾ pints hot water
1 large onion
1 large or 2 small potatoes
15 leaves of fresh mint
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method
Peel and roughly chop the onion. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion, stir and then place the lid on to allow the onion to sweat and soften gently.
Meanwhile, dice the potato (no need to peel) and roughly chop the garlic.
Once the onion has started to soften, add the potato and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes more.
Boil the kettle and measure out the water. Add the mint leaves and pea pods (no need to chop) to the pan and stir briefly.
Pour over the water, add some freshly ground salt and pepper and bring the mixture to the boil. Then reduce to a simmer, place the lid on with just a small gap to allow some steam to escape and allow to bubble for 15-20 minutes.
Check that the potatoes are cooked by sticking the tip of a sharp knife into them. If they are then remove the pan from the heat, if not then allow to cook for 3-4 minutes longer.
Once ready, blitz the soup in a liquidiser until restively smooth. Best to do this in batches. Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a large clean bowl or pan. Use the back of a spoon to help work the soup through the sieve, leaving behind all the stringy pith from the pea pods.
You should end up with a bright green and velvety smooth soup.
Taste and add more seasoning if required.
Serves 3-4

After leaving a comment on Cherrapeno’s blog stating my dream kitchen gadget (an automatic ice cream maker – the kind you don’t need to pre-freeze) I was lucky enough to be visited by the Fairy Hobmother, in the form of Ian from Appliances Online

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to give me the ice cream maker (unsurprisingly considering they cost £200+) but I was gifted a £25 Amazon gift card to put towards my ice cream fund – yay!

To be in with a chance of a visit from the Fairy Hobmother yourself, simply leave a comment on this post, stating your dream kitchen gadget, before June 5th and who knows he may be visiting you too!

Red Pepper Pumpkin Soup

I love pumpkin and all the different shapes, sizes and colours they can come in. When I recently spied an unusual looking bright yellow skinned pumpkin at a farmers market, I was quick to snap it up. Upon slicing into it I was disappointed to find a very pale flesh that was rather watery. It smelt and looked very much like melon but I decided not to judge it too harshly and roasted some in the oven to taste. This improved the flavour and texture but it was still rather watery rather than being rich and fluffy. I knew instantly what this particular pumpkin was destined for – soup!

Soup is a wonderful thing and can make even the most bland, old, shrivelled or oddly shaped vegetable taste delicious. I really wanted my pumpkin soup to have more of conventional pumpkin colour and so I decided to add some red pepper and carrots to enhance the colour and bulk out the texture. I decided against adding onion or potato which often form the base of most soups as I wanted the veg to the star flavours.

Once blitzed together the pepper and carrot transformed the soup into a gorgeous deep orange colour that was flecked here and there with little shreds of yellow and red from the skins of the peppers and pumpkin – which I chose to leave on. It really looked and smelt so inviting and the taste was delicious. The pepper added a lovely sweetness while the pumpkin added its famously smooth and creamy texture. It was the perfect consistency and made for a very tasty lunch on a cold and windy autumn day.

Red Pepper Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients
1 small-medium pumpkin
2 red peppers
2 carrots
2 tsp dried oregano or thyme
2 pints vegetable stock

Method
Cut the top and base off the pumpkin. Cut into quarters, scoop out the seeds and fleshy membrane and discard. Slice the pumpkin into 2cm strips and place in a large saucepan, skin and all.
Do the same with the red pepper.
Peel and roughly chop the carrot and add to the pan along with the herbs.
Pour over the vegetable stock and bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and leave to bubble for 25-35 minutes, until the pumpkin and carrot pieces are soft when tested with the sharp tip of a knife.
Once ready, remove from the heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
Then ladle the mixture (you may need to do it in batches) into a liquidiser and blend until smooth.
Season to taste and serve with crusty bread for dipping.
Serves 4-6

Pumpkin & Butternut Squash Soup

Soup is so warming and comforting at this time of year. I am especially fond of winter and root vegetable soups whose natural sweetness always cheer the soul on a cold day. So, when I was recently given a pumpkin as a present I knew instantly that it was time to make some soup.

Pumpkins and squashes are quite unique in that despite them being tough and often frustratingly hard when raw, once cooked they transform into soft and tender flesh that almost seems to melt like butter, adding a lovely creaminess to soups. For this soup I decided to go all out for silkiness and combined pumpkin and butternut squash together.

The resulting soup was heavenly. I think it may in fact be my favourite soup to date. Thick, and so velvety smooth that a spoonful seemed to caress the back of my throat, flooding my senses with a deep earthy sweetness. This soup just made me smile and sigh with contentment as it warmed me from the inside.

There is something so comforting about its beautiful orange amber colour, watching the floating spirals of steam drifting up from the bowl and breathing in its creamy earthy aroma. It’s hard to believe that something so simple can taste so good. All that’s required is some bread for dipping and you’re good to go. This is truly a soup for the soul.

Apparently it’s also National Homemade Soup day! Souper!

Pumpkin & Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients
1kg pumpkin – I find the small ones with the deep orange flesh are best (e.g. Ambercup, Onion or Kabocha varieties)
1kg butternut squash
1 large onion
1 baking potato
2 small or 1 large garlic cloves
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp thyme
2 pints water
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper

Method
Peel and roughly chop and onion, potato and garlic. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the prepared veg. Give it a stir and then put the lid on and leave it for 10-15 minutes to soften and sweat. If they catch slightly on the base of the pan don’t worry, this will only add to its depth of flavour.
Meanwhile, carefully slice the skin off the pumpkin and squash. Cut in half, scrape out the seeds and fiberous membrane from the middle and chop into rough chunks. (If you find them too hard to cut, cook in the microwave for 4 minutes to soften the skin to make peeling and slicing easier).
Add the pumpkin and squash to the pan along with the herbs and season with salt and pepper.
Boil the kettle and pour over 2 pints of water. Bring the mix to the boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover with the lid and leave to cook for 45 minutes.
Check the vegetables with the tip of a knife to make sure they are fully cooked. When ready, blitz the soup until smooth using a liquidiser or hand held blender.
Serve in warmed bowls with bread for dipping.
Serves 6

Country Vegetable & Pearl Barley Soup

I had a rustic spelt and vegetable soup when out for lunch recently and loved it so much that I knew I had to try and recreate it. It contained the grain spelt, which I had never eaten in grain form before, only ground as flour in bread, but it had a lovely nutty flavour. I searched the supermarket shelves eagerly, looking for the elusive grain but to no avail. The closet match I could see was pearl barley which looked remarkably similar, and I decided that would have to do. I wanted to keep the rustic appearance of the soup and so diced all the veg to a similar size and then cooked it in vegetable stock with some thyme and chili for extra flavour.

I was curious to see how the pearl barley would turn out, as I admit to never having tasted it before, I’m not sure why. I think its just one of those grains that’s seen as being a bit old fashioned and dare I say it ‘poor’ and as a result it often get bypassed on the shelves in favour of the more fashionable grains such as Arborio rice. However, I tell you all, if you too have been skimming over this humble grain, you’ve been missing out. It had the same nutty flavour as spelt and had a wonderful texture, plump grains with slightly fluffy edges. There was a little bounce to each pearl that sort of popped when you bit into it (sounds odd but you’ll understand what I mean if you try it). Along with all the different veg and the flavoursome stock it really made for a warming and enjoyable lunch. Pearl barley you’re my find of the month – I’ll be using you again soon!

Country Vegetable & Pearl Barley Soup
Ingredients
2 onions
1 courgette
2 medium potatoes
1 leek
3 carrots
½ tin Sweetcorn
100g pearl barley
1 green chili
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 litre vegetable stock
1 tsp dried thyme

Method
Peel and chop the onions, carrots and potatoes into a 2cm dice. Dice the courgette and wash and slice the leek into rounds.
Cut the chili in half, remove the seeds and finely chop.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan and then fry the onion until soft.
Add the rest of the diced veg (expect the Sweetcorn), thyme, chili and vegetable stock.
Stir in the pearl barley, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover with the lid and allow to cook for 45 minutes to 1hour until the veg is tender and the pearl barley plump.
Stir through the Sweetcorn for the final 15 minutes before serving in warmed bowls with crusty bread for dipping.
Serves 6 – 8