Broccoli & Stilton Soup

Whenever we have broccoli, I save the stems in the freezer until I have the urge to make Broccoli and Stilton Soup. I use the stems as padding, instead of using two heads of broccoli, I'll use one head including the stem plus another stem.  However, if you're feeling particularly frugal use 3 or 4 stems and no florets of broccoli.  If you've only got frozen broccoli, you'll need about 500g/1lb.

If you don't have Stilton, you can use any other blue cheese.  Be warned if you use Danish Blue - it gets most of its flavour from salt.

Since I decided to make soup, DH dug the bread maker out of storage.  Here's proof you can make bread and cook a meal with vitually no workspace whatsover.

 Broccoli & Stilton Soup - Serves 4


 Ingredients

1 tablespoon of oil or butter
1 medium onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
200ml dry white wine or cider
800ml stock (or water plus 2 stock cubes)
1 head broccoli plus 1 or 2 stems
150g Stilton or other strong blue cheese, cubed
Pepper to season


Method

1. In a deep saucepan, melt the butter or heat the oil.  Stir in the onion and garlic and fry until soft.
2. Meanwhile, cut the broccoli into florets and slice the stems.
3. When the onion is soft, pour over the wine or cider together with stock, then gently add the broccoli.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until the stems are soft.
4. Stir in the cheese and keep stirring while it melts.
5. Using a hand blender, blend until smooth. Alternatively, if you have a food processor or stand-alone blender, carefully ladle the hot soup into the blender and process until smooth, then return to cooking pot or decant into a soup terrine.  Do not over process - I once made a soup so smooth and textureless that it was horrible to eat.  It had the mouth-feel of water.
6. Season with freshly ground pepper.  You won't need salt because the cheese is salty enough.
7. Serve with fresh bread.

Enjoy!

- Pam

Hot and Sour Soup

It's been a while since I posted a new recipe and I've been promising this one to people left, right and centre. It is delicious, filling, full of nutrition, cheap, very easy to cook and only 2.5 WW points a portion! It is a good supper-in-a-bowl.

This recipe comes from a really badly organised Weight Watchers cookbook called "Menu Plan Eat Enjoy". I can't over-emphasise how badly indexed this book is; each page contains a full day's menu of dishes/recipes, but only the headline recipe is indexed.

Hot and Sour Soup

Ingredients

1.2 litres/2 pints chicken stock (I used 600ml of strong stock made from the Christmas turkey together with 600ml of boiling water)
350g/12oz skinless boneless chicken breasts sliced thinly (I used a 250g bag of cooked turkey chunks which I froze at Christmas)
75g/3oz shitake mushrooms (I used normal mushrooms, adding a small amount of dried shitake which I soaked for 10 minutes first)
I large red chilli, deseeded and chopped (or use a heaped teaspoon of lazy chilli)
1 red or yellow pepper, deseeded and diced
150g/5oz pak choi cut into quarters then separated into leaves
100g/3.5oz dried egg noodles
2 tablespoons Chinese cooking wine (or sherry)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons light soy sauce (I used regular soy sauce since that's what I have)
20 grinds of pepper, preferably white

Method

1. If using dried shitake mushrooms: place in a bowl, cover with hot water and allow to soak for 10 minutes.
   
2. In a large saucepan, bring the chicken stock to the boil. Add the chicken (or diced turkey if using). Bring back to the boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms, chilli and red/yellow pepper. Bring back to a simmer and cook for 3 minutes.
   
4. Break the noodles into smaller sections and stir into the saucepan together with the remaining ingredients. Grind over pepper. Simmer for a further 3-5 minutes or until everything is cooked.
5. Divide evenly between four deep bowls (the hardest part).
   

Yum!

- Pam

Parsnip and Lemon Soup

It's Tuesday, so it must be recipe day.

(Yes, I know, I haven't done one for ages. Call me slack or something. But "Recipe Tuesday" is now back and raring to go.)

About 3 weeks ago, the farm shop started selling this year's parsnip crop. I bought a kilo (2lb), planning to make the Parsnip and Cashew Nut Roast from the Weight Watchers' cookbook, Cook, Eat, Enjoy. My flat refusal to pay £6/kilo for cashews at the supermarket and inability to organise myself to go for a wander "down Southall" to the Asian shops to buy cashews at half that price, meant that the parsnips grew old and wizened in the fridge. They were looking very ropey when I dug them out of the veggie draw yesterday and decided to make soup.

(It was either make soup or bin them. The Frugalista in me insisted on the former option. As it was, about half the quantity of leathery old parsnips ended up in the bin.)

I like vegetable based soups for all sorts of reasons: they're an easy way of getting some of my "five a day"; they're usually cheap; they are low in WW points; and, for a former vegetable hater (me), they offer a great way to disguise or alter the taste of a not-much-liked vegetable and make it appealing.

This is another Weight Watchers' recipe, this time from their Pure Points cookbook. The whole quantity of soup costs 8 WW points. The recipe originally said "serves 4", but the soup is rather thick - you could easily water it down a bit further. Also, don't be alarmed at the cumin; it adds something to the flavour, but you won't taste it in the final soup. The lemon isn't particularly noticeable either, what it does is neutralise the bitterness of the parsnips.

Ingredients

500g (1lb) Parsnips, peeled and sliced
1 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Grated rind of 1 lemon*
750 ml vegetable stock (I use 2 teaspoons of Marigold brand stock powder for this)
300ml skimmed milk
Olive oil spray
salt and pepper

Method

1. Spray a large saucepan with the oil spray and heat. When the oil is hot, stir in the onion. Turn the flame under the pot to low, cover and leave for approximately 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. (I do this then prepare the parsnips and the lemon.)
2. When the onion is soft, stir in the parsnips then sprinkle over the cumin. Fry for approximately one minute, stirring all the time, or until the aroma rises.
3. Pour over the stock, stir and bring it to the boil. Cover and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until the parsnip is soft and mushable.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and either transfer the contents to a blender/liquidizer/food processor or use a wand whisk to blend the contents until smooth.
5. Return the soup to the pot. Stir in the milk and the lemon rind. Season with salt and pepper. Reheat but DO NOT boil (the milk may curdle due to the lemon).
   

If you don't eat it immediately, this will thicken on standing. It seems to freeze well (I haven't defrosted any yet, but it didn't split or anything when I froze it).

- Pam

* I store grated lemon rind in an ice cube tray in the freezer. Whenever we use lemons, I'll grate the rind and pack it into the tray. I think half a lemon gives one cube of rind. Stop grating when the yellow bit disappears - you don't want the bitter white pith.