It is the boy’s birthday today. He wanted Parsnip soup. We did not have parsnips, so we went to Tesco’s and bought some.
I decided to combat our vegetable drawer and mountain of potatoes and thus made the ‘Throw anything at me’ soup. For when times are tough but for some reason you have a lot of vegetables.
When my mum left us around the time I was 12 my Dad became a single parent. He only had limited experience in the kitchen and had to step up. There were some ‘unusual’ experiments, and our meals frequently involved up to three types of potato as they were cheap and filling, but I remember clearly that one of the first things he made from scratch was soup.
I would spend my Sunday’s in the second year of Uni roasting veg and then pulsing them into soup. Soup was one of the first things I made.
Once you have learnt to make soup you know you can survive.
Recipe
1 onion, finely sliced (I had a fresh onion, normally it would be frozen onion)
4 stalks of celery. If it is slightly bendy that is fine.
3 small-medium potatoes, cubed
3 carrots, washed, skin on, finely diced.
5-7 parsnips IF SMALL AND WEEDY. The prepacked bag I bought in Tesco’s had little parsnips in, not like the hefty behemoths I get at the fruit and veg stall at work. If you have the hefty beasts then use about 2-3.
1.5 Litres of stock.
Herbs you like. I used dried Thyme, Rosemary and Sage.
A nice big wedge of butter.
A blender, a big pot and a wooden spoon.
Method
Melt the lump of butter/margarine in the pot over a low heat. Once it is all melted add the onion and celery and cook, stirring frequently to make sure it doesn’t burn. Cook for about 5 minutes until your kitchen smells lovely and onion-y (is it just me that likes that smell?)
Add the finely sliced carrots, potatoes and all important parsnips. Give a courtesy stir to coat in the buttery onion goodness and then add the stock.
Bring to the boil then cook for about 10 minutes. If the pot has a lid put it on. It saves energy by cooking things faster.
At this point I did the washing up and listened to Absolute 80s.
Once I finished the washing up I checked that the root veggies were soft, which they were (thank you Mr Pot Lid) and then I turned off the heat and carefully put it all in the blender (depending on the size of your blender you may have to do this in two stages)
I then pulled out my biggest bowls, poured it in and ate. Yum.
The boy was happy.
As always adjust the veg quantity, stock intensity, thickness and herbs to your own individual liking. The boy added a mound of pepper to his.
