Hatmum (+ others): how to make veggie soup

[SoftFroggie]

After your comment in the 5-a-day section - I would like to make home-made soup, especially veggie soup, but haven't enough idea how to start. Does it take ages? Instructions please!

Thanks, SF

easy peasey veggie soup.. (oven version)

chop any number of vegetables (pots, carrots, onions, leeks, broccoli, peppers .. anything you like really)
stick them in a casserole dish with cup of orange lentils, add about a pint of veg stock, splash of olive oil, salt to taste and cook in oven for about 2 hours...
blend if you want to, but we like it chunky here..
dd1 has actually requested it! (oh I sneak a bit of cheese in prior to serving hers.. as she claims not to like cheese.. but she needs the extra protein/fat)

Oooo. You are inspiring me. Just got my frozen chicken stock out of the freezer. I feel a pot of walking soup coming on

WALKING soup Cadbury? sounds like something out of an Enid Blyton book!!!

Thanks Unicorn - is that dried or tinned lentils? Presumably a suitable amount of veg to 'go with' a pint of stock? Raw veg? I guess I can just bung it all in the Aga for a couple of hours? Goodness - that sounds so easy and healthy. Excellent.

Definitely don't think I'm up to home-made frozen stock, though. Unless that's dead-easy too, Cadbury? I'm more a 'stock-cube' kind of a cook, at the moment.

SF I use the packet variety, orange lentils..
stick lots of stock in ~(chicken stock is sposed to be tastier..) and bob's your proverbial.

Fantastic if you have an aga, and it is very simple... (now get making the homemade bread to go with it!!!)

Home-made bread? What are you all - paragons of kitchen and culinary virtue? Tell me that's with a breadmaker. I'm off on a year's maternity leave soon, but perhaps I should scurry back to the 'working and childcare' board with my tail between my legs . Maybe I could get a breadmaker.....

I should try home-made stock sometime though, shop cubes are FAR too salty, so I have to get some low salt ones from the health food shop.

My frozen stock is from boiled chicken bones when we had a roast a few weeks ago.
Walking soup is a family recipe, it's bascially so thick with vegetables that you could walk on it.

If it's any comfort softfrog.. my last bread making exoerience (with my 5 yr old dd and her friend) ended up with the friend saying..
"perhaps you should get a breadmaker"

Cheek!!

Not even with a breadmaker. Wow. Just discovered DS (not yet 2) likes helping bake (banana bread, the one thing I can make).

OK then - stock - what do you do? Put chicken carcass in water and boil? How long for? Do you then freeze the liquid? Does it really end up more than just water? we usually have scraps of meat left on the carcass - do they go in the stock?

Hi SoftFroggie (lovely and intriguing name???), I'd recommend my roast tomato and fennel soup if you have loads of toms. Super simple to make:
for 4 people you put 2kgs of tomatoes in ovenproof dish (wash them, but leave them whole, skin on), with half a fennel bulb (sliced thinly), one diced carrot, 6 crushed garlic cloves, salt and pepper and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Cover with foil and put in oven at 200C for 1 and a half hour. Remove foil and leave in oven for another 20 minutes. Liquidise and eat with good bread, or even ricotta toast. Fabulous!!!! had it again last night actually....

Yep, chicken carcas, an onion cut in half, a couple of carrots and some bayleaves for flavour. We boil it for a few hours then let it cool then boil it up again the next day for a few hours and maybe a third day if we fancy it. Then skim the fat off the top and drain the bones and veg out. I use freezer bags inside a jug and fill them up that way. Then freeze until I need it.
Just got a big soup on the go. Anyone fancy making bread for me? Can't do that.
Mine always turn out like rocks.

cadbury - do you put it in the fridge between boiling? Is all that repeated boiling over several days safe, from a food hygiene pov? Does making it over several days make it much better than just the first day?

Just spotted this - name at the top and have gone past it several times without noticing! Variations on a theme:

2lb carrots, 1 onion - dice and sweat. Add 1 tin chopped tomatoes, black pepper, mixed herbs (I use Barts mediterranean herbs in olive oil). Add 2 pints stock. Cook for 25 mins (ish). Whizz with blender.

Roughly speaking 2lb veg to 2 pints stock.

Use same methodology for leek & potato, carrot & sweet potato (1lb of each plus add 1 tbsp white wine vinegar pre-whizzing), courgette & leek (2lb courgettes, 2 leeks (any size) 2 1/4 pints stock - courgettes release a lot of water), carrot & parsnip.

Roasted veg soup involves roasting 1 yellow pepper, 6-8 (ish) ripe tomatoes, 1 red onion (white will do), 2-3 carrots, herbs, black pepper in 200C oven for 30mins. Add two pints stock and whizz.

Not rocket science but fantastic way of eating well and my children love it. Lots of domestic goddess feelings!

Yummy - and even I can do it, by the sounds of it. Looking forward to feeling those domestic goddess feelings. Keep quiet if it's easy and DH will be v impressed.

Thanks.

Haven't read the replies, so sorry if I double up. I use whatever veg I have in the fridge, as long as there is a starchy one too (sweet pot, potato, carrot, parsnip etc) to thicken it up. I add 2 pints of water and 2 veggie/chicken stock cubes, with maybe some curry powder to spice it up.

Cook for 20mins and whizz in blender. I then use a mouli to remive the fibrous bits. It's yum!

I do a veggie stew all the time:
pots, carrots, parsnips, swede, leek etc, a couple of veg oxos and some water - yum with big chunk of crusty bread and butter and can be blended for younger people.

Loads of veg 2 tins of tomatoes olive oil garlic herbs pepper cook for 1-2 hours slowly and add a big dollop of sour cream on top at the end.We eat it with french bread and sometimes a bit of cheese and it usually lasts 2 days