Winter warmer - spicy vegetable soup

Hallo 2013!

Here is a great winter recipe that never fails me!

Ingredients:

• Chicken or Veg Stock
• Smoked paprika
• Olive oil (best kind)
• Salt
• Coriander seeds
• Dried mixed Italian herbs
• Minced garlic 
• Dried chilly (I used bird's eye) (1)
• Carrots (3)
• Sweet potato (1)
• Leek (1)
• Swede (1/4)
• Can of diced tomatoes (1)

Serve with sour cream and fresh parsley.

1. Boil about 1,5l of water with chicken or veg stock.
2. Add generous amounts of smoked paprika, dash of olive oil (best kind), salt, coriander seeds, dried mixed Italian herbs, half-spoon of minced garlic and a dried chilly (I used one dried bird's eye).
3. Roughly shop up some peeled carrots (3), one large sweet potato, one leek and a quarter of a swede.
4. Boil for about 30 minutes.
5. Drain the veg, setting the boiling liquid aside for later.
6. Chuck the veg in the oven for 10 minutes on 200C (fan-forced) with an optional small drizzle of honey to caramelise.
7. Process small amounts of grilled veg in the food processor together with the boiling liquid, plus one can of diced tomatoes, until it's a smooth liquid. I prefer the soup a bit lumpy. A bit more rustic?
8. Return to heat up, but not boil.
9. Serve with sour cream and fresh parsley.

I have tried this with all sorts of variations. For example using Indian spices and pumpkin, using corn, coriander and cumin… anything is possible. A tip for success is to think of complimenting foods and I use a geographical food region as a reference - Italian, French, Latvian, Hungarian, Thai etc.

Enjoy! : )

More Onions & Potatoes - Comfort Food Recipe

Still cooking with our wonderful onions and the last of our own delicious potatoes!

Here is a comfort food recipe to use those tasty onions from our allotment - a variation on theme 'Sheppard's Pie'.

For the mashed potato 'lid':
Boil 4-5 potatoes and then mash up with Philadelphia light spread, some milk, pepper and a half teaspoon of strong mustard.

For the base:
Fry in butter some onions (two-three), garlic (much - to keep the vampires away) and leeks (one stem - wash well!) - keep stirring so it does not burn. After about 5-10 minutes add capers and small piece of white fish fillet of any kind - fry till fish falls apart and mix all together.

The veg & fish mix goes in a oven-poof dish with the potato mash on top. Keep the lid on while frying the veg&fish mix so it doesn't dry out.

Let me know if you try it and especially if you find more successful variations!

Meanwhile, down at the allotment, the last of potato plants have frozen and flopped to the ground. The above photos are taken about a month ago. Despite the dead plants, there are still plenty of potatoes in the ground and the frost is not very deep, so we will have at least two more weeks of our own potatoes.

Also, the above photos have our coriander - since taking these photos it turned to seed and we managed to harvest and toast some of the seeds to use as spices. The taste is fantastic - a little milder than coriander leaves if used fresh, but the seed can withstand long time of cooking and has a sweeter/earthier taste. Unfortunately we lost most of the seeds, because we did not toast them straight away and the rotted in a paper bag! Ughhhh! Lesson learned: toast them straight after picking or keep in a well ventilate paper bag in one layer (not in a big pile all together).