Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients :

1kg pumpkin (kent or jap)
300gr fresh tomatoes or a 440gr tin of crushed
1 onion
seasoning
water

This is a nice quick soup, throw it all in the pot cook it up and whizz it!.

Peel and roughly chop the onion. Peel and chop the pumpkin and cut up tomatoes (or add in your tin of tomatoes, cover it all with water and put it on the heat, bring it to the boil then simmer it for 20 minutes or until the pumpkin is falling apart.


To season I use knorr chicken seasoning and salt and pepper, always season a little at a time so you don't over do it.

Let your soup cool for 1/2 an hour then whizz it either with a hand held mixer or put it in the blender, check your seasing one more time and then it is ready to serve.

I package all my soups into one cup serves and freeze them, an average serve is 1 1/2 - 2 cups.

chicken and vegetable soup

Ingredients:

3 carrots 1/2 celery 2 parsnips 1 small turnip 1 small swede 1 zucchini 3 medium potatoes 1/4 cabbage

1 brown onion 3 gloves of garlic 1 can of beans 1 can of diced tomatoes 1 cup of rice (uncooked) 400gr cooked chicken 4 rashers of bacon parsley

Now this soup is a main meal in itself. Your spoon will stand up in the bowl. This is also a big pot of soup, those ingredients fill an 8L pot, feel free to 1/2 or 1/4 it. Also feel free to leave anything out you might not like, these are my favourites.

Wash and prepare your veggies, I grated the carrots, celery, swede and turnip.

I diced the potatoes, zucchini and the parsnips, I like to have something to chew.

Here is everything prepared and ready for cooking.

First saute the mushroom, I like mine with some colour to them.

Then ad the onion, garlic and bacon.
(bacon is optional, I had some in the fridge)

Now add the grated and diced veggies.

The cabbage, corn, chicken and rice go in second last.

Bring the soup to the boil, you will see scummy stuff on the top, scoop this off as you don't want it boiling back into your soup, this also gets rid of any fat you have used.

Now ad your cabbage, rice, chicken, corn, beans and tin of diced tomatoes, skim the top and simmer for 15 minutes until the beans and rice are tender then stir through the chopped parsley.

This soup freezes beautifully, I bag one cup serves into clip lock bags, flatten them and freeze them. This soup made 24 cups of soup.

Other variations -

cook off 500gr of mince with the onions and leave out the chicken and bacon.

Swap the rice for vermicelli pasta

Stir through finely chopped spinach once you have turned it off.

chicken, sweetcorn and noodle soup

Ingredients:

500gr cooked chicken
2 x 440gr tins super sweet corn
1 1/2 L chicken stock
1/2 cup plain flour
1 cup (uncooked) vermicelli pasta

Ad 1L of stock to a pot and bring it to the boil.

While your stock is heating put your flour into a bowl and with a whisk, whisk in the cold stock until you have a smooth paste then add the rest of the stock to the bowl.

When the stock comes to the boil whisk in your slurry of flour and stock, this is what is going to thicken your soup.

Keep whisking until it starts to thicken then add in the corn (juice included) and the chopped chicken.

Bring it back to the boil and add your vermicelli and simmer for 10 minutes and season to taste with salt and pepper.