pea soup comfort

Tags

autumn, comfort food, cooking, food, healthy, home made, pea soup, recipe, soup, stew, vegtable

There is nothing better than a hot plate of soup when it’s cold and wet outside, and when the soup is thick and stewy it is just pure bliss.

Since I live on my own I often just buy a tub of fresh soup as I don’t want to be eating the same dish all week long. While they mostly are yummy and filled with vegetablely goodness they do tend to be more on the slurpy side, lacking that little bit of bite and substance.

So yesterday I took the wooden spoon into my own hands and stirred up a batch of pea soup, one of my favourites. Since I didn’t have a recipe, and I was too lazy to google it I decided to make it up as I went along and was delighted with the result.

I chopped up some onions, added a handful of cubed bacon and braised them in the pot. Once they had simmered nicely and the onions where clear I took the mixture out of the pot and put it to the side. Then it was time for the peas.

I bought a large glass of fresh peas in my local shop, added some broth, a bit of salt, a tad of pepper, some garlic and a good handful of a soup mix (lentils, split peas and barley) and let it cook.

While the soup was bubbling away I chopped up two carrots. After about ten minutes my hand blender blended everything together while still having a stewy consistency. Finally I added the onions, the bacon and the carrots and let the soup simmer away for a little while (until the carrots were soft).

Once all was done I poured myself a large bowl of soup and enjoyed every comforting spoonful and I am delighted that I made enough to enjoy more of the scrumptious soup today.

dead toaster revived

Tags

blew a fuse, breakfast, cooking, food, photography, soup, toast, toaster

It finally happened, I have been expecting, anticipating it for months now, my toaster died this morning. It did so in quite a dramatic fashion. The toast popped and all lights went out, leaving my kettle half boiled and me a  little stunned.

I flicked the switch on my fuse-box and all electrical goods beeped, peeped and bleeped back to life and I put the kettle back to boil. As I munched my toast my mind wandered and I forgot what had happened not 20 minutes earlier and put a new slice into the slots and, no surprise, the same thing happened again. the toaster popped out the lightly baked bread and blew the fuse again.

I resigned to the fact that the toaster had lived out it’s useful life, after about eight years of toasting and popping not a bad investment. Too busy to do anything much about it I left the dead toaster where it lives on the kitchen counter, to be disposed of at a later time

But then the strangest thing happened.

When I came back from lecturing I reheated the leak and carrot soup I had made last night and without thinking popped the last slice of toast into the toaster to dip and thunk. I made my tea, waited for the pop and buttered the toast, when suddenly I remembered the fiasco this morning. Somehow my toaster has revived itself and will live to pop for another day.

revived toaster

 

soup weather

Tags

cooking, food, healthy-living, mental-health, miscellaneous, quotes, random, soup, thoughts, weather

After yesterdays downpour and wet-knicker experience I made myself a pot of hot vegetable soup. As I sat and spooned the steaming hot combo of vegetables and mushrooms into my mouth I watched the rain beat against the window.

As the wind made a plastic bag dance down the street I felt content, the hot soup in my belly making me feel safe and warm while the stormy, wet weather played havoc with the world outside. And even though my soup is not pretty to look at, the mixture of beans, broccoli, carrots and mushrooms all mashed together became an unsightly greeny-brown, it tastes wonderful, the perfect food for a wet and windy day.

The weather has gone from bad to worse today and because I have to brave the blustery storm in a little while I am thankful that my pot of soup is heating up on the stove. A little bowl of comfort food will help to keep me warm and brighten my spirits for the afternoon of teaching.

So while it may not be the perfect weather for a walk, it definitely is the perfect weather for soup, comfort food and healthy all in one. And if a spoon full of sugar is the perfect antidote to anything bitter, a spoonful of soup is the best cure for the wet-weather blues.

And as Ludwig van Beethoven said so kindly:

Only the pure of heart can make a good soup