Cream of Cauliflower Soup with Blue Cheese

Cooking time: Less than 60 minutes

Makes 2 litres

INGREDIENTS

50g butter
1 medium onion (150g), chopped coarsely
1 medium cauliflower, (1.2kg), chopped coarsely
2 teaspoons madras curry powder
1 litre (4 cups) chicken stock
2 cups (500ml) water
½ cup (125ml) cream
salt and pepper, to taste
chives, to serve
sour cream, to serve
Blue Cheese, - Costello or similar

METHOD
Heat butter in large saucepan. Cook onion and cauliflower until softened and translucent. Add curry powder and cook 30 seconds or until fragrant.

Add stock; simmer, covered 10 minutes or until cauliflower is soft. Using a stick blender or goblet blender; blend soup until smooth. Add water to thin soup as desired. Place over gentle heat to warm through if necessary. Add roughly chopped blue cheese - Costello or similar.

Stir in cream. Serve immediately with snipped chives and a dollop of sour cream, if desired.

*note! I would also delete the curry powder, add garlic, and a dollop of mustard to taste. Nom nom.

Pumpkin Soup

Serving size: Serves 6
Cooking time: Less than 60 minutes

The smoothest consistency for this soup can be achieved by using a blender, stab mixer or mouli.

per serving 8.3g fat; 1008kJ (241cal)
INGREDIENTS

40g butter
1 large brown onion (200g), chopped coarsely
3 bacon rashers (210g), chopped coarsely
1.5 kg pumpkin, chopped coarsely (I use Butternut Pumpkins, easier to chop)
2 large potatoes (600g), chopped coarsely
1.5 litres (6 cups) chicken stock

METHOD
Melt butter in large saucepan; cook onion and bacon, stirring, until onion softens. Stir in pumpkin and potato. (Don't worry aobut the skin, you can cook the pumpkin and then slice the skin off when it's soft, messy, time consuming, but good food requires attention to detail)

Stir in stock, bring to a boil; simmer, uncovered, about 20 minutes or until pumpkin is soft.

Blend or process soup, in batches, until pureed. Return to same cleaned pan; stir until heated through.

Taste and add salt/pepper (fine white prefferable, as fresh ground black pepper can look messy)

Add a dollop of fresh cream is desired and chives. Voila!

Tomato Soup

I tend not to measure anything, so will just ramble and pretend I know. Ok?

TOMATO SOUP

8 x large vine ripened tomatoes
1 x large onion finely diced
2 x heaped teaspoons fresh garlic *when I say fresh I mean out of a jar, sigh
1 x heaped teaspoon fresh ginger *ditto
½ cup tomato paste for depth of flavour
½ jug of veggie stock
Olive oil
Fresh ground pepper/salt to taste
Fresh basil or dried, as much as you like *shake shake
Glass of red or white wine for chef, one for the pot
Splosh of Tabasco sauce, taste, taste, can’t un-add it once it’s in!

Quarter tomatoes and roughly de-seed with fingers or spoon, remove end bit from stalk, dice onions,gently soften in olive oil, add garlic/ginger and gently simmer.
Add vegie stock and tomato paste.
Chuck in everything else.
Add Tabasco sauce, - START TASTING! You are after a SLIGHT tingle in the back of the throat, don’t forget you are also adding shitloads of fresh pepper so err on caution, then enjoy.
Blend with beaters or in blender. *Mine leaked, sighs crossly.

You WILL get tomato skins, so if you don’t want that, blister the skins off first before chopping. Hold over gas stove on fork, or bake in hot oven 5 minutes. Hold in tea-towel and rub skins off. It really doesn’t affect the soup at all, gently simmer to thicken slightly and reduce.

As variety, you could add musherooms/lentils or corn. Pearl barley will also give a different in-mouth feel. Just experiment. :)

Serve with parmesan cheese grilled on toast in oven. Bon appetite!

Serves 4-6

Quick Chicken and Corn soup

Tear flesh off bbq chook sitting forgotten in back of fridge. Make tiger sounds "like a tiger!"

Have glass of wine.

Half fill large saucepan with water, add 2 big chicken stock cubes, diced chook, BIG heaped spoons of both ginger and garlic (don't pussyfoot around, make them big)

Add fresh corn shaved off the cob, shake chilli powder over pot, add Tabasco, look hesitant.

At this point it is important to adapt recipe to suit your own needs, so if married with kids, yell at them mindlessly "Come inside! Go outside! Do your homework! Empty the bins"

If you are single, mutter things about your mother.

If you want to make this soup for the next day, add 1/2 cup pearl barley.

Bring to rapid boil. Keep tasting and adjusting chilli, Tabasco sauce to taste. Add, taste.

Toss in a good shake of soy sauce, and one more for luck.

Add fresh ground black pepper, add spagetti broken up.

Boil/simmer for another 10 mins.

Make wimpering slurping sounds and say "How good is this?" a lot.

Enjoy!