Winter draws on

Just looking out the window from the office on this autumnal afternoon – workmen and scaffolding are gone and the house is standing up straight now so I can clearly see the sun shining, tree branches gently waving in the breeze, golden leaves dancing in the air and gathering softly in heaps on the ground (and side-thoughts turn to having to be careful because if no-one sweeps up you can’t see if there’re any dead hedgehogs under there, and you’ll have to be careful riding your bike in case you run over one and it makes you shudder and go “urrggh”) but, more pressingly, culinary thoughts turn warmly to soups and stews and puddings and custard and all those dishes sorely missed during the summer.

Made the first soup of the season the other day. Vegetable of course, with potatoes, onions, carrots and celery, a handful of pearl barley, veggie stock, hint of chilli, dried thyme and sage and a smidgeon of Marmite. It was OK, but a bit thinner than my usual thick, hearty, this’ll put hairs on your chest offerings. After a couple of lunches there was just short of a portion left over, and not quite a portion of thin soup is not the way to start off the autumn term. So I threw in some gnocchi I didn’t use for the gorgonzola and spinach gnocchi we had the other day. Did it work or did it work. Within two minutes the soup had turned from a do-I-don’t-I-bother to a really substantial potage worthy of any soup kitchen. A handful of Parmesan, a hunk of bread and that was me done for the afternoon.

Thoughts have now turned to other soups so we don’t get too bored: here’s one I made earlier.

Parsnip Soup

Don’t like parsnips – soft, sweet, earthy mush when they’re cooked. I remember having them every now and again for Sunday dinner when I was little. They’d be lying there on the plate camouflaged as roasties, and I’d think oooh that’s good, more roasties than usual, and I’d bite into one thinking I was getting spud whereas in fact I was nursing a mouthful of sweet and mushy pap. Wanted to spit them out but couldn’t ‘cos mum was looking. Urrggh.

Then I found this recipe somewhere along the line and thought I’d give it a go because, believe it or not, other people do like the taste and I needed to ring the changes in the cheap soup department at the pub: lo and behold, I was converted. I still don’t like parsnips as a vegetable, boiled, mashed or roasted, but as a soup – ship it in, shag!

This soup is nothing without the cream. In fact, it tastes disgusting without the cream and, as I’m not of school age, disgusting is not a word I use freely. So don’t taste it before you’ve blended it and added the cream. You can adjust the seasoning afterwards.

Makes: a lot

50g butter
500g parsnips, peeled and chopped
2 large onions, peeled and chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1 litre vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
Single cream to taste – about 200ml

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and gently sweat the parsnips and onions for about 10 mins. Add the curry powder, vegetable stock and seasoning. Bring to the boil, cover and turn heat down to simmer for about 30 mins until everything is soft. Liquidise the soup and pour back into the saucepan. Add the cream and a little more stock if the soup is too thick, and reheat gently – test for seasoning. Don’t let the soup come to a boil after adding the cream. If you want you can serve with some kind of cheffy greenery stuff artistically strewn over the top. Parsley I think – yeah, parsnips and parsley.

Freezes well without the cream.