Singing and soup

A quiet day today and a blessed relief for my neighbours.  How can this be? you ask.  Well, here is another of my dirty little secrets (I do like to accumulate them), when I'm working in the kitchen I like to have music radio on (Heart FM to be precise) and when a song comes on that I like (and I like most of them) I sing along.

Why is this so bad? you ask.  Well you obviously haven't heard me sing.  Cats run away in pain, birds are silenced and dogs start howling when they hear my dulcet tones.  BUT I have lost my voice, so no singing today.  I am upset but the neighbours' windows are safe.  Why was I in the kitchen? because today was soup day.  I love making soup - almost as much as I love eating soup.  And home-made soup is the best. 

However this wasn't always the case.  When I was in senior school I had to do Home Economics (and dressmaking while the boys did woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing - outrageous I know but that was back in the days before computers and when equality was still more of a phrase than a reality).  Anyway, as part of the HE course we had to make potato soup.  Yes I will repeat that, potato soup.  Not leek and potato, not bacon and potato, not even potato and onion, just plain potato soup.  And it was made by boiling potatoes to a mush in too much water, then adding flour to thicken it.  You could, if you wanted, add salt and pepper to season.  AND THAT WAS IT!  When I made it in the school kitchen it tasted awful, when I tried again at home it tasted awful.  So awful, in fact, that it put me off soup for a long time.

My re-entry into soup making happened in Argentina (I've just spent a good few minutes trying to find a blog post that's relevant but couldn't).  The secret soup was pumpkin and tomato soup.    I'd never cooked pumpkin before - it wasn't a common vegetable in this country when I was a child but in Argentina it was everywhere and it was cheap.  It even came peeled and chopped up into chunk, saving soooo much time (well you know how lazy I am).   I don't know where I got the recipe from but it's the same one I use whatever the vegetables..  Basically I roast the veggies in the oven (in olive oil and with herbs), then I liquidise the whole lot (chunkiness varies according to mood).  If I've roasted tomatoes then I just add a little puree and stock to loosen, If I haven't roasted tomatoes then I add liquidised tinned tomatoes and stock to loosen.  Pepper to season and freeze.  The flavours are different every time depending on what herbs I use, whether I have any garlic and, of course, the veggies used.

Now I have a freezer with lovely nutritious home-made soup in it, so that's lunch sorted out for a while.