EASY TOMATO SOUP small
serves 2
total time 35 minutes
Ingredients
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
1 medium potato, peeled and finely diced
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 onion finely diced
1 400g tin chopped/whole plum tomatoes
1 Tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp apple sauce
1/2 pint chicken stock
a few good grinds of black pepper
cream or 1 Tbsp milk
Method
Cook carrot and potato (I use a pressure cooker for 5 minutes)
Melt butter in medium saucepan.
Add onions over a medium/low heat, saute 5 minutes until soft.
Add the other ingredients to onions. Carrot, potato, tomatoes, tomato puree, garlic, sugar, apple sauce, with stock, some black pepper and stir well.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 20-25 minutes until everything is cooked through.
With a wand blend the soup to make it lump free.
Stir in cream/milk.
Serve and enjoy.
We’ll have this for tea tonight with a cheese toastie and what’s left of the fruit cake to follow.
And here’s a bowl of the tomato soup we had this evening.
@MinnieB the original recipe asked for half an apple peeled, chopped and diced. I’ve used apple sauce as a substitute.
I must admit to being a fan of Julie Walters. In the Dinner Ladies she was on another level.
@Mahoney oh, that looks proper ! ! A real hearty soup, very welcome now it is getting cooler. It looks mouth wateringly good.
As for sourdough I have to be truthful and say I am disappointed. I’ve been trying to photograph a demo run that I can post on the forum. I can’t get it to work well now temperatures have dropped and I am trying unsuccessfully to present something that can be produced in a normal domestic kitchen.
The bottom line is that ideally a 25°C environment is needed to get everything working well. Being a home brewer equipment that will produce these temperature is available to me, but I want to demonstrate sourdough made in an ordinary home. It would be easy to say find a warm spot in the house, but usually that won’t be warm enough. Also heated seed propagators or heated mats are sometimes recommended. It all seems a bit of a faff for something that should be simple. Most online bakers giving out instructions live in places warmer than ours, so their recipes tend to be disappointing.
Its all very technical and needs to be simplified. I’m working on it but can’t honestly publish a working method yet.
Hello @Bobbi. I have a winter and summer methods for my sourdough. In the summer I make it before 8am, knock it back at lunch time and bake it at tea time. In winter as long as I have it mixed before bedtime, I knock it back first thing the next day then bake at tea time on the second day. I love the fact it is so in tune with what’s around it and you have to adapt your method to suit it as it’s a living thing. There is no hard and fast rule for when one season’s method changes into the next thanks to the great British weather. Julia x
@JuliaH
I’ve been artificially raising the temperature to get a rise.
I’ll try things as you suggest and see how it works out. I am a little concerned that it will take a very long time to prove successfully.
However, I do want to be able to put forward a method usable in the winter here in the UK in an ordinary domestic kitchen.
As for setting up a starter, I struggle if temperatures are only 21-22°C or lower.
In fact ambient temperature is about 16°C at this time. A little chilly for yeast
.
I won’t recommend a method I cannot get to work for myself, so I will experiment a little more.
Here’s a recent picture by Hilary of a bowl of thick tomato soup made the other day, to the same recipe. Lovely, warming and satisfying. So easy to put together and made in our recently acquired Ninja Foodi.
@Loshy
I think I did put this recipe up somewhere else but I’m unsure where, so . . .
Here’s the mushroom soup recipe:
Mushroom Soup special
very tasty - 2 portions
INGREDIENTS
30g butter
3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, crushed
250g [225] mushrooms, chopped [sliced]
2 tbsp plain flour
350ml hot chicken stock [2 chicken stock cubes]
150 ml whole milk
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper
METHOD
Dice onion small.
Clean and chop mushrooms.
Heat butter and oil, cook garlic and onions until soft but not browned.
Add mushrooms, cook over high heat for 3 mins.
Sprinkle flour over mushrooms and stir well to remove lumps.
Add half of the stock.
Stir and scrape cooked flour off bottom until thickening.
Add half the milk stirring all the time.
Continue to add stock and milk in turn until all added.
Adjust seasoning and add plenty of pepper.
Add bay leaf and simmer very gently for 20 minutes.
Remove bay leaf, leave to cool, blend.
Reheat and mix with cream or freeze.
I’m a fan of home made soups & get friends to do the arduous task of peeling vegetable for me . for me to find whatever vegetables have slipped out my hands & either rolled under a kitchen table/washing machine ect it’s no longer a fun game for me … hunt the vegetables.
Leek/chicken is my most favourite & can happily tear bite size chicken pieces to add to the pot I congratulate my tremor in making this task a breeze …
talking of soup
Who remember’s the great comedy sketch
2 Soups with the marvellous Julie Walters
