Maggie Beer’s Pumpkin and Chickpea Soup

I was watching a morning show on TV this week when Maggie Beer popped up to discuss the success of her online cooking videos because of the surge in home cooking during lockdown. One of the hosts mentioned Maggie’s pumpkin and chickpea soup video and I was in - I had the ingredients, it sounded delicious and I was good to go.

I am not a huge lover of soup, but I really enjoyed this soup. It had a nice kick of spice, and the chickpeas gave it body.

If you like pumpkin soup, try this:

800g pumpkin, peeled and chopped

400g can chickpeas

200g brown onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1L chicken stock

5 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon verjuice (I skipped this)

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

2 teaspoons ginger

1/4 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive oil, extra

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Mix the spices and olive oil together in a bowl. Add the pumpkin and toss to coat.

Put the pumpkin on a lined baking tray, and roast for 20 minutes in the oven. If using the verjuice, add it now to deglaze the pan and roast for another 3 minutes.

While the pumpkin is cooking, heat the extra 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan and add the onion. Fry the onion, adding the garlic after 5 minutes. Cook until the onion is golden and translucent. 

Add the roasted pumpkin, chickpeas and stock to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow the soup to cool for 5 minutes.

Put the soup into a food processor and blend until smooth.

Enjoy with whatever you fancy - I used a splodge of Greek yoghurt and chopped coriander.

Italian Sausage and Barley Soup

I enjoy looking through the free supermarket magazines for recipe ideas, and often come up with great new dishes to try.  One of my favourites this last year has been the Italian Sausage and Barley Soup from the Coles magazine.

This soup takes sausages that have been removed from their casings, and adds them to a flavourful soup of carrot, celery, pearl barley and tomatoes.  It is both tasty and hearty.  It is also very simple to make.

To make this soup, you will need:

4 cups water
4 sausages removed from their casing
1 chopped carrot
3 chopped celery sticks
1 x 400g can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup pearl barley

Heat a large non-stick saucepan, and add the sausage. Cook the sausage, breaking it up into pieces as you go, until golden brown.

Add the carrots and celery to the pan and cook until the vegetables are softened.

Add the pearl barley to the pan, then add the tomatoes and stir to combine.

Add the water to the pan and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat to medium to low, then cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes until the soup thickens slightly.  Add salt and pepper to taste, then serve with crusty bread.

This is a perfect meal for a cold day, warming you on the inside.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup - Red Tractor July

This month's Red Tractor calendar recipe is Roasted Cauliflower Soup.  I will be honest and say that this recipe did not appeal to me.  I am not a huge soup fan to start with, and roasted cauliflower soup is not a flavour that is high on my desired list.  However, in the spirit of my project, I made the soup anyway.

The calendar quote for this month comes from  Anne of Green Gables:  

I am a big fan of Anne, and this statement reflects Anne's dauntless optimism.  In the middle of winter, now that I am older, I find it hard to muster up this kind of optimism, but it is an inspirational attitude to have.

Now for the soup.  It tasted better than I imagined, but it's still not something I would ever make again.  The potatoes and apples help to balance the cauliflower so that the soup doesn't smell like an old sock.

If roasted cauliflower soup is something that may float your boat, you can make it with the following ingredients:

1 cauliflower cut into florets
3 red apples, peeled, cored and quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed 
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 finely chopped stalks of celery
2 large potatoes, finely chopped
6 cups boiling water
2 chicken stock cubes, crumbled
1/2 cup cream

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Toss the cauliflower, apple and garlic together with the olive oil in a large bowl. Transfer to a lined baking tray and bake for 30 minutes until soft and slightly browned.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter, then cook the onion and celery until soft.  Add the cauliflower, apples, garlic, potatoes, boiling water and stock cubes, bring to the  boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. 

Puree the ingredients in the saucepan with a stick blender, then stir in the cream and serve.

 

EwE - Tortellini-Spinach Soup - Soup's On

For Eating with Ellie this week, Margaret chose the theme of Soup's On.  I decided to make Tortellini-Spinach Soup from So Easy.

This soup is very easy to make, as it uses pre-packaged tortellini.  The recipe calls for spinach and cheese tortellini; I could only find roasted vegetable and cheese tortellini, so that is what I used.

This soup is very, very tasty. It is also reasonably quick to make, and filling.  It is a dish I'd make again.

To see what the others made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Roasted Tomato and Black Bean Soup with Avocado Mango Salad - Soup and Salad

For Eating with Ellie this week, Kayte chose the theme of Soups and Salad.  I took the theme quite literally and made Ellie's Roasted Tomato and Black Bean Soup with Avocado Mango Salad, a recipe from So Easy.  

The soup was hearty and spicy. The hardest part about making it was blending it smooth, as it kept popping out of the top of my food processor between the lid and the barrel.

The salad added a lovely cooling side with a great flavour combination.

All in all, I enjoyed this dish, which is surprising giving my past indifference to both soup and salad. (Kayte, did you choose this theme to encourage me to  face my food nemeses??).

To see what everyone else made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Super Soups - Curried Pumpkin and Tomato Soup

Our theme for Eating with Ellie this week is Super Soups, chosen by Chaya.  Regular readers will know that, scarred by childhood condensed soups, I am very wary of soup.  However, I have had some very good soups in the US, and my choice from Weeknight Wonders this week was a US style soup - Curried Pumpkin and Tomato Soup.

I adored this - it had just the right amount of kick to make it interesting, and the flavours melded beautifully.

To see what the others made for Super Soups, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.  

EwE - Chicken and Broken Noodle Soup

For Eating with Ellie this week, Margaret chose Chicken and Broken Noodle Soup.

This was  a really simple dish to make, but the end result was delicious.  I only made a half batch, but it was so good, I wish that I had made more.  A half batch made two very hearty servings of soup. 

To see what the others thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

WIAFK (CB) - Gazpacho with Anchovy Toast

Our dish for Weekend in a French Kitchen (Café Boulud) this week was Gazpacho with Anchovy Toast.  This is of course a classic cold soup that needs no further explanation.

I am not sure why I needed three colours of peppers  when the whole lot gets blended up to give a red coloured soup, but nonetheless I complied with the recipe.  I didn't put the extra raw vegetables on top as that is not my kind of thing, but I did make the anchovy butter for the toast.  

Overall, I liked this dish, but not enough to make again.

To see what the others thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the Weekend in a French Kitchen website.

WIAFK (CB) - Chilled Spring Pea Soup

For Weekend in a French Kitchen (Cafe Boulud) this week, our recipe is Chilled Spring Pea Soup.  My book finally arrived this week (an autographed copy that someone put into the second-hand bookshop!), but you can also find the recipe online here.

The words chilled + pea + soup individually and combined sprang a little "urrgghh" into my consciousness, but I made the soup in case I was surprised (because sometimes I am).  Unfortunately, on this occasion, I was not.  I was not fond of the chilly pea-ey-ness of this soup, and I found that I needed to add a significant amount more liquid than stated in the recipe to get soup rather than puree.

This won't be a repeat for me, but I have seen from the forums that some gals loved it.  And that's the wonder of diversity - there is something for all of us.

To see what the other WIAFK cooks thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the WIAFK website.

EwE - Savoury Carrot-Cashew Soup and Steak Fajitas

This week's Eating with Ellie recipe was selected by Sarah - she chose Savoury Cashew-Carrot Soup. 

This soup is really quick and easy to make, and its star ingredients are carrots and cashews, spiced up with onions, garlic, ginger, allspice and salt and pepper, and sweetened with honey.  The recipe is online here.

The end result is quite delicious.  My soup was not orange like the one in the photo, but still tasted really good.

To see what the others thought of this soup, visit the LYL section of the Eating with Ellie website.

I also managed to catch up on last week's Steak Fajitas, chosen by Glenis.  This was such a delicious recipe - a keeper for me!  Again, really quick and easy - I made it for breakfast (seriously).  See the LYL section of the EwE website for further insights into these fajitas.

EwE - Chinese Vegetable Soup with Pork

For Eating with Ellie this week, Chaya selected Chinese Vegetable Soup with Pork.

This was a very tasty vegetable soup, but puzzingly, the pork was left on the side.  I wanted my pork to be flavoured by the soup, so I added it on top.

This was a really good light meal - I'd make it again.

To see what the other Ellie cooks thought, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Pasta Fagioli with Zucchini

It was my pick for Eating with Ellie this, week, and I selected Pasta Fagioli with Zucchini.  This dish is a soup with a little bit of pasta and lots of veges (zucchini, tomatoes) and beans.

I used wholemeal macaroni rather than elbow pasta. 

I really enjoyed this dish - I would make it again, which says a lot as I don't much like soup.

To see what the other EwE cooks, thought, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

FFWD - Côte d’Azur Cure-all Soup and Salmon in a Jar (really)

For French Fridays with Dorie this week, we are heading to the French Riviera for a very sunny Côte d’Azur Cure-all Soup.  The story behind this soup is that it is a little like the French answer to chicken noodle soup - it is meant to have reparative qualities.

Whether it is actually a healing brew or not, I liked this soup (yes, I did).  Unlike its fishy cousin, the Riviera fish soup, this soup had a really lovely, warm, comforting (non-fishy!) flavour. For once, my soup was also thin, so had a pleasing mouth feel.  I served it with toast spread with hummus.

This week, I also made the only recipe that we have been slated to make so far that I deliberately avoided - Salmon in a Jar: 

 

I deliberately skipped marinating the potatoes because I didn't want to waste more oil - I just boiled them and served them with the salmon. 

 

This dish was, I am sorry to say, not my cup of tea, as I always suspected it would not be.  It smells kind of funky, there is no way I'd eat any of the raw veg in the jar, and the salmon remains oily, even when the excess is wiped off with a paper towel.  This recipe was made only to complete the "set", and so it will remain - definitely not a dish I want to repeat.

 

 

 

To see what the other Doristas made of this week's trip to the sunny Côte d’Azur, visit the LYL section of the website. 

FFWD - Riviera Fish Soup

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Riviera Fish Soup.  It is a tomato based soup made from fish pieces and with flavour added from the fish head.

I bought a whole fish before reading the entire recipe and the reason behind the request for a whole fish (in case you were wondering, it was so you could boil up the soup with the fish head).  In retrospect, I should have just bought fillets.  I am not sure that the head added that much, and descaling and dissecting a whole fish was a pain in the butt.  My fish fillets were sadly ragged, and I ended up cutting them up with the kitchen shears because it was easier.  I made a half batch of soup only.

I find with Dorie's soups that my versions always end up too thick, and this was no exception.  It is so thick that it is visually unappealing.  I ate half the soup, and even though mentally I had logged that it tasted OK, I couldn't bring myself to eat the rest of this claggy concoction.  The very look of it put me off.  The fishy smell was also disconcerting.

To see what the other Doristas thought of this soup, visit the LYL section of the FFWD website.

EwE- Shotgun Wedding Soup

It is week 2 of our new group, Eating with Ellie, where we cook along from Weeknight Wonders by Ellie Krieger.  Kayte had kindly sent me the recipe, but today, my book arrived, so I am in action.

This week, Margaret chose Shotgun Wedding Soup.  I had no idea what this was until I read the recipe, but apparently the name has to do with the marriage of meat and vegetables.  It is a kind of chicken soup with egg and spinach that reminded me of chicken noodle soup from a Chinese restaurant, sans noodles.

I made a half recipe (no idea what I'd do with 8 cups of soup!), which was plenty for two meals for me.  I minced a chicken thigh myself instead of buying pre-minced chicken, which can be a bit dry. 

This soup made a quick, tasty meal.  I liked it rather than loved it, but I learned a new dish.

To see what our other EwE cooks thought, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

FFWD - Simplest Breton Fish Soup

For our very first French Friday with Dorie for 2015, the recipe was Simplest Breton Fish Soup.

The recipe calls for mussels in the shell and fish, but my supermarket only had mussels as part of a marinara mix, so that is what I used.  This is why I also have calamari and prawns in my soup.

For the stock, I dissolved some shrimp paste  in boiling water.

I really enjoyed this soup - I did not expect to, but it was really good.

 

To see what the other Doristas thought of this soup, visit the LYL section of the FFWD website.

Happy New Year!

WWDH - Roasted Carrot and Herb Dumpling Soup

For WWDH this week, Chaya chose Roasted Carrot and Herb Dumpling Soup, the recipe for which is available online here.

This soup is easy enough to make although it takes some time because you have to roast the carrots.  The colour is glorious, but the soup was just OK.  My favourite part was the herb dumplings - don't skip them, they are terrific.

To see what Chaya, Margaret and Sarah thought of this soup, visit their websites.

FFWD - Beatrix's Red Kuri Soup - sort of

 

 

 

This week's French Friday with Dorie recipe is Beatrix's Red Kuri Soup. One big issue is that I could not, even during the autumn/winter, find a Red Kuri Squash.  You can buy the seeds online here, but it seems that unless you grow Red Kuri Squash yourself, you can't acquire one.

 

Accordingly, one day in the autumn, I aw this adorable little pumpkin, and thought it might do:

 

 

As you see from the top of my post, it certainly made soup. However, as Dorie's recipe says to use the skin as well, I learned that this little pumpkin isn't quite the same as a Red Kuri Squash.  I assume that when you cook the skin of a Red Kuri Squash, it becomes soft, so that it can be processed up into the soup.  Not so the skin of this little darling: 

The skin stays hard, even after cooking, so when you process the soup, you gets hundreds of tiny gritty pumpkin skin pebbles all through your soup. 

Needless to say, that no matter how pretty my pumpkin, and how lovely the colour of the resulting soup, this was not a hit with me.

To see how Doristas who found a Red Kuri squash went with this soup, visit the LYL section of the website.

FFWD - Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Parsley Coulis

For French Friday with Dorie this week, we are once again visiting the unattainable Jerusalem artichoke for Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Parsley Coulis.

Well, I made Potato Soup with Chopped Parsley - near enough, eh?  This soup turned out thick and brown, and looks like nearly every other Dorie soup that I have ever made.  it tastes OK, but it is not a favourite and won't be repeated in my house.

To see what the other Doristas thought of this soup, visit the LYL section of the website.

WWDH - Spicy Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Pancetta Soup

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay pick comes from Chaya, who selected Donna's Spicy Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Speck Soup.  You can find the recipe online here.

I really liked the body that this soup had.  I made a half serving, subbed pancetta for speck and subbed cous cous for quinoa.  It made two hearty servings, which made for two very good lunches.

To see what Chaya, Sarah and Margaret thought of this recipe, visit their websites.