Things I love about cold weather: #1

Soup!!

Say what you will about autumn and winter (and the Poms sure do - they make moaning a national sport), but I love it! It's warm and cosy inside, and when the weather is grey and bleak, you don't have to feel guilty that you're tucked up inside reading a book instead of being outdoors. I love the sound of rain on my roof and I love winter food. Cooking in winter is just so easy - you throw things in a pot, leave them for a decent length of time and when you come back, you've got perfectly cooked, warming winter fare that tends to taste even better the next day. Mashed potato, stews, dumplings, fruit crumbles...all things that make winter fabulous, as far as I'm concerned. But, the one thing I most look forward to in winter is having soup for lunch almost everyday. Simple perhaps, but definitely not boring! Last week I had mushroom soup all week (a hot contender for my favourite soup crown) but today I was hankering for something more vegie oriented. Below is what I did, and it turned out really well! It's the sort of soup that isn't really a recipe, and it probably should have beans of some kind in it rather than split peas, but I didn't have any pre-cooked or tinned beans, so I threw the peas in instead. Also, I usually prefer my soups like this to have big chunky pieces of vege floating in a soupy broth, rather than blitzing the life out of them, but if you're a smooth soup fan then by all means crank up the blender!

Jess's Wednesday Soup

1 onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
about a cup of peeled, seeded pumpkin or butternut squash, cut into large chunks
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into similarly large chunks
2-3 carrots, cut into chunks
3 cups of vege or chicken stock
a few sprigs of herbs (I used rosemary and thyme purely because that's what is growing on my balcony)
a handful (literally) of split yellow peas
a squirt (probably about a tbsp if you wanted to measure) tomato paste/puree
1 cup (ish) of roughly chopped curly kale (or spinach maybe?)

Saute onion and garlic in some olive oil. Throw vege in as they are prepared. Add stock, herbs, peas and tomato paste. Simmer for at least 30 mins, but probably closer to 45 (so that the peas are properly soft). Taste and add salt to your liking. Add the kale, pop the lid on and leave it to simmer for another 10 mins. Pretty, hearty and delicious. Soup really is food for the soul as far as I'm concerned!

NB. I actually got impatient and hungry waiting for this to cook, so after about 35 mins, I put 1/2 tsp of baking soda in the soup. This probably sounds odd, and it was a wee experiment but it worked out just as I'd hoped. A friend of mine - Katrina - and I have had a couple of conversations about the role of baking soda (bicarb) in legume-cooking. In my recipe for felafel, you have to add some bicarb to the mixture because you don't pre-boil the chickpeas. I wasn't ever really sure why this was, but Kat thought it might help to soften the chickpeas. Hence, when I felt the split peas in this soup needed a wee helping hand (so that I could eat them sooner!) I added a small amount of bicarb to the soup. It fizzed and looked a bit weird for a minute, but once it calmed down, the peas softened almost instantly. Definitely a handy trick to know!