Mayumi over at http://bonusparts.wordpress.com/ saw that I had made soup for lunch yesterday and asked if I would share the recipe, so this is my style of cooking. I’m lazy, busy and disorganised. Other then traditional cake baking, Victoria Sandwich for instance, where to make it work the 4-4-2 is best, my philosophy is that if I like the flavours then most things will go together.
I often make soup, its quick, tasty and easy. Yesterdays was butternut squash and it goes something like this.
Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and stickly orange stuff, drizzle a tiny bit of oil and roast it until its soft when you burn your fingers squeezing it. If you’re in a rush don’t bother roasting just peel it, chop it up and shove it in a big pan. Add a chopped up carrot or two – or don’t if you don’t have any. A red pepper, deseeded, roasted or not, two if the squash is large. If you have a chilli put in as much as you feel like bearing in mind that this soup is supposed to be sweet rather than hot, unless you prefer hot! You MUST put in an onion or two (that’s obvious isn’t it?), preferably red but if not … you get the picture. An extra special addition for me is African Gold (see https://lucidgypsy.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/the-african-chef-the-next-big-thing/ )
I had a little sweet potato from last week that needed using so I put it in, but you don’t have to … unless you especially want to. Same applies with tomatoes, fresh or tinned, if you feel like it or have a glut, put them in. Add some water, some stock cubes, salt and pepper and bring to boil, reduce the heat and cook until its cooked. Depending on how much you put in at first you might want to add more water, or not if you like really thick soup. Oh I forgot, grate some fresh ginger in at some point. If you don’t have any, you can use ground instead, I don’t expect anyone will know. This is a smooth soup, so let it cool a bit and then blend it. I use a hand blender and it spirts all over the place but guess what? I’m too lazy to get the food processor out!
This was delicious yesterday and today some will go into a flask for a beach warm up, and it freezes well. It may be a bit odd, but I’m a good cook and I even have cookery books, but if a recipe has more than eight or so ingredients I can’t be bothered with it. It’s much more fun just playing. Of course if somethings turns out spectacular, it can never be reproduced, heyho, I’ll just try something else.