Gardening

It was so lovely to be out in the fresh air and working in the garden last week, such fine warm days feel like a special gift that musn't be wasted this time of the year, its almost like its your duty to drop everything and get out there!

Had a quandry, the boys had waved goodbye off to see Nanny for the morning .. no-one about, all quiet! What to do, hmmmm ... really ought to cook something lovely and warm and healthy for us all to have for lunch when they get back. But the pull towards the garden is so strong and cannot be denied.

So I stuck the remains of the roast dinner in a big saucepan - heated some oil and tossed the remains of the tray of roasted veggies in it (butternut squash, potatoes, carrot, parsnip). When that smelt all appealing I popped in the leftover gravy, the remains of the chicken and the leftover green veg (greens and leeks and peas). Topped up with water, brought it slowly up to the boil (while putting jacket on and sorting out my seeds) .. bit of salt and pepper .. reduce to v. gentle simmer .. and GARDEN!!!!

Popped in to check from time to time and an hour later, beautiful soup. Gave it a quick squash with the potato masher so's to thicken it up (and so's the little'un doesn't pick the carrots out) and there it was .. hearty fare for all and happy mummy morning in the garden! Hurray!

Soup Magic

January has not been great... everyone is sick and/or grumpy. But there was a moment of magic today! In my constant effort to not waste food, eat more veg and cook from scratch, etc I knocked up a soup for lunch. I had a slightly wrinkled and unappetising-looking celeriac languishing in the basket of roots, so I looked up a recipe for celeriac soup. I wasn't expecting much - the list of ingredients looked so innocuous, nothing exciting. You know, an onion, a stock cube, a bit of milk.

But it totally rocked!

And so I am reminded of the power of soup to be more than the sum of its ingredients. We had it in giant mugs with crunchy slices of bread toasted under the grill with a drizzle of oil and pinch of thyme. It was full of flavour and it cheered me up and made me feel better about the world and everything in it.

And the little'un dunked his crunchy toast in the soup and scooped it up and yummed it down with great enthusiasm (before falling off his chair while attempting to imitate the washing machine which just went into spin cycle - its OK, I caught him by the ankle - no harm done!)

So there we are .. whatever the problem is, I think the answer is probably soup.