Roy decided that, since it has been so cold and windy recently, it is perfect soup weather. There is nothing better to come home to on a cold day than a nice warming bowl of hearty soup, but many of the children he knows are more used to eating tinned soup than home made. Roy thinks this is a shame, because soup is just so easy to make, most people have the ingredients on hand anyway and homemade tastes much better. He decided that he would make a few soups this winter to show his friends how to do it, and the first he decided to do is a classic in his family - Refrigerator Soup.
You Will Need:
- 2 Litres Of Stock. You can use whatever sort of stock you like. Roy had some homemade bacon bone stock, but you could use commercial chicken, beef, vegetable, or whatever else you would like to use. Even stock powder works just fine.
- Vegetables. Use whatever vegetables you have on hand. Roy used 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, 3 potatoes, 1 zucchini and 2 small onions. You can add whatever else you like.
- Meat. Roy used the meat from the bacon bones he used to make his stock, chopped up. You could use leftover roast, a store bought, cooked chicken, or fry off some chopped raw meat and cook it in the soup until it is cooked through.
- 1 cup of dried soup mix. There are lots of different types of dried soup mixes. Essentially, they are made up of different dried pulses and grains (lentils, peas, beans, barley etc). Roy used one with dried beans and dried peas in it, but you can choose whatever you like. If you don't want to use soup mix, just leave it out.
- Seasonings. Roy used 2 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper and a little dried chilli. You can add herbs and other seasonings as you like.
- 1 tin of crushed tomatoes. If you don't like tomatoes, simply don't put this in.
Method:
- Set the stock, 1 cup of water and the soup mix to boil in a large pot on the stove. Leave them to boil, covered, for 30 to 45 minutes. This will soften the soup mix a little, making sure it is nice to eat when the soup is ready. If you plan to cook your soup all day in a slow cooker you can skip this step.
- Chop all of the vegetables into small chunks and fry them off together with the seasonings in a little olive oil. You just want them slightly softened.
- Add the vegetables, meat, tomatoes and seasoning to the stock and soup mix.
- Turn the heat down and simmer for 30 minutes to a couple of hours. The longer the soup cooks the more intense the flavours will become.
- Taste the soup and adjust the seasonings if you think this is needed.
- Now serve your soup with nice crusty bread and enjoy!