Post by Glen B Ogle on Feb 21, 2010 13:13:50 GMT
I’ve just “invented” this to use up an excess of veg! You can change, substitute or omit ingredients as it suits.
Ingredients
Butter/Oil
1 large Onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large Squash, peeled* and chopped into about ¾” cubes
1 Red Pepper, roughly chopped
1 Courgette, sliced
4 Cloves Garlic, peeled chopped and crushed
1 Aubergine, sliced
Veg Stock Powder (or Chicken or Veg Oxo)
½ tsp Ground Ginger
Herbs
Method
Melt some butter (or margarine) with some olive oil in a large saucepan and sweat off the onions for a few minutes stirring frequently. Add the rest of the veg**, except the aubergine, to the pan - sweating the veg helps bring out the sweetness. Meanwhile chargrill the sliced aubergine in a griddle pan, again this helps the flavour.
After 10 minutes or so, stirring frequently, add a pint of your chosen stock, I used an organic veg stock powder from the local Christian Wholefood shop but use whatever you prefer. I also added ½ tsp of ground ginger just to add a slight kick.
Bring back to the boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, for around 20 minutes or until the squash is soft.
Take your weapon of choice – a food processor, liquidiser or blender – and whizz the soup to the desired consistency. I put half into the jug I’d used earlier to make the stock and whizzed the two halves separately with a stick blender. You can make it as coarse or as fine as you like.
Return all the whizzed soup to the pan, add some chopped herbs (fresh if you’ve got them, I used dried Fines Herbs from the same Wholefood shop) and season to taste. Decide at this point if you need to thin the soup a bit - I rinsed the jug out with a little boiling water as it was a little thick.
Reheat the soup when required and serve with a sprinkling of scallions (spring onions to Southerners) and a swirl of Worcester Sauce. Cheese on toast or crispy cheese croutons should make a good accompaniment, or you could sprinkle grated cheese onto the soup and serve with crusty bread.
Glen
*Does anyone know an easy way to peel squash? The recipes tend to say "use a vegetable peeler", all I can say is their squash must have softer skins! I usually wind up slicing the skin off with a knife.
**In hindsight I think I would have finally chopped the pepper and added it to the whizzed up soup before reheating to give a bit of extra colour.
Ingredients
Butter/Oil
1 large Onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large Squash, peeled* and chopped into about ¾” cubes
1 Red Pepper, roughly chopped
1 Courgette, sliced
4 Cloves Garlic, peeled chopped and crushed
1 Aubergine, sliced
Veg Stock Powder (or Chicken or Veg Oxo)
½ tsp Ground Ginger
Herbs
Method
Melt some butter (or margarine) with some olive oil in a large saucepan and sweat off the onions for a few minutes stirring frequently. Add the rest of the veg**, except the aubergine, to the pan - sweating the veg helps bring out the sweetness. Meanwhile chargrill the sliced aubergine in a griddle pan, again this helps the flavour.
After 10 minutes or so, stirring frequently, add a pint of your chosen stock, I used an organic veg stock powder from the local Christian Wholefood shop but use whatever you prefer. I also added ½ tsp of ground ginger just to add a slight kick.
Bring back to the boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, for around 20 minutes or until the squash is soft.
Take your weapon of choice – a food processor, liquidiser or blender – and whizz the soup to the desired consistency. I put half into the jug I’d used earlier to make the stock and whizzed the two halves separately with a stick blender. You can make it as coarse or as fine as you like.
Return all the whizzed soup to the pan, add some chopped herbs (fresh if you’ve got them, I used dried Fines Herbs from the same Wholefood shop) and season to taste. Decide at this point if you need to thin the soup a bit - I rinsed the jug out with a little boiling water as it was a little thick.
Reheat the soup when required and serve with a sprinkling of scallions (spring onions to Southerners) and a swirl of Worcester Sauce. Cheese on toast or crispy cheese croutons should make a good accompaniment, or you could sprinkle grated cheese onto the soup and serve with crusty bread.
Glen
*Does anyone know an easy way to peel squash? The recipes tend to say "use a vegetable peeler", all I can say is their squash must have softer skins! I usually wind up slicing the skin off with a knife.
**In hindsight I think I would have finally chopped the pepper and added it to the whizzed up soup before reheating to give a bit of extra colour.