Four soups!

Until today it's been really autumnal here so I've been making lots of soups. Three are from River Cottage Veg Every Day and one is from my head/veggie delivery leftovers!

Last of the Summer Soup!
This is the one that I made up. I basically cooked in stock: a leek, two small heads of broccoli, a bulb of fennel and three celery sticks, all chopped. I whizzed it up after cooking with some fresh basil. Very tasty!

Chard, chickpea and mushroom soup
This is super tasty and very easy. I couldn't get dried porcini but did find dried portabellos so used them instead. Basically you soak the mushrooms then cook them in the liquid with onions, garlic, tinned toms and chickpeas before wilting in chard at the end. It is seasoned with rosemary. A really strong and hearty soup!

Porotos Granados
This was the first page I opened up to in RCV and I had to make it. It's a Chilean recipe using butternut squash, cannellini beans, sweetcorn and green beans, cooked in stock with paprika and oregano. It went down very well with the visitor I made it for!

Mexican tomato and bean soup
Sorry for the poor quality picture - will try to get a better one of the leftovers tomorrow! Very easy to make with black beans, fresh tomatoes, passata, chilli and lime. Not spicy enough for me so will be adding hot sauce tomorrow :-)

Quick and tasty rice'n'lentils w green veg

I put this together in a hurry in one pot last night.

Fry off a chopped onion and some garlic in a little oil or fry spray. Add 120g basmati rice and about 600ml stock. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add a chopped courgette and a large head of broccoli divided into florets. Simmer until rice and veg are cooked. Add a tin of drained green lentils and plenty of chopped basil and keep on heat until the lentils are hot.

Chachouka!

Sounds interesting - and it is! A kind friend bought me a copy of River Cottage Veg Every Day for my recent birthday. What an amazing book! I'm still only working my way through it and this is the first thing I've made.

It's basically a more spicy take on peperonata - as well as onions, garlic and peppers, you add cumin seeds, paprika and saffron. I served it with my favourite Taifun sausages and some steamed spinach.

Polenta with green veg

I have to admit to being quite lazy recently and mostly using the blocks of precooked polenta. But I decided to make it wet, for a change, and ended up with this recipe.

I sauteed a leek, a small bulb of fennel, four chard leaves and some chopped flatleaf parsley until just wilted. Meanwhile I cooked 60g quick cook polenta with 250ml veg stock. When it was just done, I added a tsp of nutritional yeast. To serve, I sprinkled over plenty of parmazano. It turned out really nice but you have to eat it quickly before it sets!

Red pepper and chickpea curry

WOW! I just made this tonight and it was sooooo good! I really want to eat the leftovers now instead of saving them for tomorrow's lunch!

I slowly fried a chopped onion and two big red peppers in a little spray oil. When they were softened, I added a tin of chickpeas, a tsp of curry paste (I like Patak's Rogan Josh) and a splash of stock (less than 100ml). Simmer this until everything is nicely thickened and then add half a bag of spinach and wilt it in. You want it to almost start catching on the bottom of the pan and then you know it's ready :-)

Tomato pasta

Last night I really fancied pasta and found some Biona Spelt Tagliatelle in the cupboard so decided that would be a nice compromise!
I made a sauce using onion, loads of garlic, fresh tomatoes and spinach - very gently fried in a little olive oil adding the spinach at the end once the tomatoes had broken up. I finished it off with some fresh basil. I have to admit it was even nicer leftover for lunch today! Sorry the pic isn't great!