Home Made Medicine - Soup Glorious Soup!!

It doesn't matter if you have a Vitamix, a Cuisinart Soup Maker or any other make or even if you just have a large pot but just make yourself some home made soup.  It is so easy to make a good quality and delicious soup and so many different flavours - the choice is really endless.

First start with something simple and master the art of making a good stock.  The most popular are chicken, beef, fish and vegetable. There is one that I only make at this time of year and that is of course turkey stock.  The family cheer when I am making it as it means no more turkey left over dishes!!

I get out my big stock pot, put all the turkey carcass and bones into it, cover with water and put it on to bring up to the boil.  I usually add some onion, celery and carrot roughly chopped and just leave it all to simmer for a couple of hours.

Yesterday I put the carcass from our Christmas turkey on to make a stock and was rewarded with the most awesome broth.  This morning I turned the broth into one of my favourite soups for lunch - celery soup.

A knob of butter and a tablespoon of light oil in a stock pot and when it was warm I added one onion roughly chopped and a whole head of celery cut up. 

Leave this all to simmer till the celery is tender and then blitz  with a stick blender. To give the soup a little subtle background flavour I popped in two whole cardamon seeds and removed them just before blitzing. I also added salt and pepper and a small amount of Gran Luchito Mexican chilli paste - I didn't add enough to make it hot but just to give a shimmer of mmmmmmm.

That's all you need to do for a simple, nourishing meal with a hunk of fresh bread and GOURMET!

Of course, then Mr R comes into the dining room with a tin of spaghetti and meatballs for lunch - I despair!!!