Having spent the vast majority of the university holidays sick – how unfair is that - I have eaten very little except for soup, because soup is easy to make and cheap and good for the soul and with enough chilli and onion will kick the crap out of whatever is living in your chest and head. NB: Chicken Soup for the Soul is not very good for the soul or the temper, but quite good at propping up the ad-hoc media centre when the earthquakes have left your house on a lean. Did you know they have trademarked the term “where people come to help people”? Self help books make me want to spew.
Soup, especially soup of the ‘throw it in a pot and leave it for a bit’ variety, is helpful on winter nights or afternoons when you need to heat up the house and the belly. It freezes very well, which is handy when it is far too cold to cook and the prospect of Big Gary’s for the third night in a row is a bit daunting.
Protip 1 – if you add lots of things like lentils or barley, keep an eye on the pot as they will absorb lots of water and may end up burning on the bottom. When left overnight, the pulses with swell up and leave you with gloopy stew so upon reheating you might need to add more water.
Protip 2 - if you over-salt the soup, you can somewhat fix things by adding grated or diced potato, or by adding a little sugar or acid (vinegar, lemon juice) to balance out the flavour.
Protip 3 – for those of you who are super lazy, the cheap packets of King brand soup mix, with the addition of frozen vegetables, will feed a flat for less than $5.
Hearty beef stew
500g cheap stewing steak, sometimes delightfully called ‘gravy beef’
2 onions
1 carrot
2 sticks of celery
1 small swede OR 2 big potatoes
1 medium parsnip
¼ cup barley, rice or lentils (uncooked)
1 litre stock OR 1 litre of water + 2 stock cubes of your choosing
1 or 2 bayleaves (optional)
Chop the meat into 2cm cubes. Trim off all the fat and any gristly bits and throw them away – seriously, they’re gross and add nothing to a good stew experience. Wash and, if you can be bothered, peel the carrot, swede (or potatoes), and parsnip. Chop all the veggies into whatever sizes or shapes you think are nicest. Dump everything into a pot. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 1 ½ hours or until the meat is nice and tender. Make sure you don’t boil the crap out of it the whole time or the meat with go chewy and yuck instead of tender and lovely.
Curried pumpkin soup
500g (ish) pumpkin – add more for a thicker soup
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 T butter or oil
2 t cumin
2T red curry paste
1 can coconut cream or milk
1 litre stock OR 1 litre water and 2 stock cubes
Peanut butter (optional)
Remove the skin and seeds from the pumpkin. You will need to do this with a knife, not a peeler. If you have a terrible knife you will now want to take a break to nurse your blisters and the bit of finger you just chopped off. Chop the flesh roughly into cubes. Peel and slice the onions and garlic.
Heat the butter or oil in your soup pot, then cook the onions, garlic, cumin and curry paste gently until the onions have started to soften. Throw in the pumpkin, stir it around for a minute, then add the coconut stuff and the milk. Bring to the boil then simmer gently until the pumpkin is tender.
When it’s ready, add a massive spoon of peanut butter and stir until it has become one with the soup – it will bring out the nice nutty flavour of the pumpkin. Take the pot off the heat then mash the crap out of it with a masher, or zap it with a stick blender – be careful though, you don’t want the nurses laughing at you when you arrive at the 24 Hour Surgery with molten orange goop on your face. Return it to the heat, taste it, add more curry paste or cumin if you want, then keep it warm until you serve it.
A word about bastard pumpkins: Taking the skin off a pumpkin is a nightmare with a crappy knife. A sneaky solution to this is to remove the seeds, pierce the skin a bit with your knife, then microwave the pumpkin for 3 - 5 minutes. This should make life much easier. Pumpkin seeds also grow very well – throw them on a compost heap and chances are in a few months you will have a bounteous supply.
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