* Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup {Meatless Mondays} + "Eggs" Winner

I have another new favourite soup, and it's this one. This Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup is getting it's own bank account, it's so good.

Really. Even Neil enjoyed it, and he doesn't like broccoli.

I probably wouldn't have offered him a bowl of it, if he hadn't asked what smelled so good when it was bubbling away on the stove. When I told him what it was, he said he wouldn't mind trying some.

So when it was cooked, I pushed the spoon into his face with a whole "Choo-choo here comes the food train." pantomime, to which he responded with "Please don't ever do that again." and "I'll eat that." A huuuuuuge compliment from my man of few words.

Neither of us are fans of soups that use flour as a thickener (though I do make them), so I used a carrot to thicken this soup, and to add a slightly golden colour - which makes this a gluten free soup. Also, this recipe uses the whole broccoli - both florets and stems.

I'm now trying to think of more ways to get him to eat broccoli because I love it, and it's far easier to cook one meal for both of us than two separate ones. Though this doesn't happen too often because although he's a man of simple tastes - Neil will try virtually anything (that isn't a flapjack), that I put in front of him.

It's that or starve.

Now it's time to announce the winner of the Michel Roux "Eggs" Cook Book Give Away from last Monday.... drum roll please...

and... the winner iiiiiiissssss.....

Katrina Pearce (comment number 2) - congratulation Katrina, your book is on it's way!

Thanks to everyone who entered xx

* Winter Minestrone

This is my absolute new favourite soup.

I know I shouldn't favour one recipe over any other... they are all my babies (kinda), but this one would get more pocket money than the others, for definite. I wish I could claim it as all my own idea with a touch of aren't I a complete genius thrown in, just to keep everything on the me, me, me.... but this Winter Minestrone Recipe is one I adapted from Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa - to suit my own cooking style and recipe ingredients.

In otherwords, I made it as easy and lazy as possible. I really can't be bothered to cook pasta separately (as per Ina's recipe) then throw it in the pot when it's cooked - it cooks just as easily in the soup itself, as it does in a pot of boiling water - and there's less washing up to do. Win win.

I know it's on a Monday that I'm posting this, but it's NOT a Meatless Monday Recipe - it has bacon in it and chicken stock. I'm still no good at planning ahead when it comes to bandwagons I could jump upon. The fact that I've managed a few Meatless Mondays posts in recent months is pure coincidence and nothing to do with planning whatsover - I don't cook for my blog as much as I cook for me and Neil... especially in the cold, dark months at the end of one year and beginning of the next, because I have a hard time taking decent photographs in the light.

Which leads me to a favour I need to ask - Neil has mentioned buying me a decent digital camera for Christmas (I currently have a little point and shoot) and I was wondering what any of you might suggest I should look at? Our budget would be in the region of £300 (just under 500 American dollars). Any advice would be truly appreciated!

Thanks guys xx

* Sweet Potato and Chana Dahl Soup {Meatless Mondays}

I know... you've all been waiting with bated breath for yet another chunky soup recipe. Haven't you.

I'm going to take your deathly silence as assent and plod on with the post.

This Sweet Potato and Chana Dahl Soup Recipe is a copycat of a Baxter's Soup by a similar name - except mine is a damn sight cheaper and has less calories... which wasn't the ultimate point but you can't have too much *happy* when it comes to food.

The point was... actually I don't know what the point was. I forget.

Anyway.... I've ended up with an exceptionally scrumptious and healthy soup that'll serve as a dinner if you're not craving steak and chips (fries), and works perfectly as a filling and healthy meal if you're doing the 5:2 diet... which I am. Sometimes successfully... other times... notsomuch. It seems to depend on how much cake there is in the house at any one time. 

If there isn't cake, it's really not a good idea to make cake, especially on a day when you are meant to be fasting because all sorts of things can (and do) happen... like finding yourself licking the butter cream off of the whisks or suddenly discovering your tongue in the bottom of the mixing bowl. Neither are good situations to suddenly come to your senses in. 

It's also very difficult to work out the exact amount of calories in 20 licks of coffee butter cream and 5 tongues of coffee cake batter.

Though I promise I did try.

Not.

* Creamy Tomato Soup

Up until a couple of years ago, we had a medium sized greenhouse in the back garden that was chock full of tomatoes every September... but only above waist height.

This is because the dog likes tomatoes, and if we didn't get to them quickly enough, she'd wander in whenever she felt like a snack and chew the bottoms off of all of the tomatoes she could reach. As she got older, she'd just suck them as she walked by - so we never took a chance on picking anything that was at Sammy's head height.

We got rid of the greenhouse two Summers ago, because neither of us had the time to pay it the attention it needed - and although life is certainly easier without having to disinfect it annually, replace broken panes and lovingly tend the vegetables on a daily basis... I miss it.

I haven't made a tomato soup with fresh tomatoes in two years, and there's nothing quite like it. So when I "came by" (in a totally legal fashion without actually purchasing them)... a kilo of fresh tomatoes - I knew exactly what I was going to do with them.

Make a pie... kiiiiidding!!!

My mum makes a lovely Mediterranean style tomato soup with peppers and whatnot in it, but this creamy version has always been my own "go to" recipe because it uses up my bendy carrots and reminds me of Heinz tomato soup... but without the indigestion.

Years ago, when only a little girl (many, many, MANY moons ago) - my darling mum introduced me to mashed potatoes with a tin of tomato soup poured over the top... because it's what she used to have when she was a little girl.

My mum is the reason that my bath towels don't meet in the front.

* Corn, Three Pepper and Orzo Soup

Yes I know it's yet another bloody soup recipe. You really should be used to it by now.

My eating habits haven't changed much in forty years so they're hardly going to change in the single year that I have been food blogging... maybe if I'm still at it in twenty years you will be able to expect something different... but only because I will have cooked every, single soup recipe on the planet by then.

Or not.

Somehow I doubt that we're going to find out.

No. I really don't expect to be dead within the next twenty years. Well it's not in the plan, at any rate -I just doubt that in twenty years I'll still be food blogging. I'm hoping to be living on a Caribbean Island, in a hut, on the beach. Someone else will be doing the cooking.

I can dream.

Anyway... this soup is an adapted version of a creamless corn chowder by Cara at Big Girls Small Kitchen (Link to original recipe at bottom of page). I absolutely loved it when I cooked it, about a year ago (so did Neil), and was tempted just to repeat the recipe this time - it was that good... but I had extra peppers to use up and am still attempting to locate and divest myself of all of the pasta that I have accumulated and hidden throughout the house...

... I had my hands on a bag of mini farfalle in the supermarket the other day and for the first time ever my brain decided to get in on the action and question whether or not I actually needed another type of pasta in the house. We had a minor altercation. I lost. I came home without the mini farfalle.

I am no longer in a relationship with my brain.

* Spicy Tomato and Chickpea Soup {Meatless Mondays}

I absolutely loved this soup. It was filling. more-ish and nommy and although I have previously harboured a vindictive and somewhat unreasonable hatred of chickpeas in the past - I now love them too. Not quite as much as I love cheese, or spinach or mayonnaise... but we're working on our relationship a bit at a time and it's slowly moving forwards.

Me and chickpeas... we is now friends. 

I think this is mostly down to the fact that I stopped buying cheap supermarket *own* versions and started paying out a few extra pennies for better quality ones. There's a world of difference that you wouldn't expect in something so simple. 

Neil has always liked chickpeas, and has dipped out in the past because I've only cooked with them rarely... and Neil doesn't cook. Like... ever...

... the last time he made anything, it was a BLT and he brought it up to me as breakfast in bed. I don't know what he did to it, but it was the soggiest, pappiest most disgusting thing I have ever bitten into! Thankfully, he buggered off downstairs and I was able to flush it down the toilet. I was positively STARVING come lunch time because I didn't tell him.... not for about five years anyway...

...when it would no longer damage his ego. Not quite sure why I waited so long. I really didn't want him to cook again, and I'm pretty damn glad he never offered.

But that's between you, me and the gatepost.

* Roast Chicken and Vegetable Soup

I've attempted to cook a chicken and vegetable soup on about four occasions just recently, and have remained unimpressed with each of my endeavours until this one. Each previous version has had similar vegetables in it, but every time it's all come out a bit... well... bleh.

The temptation to stick a load of herbs and spices in, or a spoonful of curry paste... or even a tin of tomatoes has been HUGE... but if I'd done that I wouldn't have had the soup I wanted. I just wanted something fairly simple and wholesome that would taste... I dunno... a bit... English, maybe. Or maybe I was aiming for a bit Summery. Who knows.

So... there I was, yet again thinking "Sod it, all these ingredients and I'm still not sure I like this bloody soup." I opened the fridge door and stared vacantly inside it, looking for divine inspiration (I do this A LOT... at least, that's what I tell Neil I'm doing when he comes in the kitchen and discovers me with my head in the fridge for the eleventieth hundredth time that day)... when I spotted the mustard, sitting in the top of the fridge door, frantically waving it's little hands in the air shouting "Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me!".

So I did. And it worked.

It took until this time to end up with something that I thought was tasty enough to share... and it was all down to a couple of heaped tablespoons of multi-grain mustard. There's a huuuuge chance that it's going to become my new spinach, and go into just about everything that I cook because it worked a little miracle on my soup. It gave it the flavour I'd been looking for that every previous version had been missing.

Even cream hadn't helped it's forefathers.

*Sigh*... I like cream.

* Spicy Butternut and Black Bean Soup {Meatless Mondays}

At last... it's a Monday and I have vegetarian fare to offer up for the band wagon that I am jumping onto - Meatless Mondays.

Before starting a food blog, I had no clue that such a thing existed and quite frankly I think it's brilliant.... and not just because I can finally "Get in there"... honest.

We're a family that don't have issues with meat, one way or the other... or issues with a lack of it - so I do manage to insert the odd meatless meal without anyone actually caring enough to go on a hunger strike. Plus, meat is so bloody expensive that occasionally it helps the budget to miss it out.

I have a friend who once, accidentally (after a few too many glasses of wine), forgot to put the chicken in a chicken supreme. We all ate it and thoroughly enjoyed it (we too were very, very sloshed). The fact that she got away with it, made me deliberately give it a shot a week later, and I made a chickenless chicken stew with dumplings. No one noticed. For years!!! Cheapest stew I ever made. One of the nicest too.

I KNOW that's not the idea behind Meatless Mondays! But a little slip up like that, does make you question your food priorities. Of which I have many. Priority number one being that "Thou must consume one's own body weight in chocolate... on a weekly basis". However, having meat on a daily basis, isn't one of mine, or my familiy's priorities. So... today I get to play.

I can't/won't guarantee that I'll ever join in Meatless Mondays again. I've been food blogging for nearly 9 months and this is the first time that I've coincidentally cooked, eaten and been able to blog meatless fare on a Monday.

So no holding your breath until next Monday...

... because you'll die. For real.

* Moroccan Style Chicken Soup

I have a new passion... Instagram! Yeah, I know the rest of the world discovered it when men were still living in caves and wiping their backsides on badgers, but it's a very recent discovery for me... AND. I. LOVE. IT.

I sort of knew it was there, but honestly wondered what all the fuss was about. Then about a week ago I was bored and somehow or other I downloaded the App. I no longer remember why. I no longer care why. I just know that I. LOVE. IT.

All of a sudden, every opportunity is a photographic one... taking the dog for a walk, meeting my oldest BFF - Kerry - at the beach for lunch and a stroll, the cat snoozing, the cat stretching, the dog eyeballing me while I should be taking her for a walk.... fooooood (obviously). I even took a photo of the washing blowing on the line. Oh yes I did. Didn't share that one though. That would have been passé.

There's a heck of a lot of feet, on instagram. Just random photographs of feet. I've painted my toenails (and shaved my toes) just in case I'm over taken by an incredible compulsion to point my phone-cam downwards and click away.

I'm fairly sure I will. In fact... I might have already succumbed.

If you wanna see what colour my toenails are, come say hello at abbes_antics ;)

I really should try to remember the point of all this, shouldn't I. There is a recipe, there always is. It's soup. Or stew, depending on what time of day it is and how hungry you are. This one is "to die for"...

... much like my undercoating.

* Butternut Squash and Tomato Soup

This soup was absolutely scrumptious, and so easy to make that I almost feel guilty for calling it a recipe. But it has a list of ingredients and some instructions, so a recipe is what it is.

I'm a huge fan of soup - obviously - but not a huge fan of smooth or pureed soups. Hubby is, however. So this one was for him - at least - that's what I told him. But I tell him a lot of crap that isn't true, so lets not pick on this one thing...

I tell him the standard "No, this isn't new - it's been in the back of the wardrobe for AGES" and "I got this for half price, honest". I also say things like "Look what mum bought me", "No, I didn't go out for lunch today", "I've been REALLY busy ALL day", "I've only had one glass of wine, dahlink *hic* ", and my all time favourite "No, it's NOT a risotto, it's a rice casserole."

Apparently, he knows when I'm lying because I open my mouth. He knows full well when I'm telling him pork pies, he just decides to play along. His favourite quote...

Happy Wife. Happy Life.

Works for me :)

NOTE: You'll probably notice - if you're a frequent visitor - that some of my recipes are starting to appear without the usual *tute style* photographs within them. This is because there are times when they are either a tad pointless, or because I just wanted to enjoy cooking something without arsing about every couple of minutes.

If you have an opinion on this... you want them all the time, don't want them at all... or couldn't give a flying fig... please feel free to comment and let me know :) 

I promise to be nice.

* Chicken, Tomato and Pasta Soup

This Chicken, Tomato and Pasta Soup has been a life saver over the weekend... I shall explain...

We had a girly night in, at a friends house on Saturday night... there was MUCH wine, MUCH Chilli, MUCH chips and dips and MUCH competitive dancing on the Wii. I won every time I danced, because I know how to shake my thang. Really. I do.

What I don't know - is how to turn down another glass of wine. The words "No" and "Thankyou" disappear completely from my vocabulary, about halfway down the first glass. Which is when other words suddenly take a leading role. Mostly swear words. My sentences are peppered with blue language when sober, they are positively drenched when I'm not. Which is NOT FUN when in polite company, but seeing as I wasn't (in polite company), it was fine. If slightly blethering idiot.

Still. I won the dance off.

It was worth the hangover.

Which brings me back to the soup...(niiiiiice segway, Abs *pats self on back*)... I knew - with absolute clarity on Friday - that I would not want to do more than veg out, on Sunday - so I made this soup.

It was sustenance.

It was delicious.

I am SMRT.

* Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup

No... don't run away. I know it's another soup recipe, but it's a good one. Honest.

Actually, it's better than good. I've had trouble not sticking my head in it.

AND... it's surprisingly Weightwatchers Friendly. Well, it surprised me. I honestly thought when I was adding up the propoints on the recipe widget at Weightwatchers, that it would come in at a HUMUNGOUSLY high amount per portion, and that I'd have to eat air whilst everyone else stuffed their faces...

Not so... Happily. There were cries of "OhThankGod!" and a brief, bell-less Morris Dance around the kitchen, before I got stuck in... then I remembered I wasn't actually supposed to be eating it yet. I had to wait until dinner time. Dammit.

I really wouldn't have eaten it if it was OTT on the points front, because I ate and drank enough to sink a small fleet of ships when I went out to lunch with my girlfriends on Saturday. It was only supposed to be lunch, but we were having such a good time that it ended up being all day and most of the night. We were very... very... merry.

I danced too close to the speakers in the pub, and have been deaf in one ear for two days. My feet hurt. My head aches... I feel twice my age and half as sprightly.

But it was SO worth it!

* Leek and Potato Soup

Unbelievably, even after Minstrelgate last Sunday... I have lost 3.5lbs this week.... that's 8.5lbs total in 3 weeks.

...I'll be right back...

Gets up and flings self round room "Birthday Dance Stylie"

Hold on. 

I'm still flinging....

Done.

That's got to have earned me some activity points... and perhaps a glass of wine (or three)... and maybe a piece of chocolate cake. A very small piece.

No. This is not a huge lead up to a recipe for a chocolate cake of any description. This is a recipe for soup... did someone just gasp in shock?!? I KNOW... more soup. I like soup. If you've read any of my previous entries you already know this. Soup is my *go to* food. No matter whether I am trying to lose weight, eat healthy or just stuff my face - soup has a firm hold on my heart, and my stomach... and sometimes my chin.

This is yet another family favourite, Neil's in particular, and is lovely sopped up with Cheese and Mustard Scones or a chunk of Courgette and Cheddar Loaf.

Yes. I am shamelessly plugging my own food.

One day... I will rule the world.

* Mixed Bean and Barley Soup

I thought that giving up the job that I hated, would give me the time to get my home in order and perhaps give my brain a little TLC and a rest from the rigours of putting up with other peoples crap. I thought I'd be luxuriating in the happiness of being able to do what I want, when I want...

No alarm clock to get up to. No speed walk around the lake with the dog's eyeballs popping out of her head because I'm running late yet again and she's too old to keep up, even on her leash. No "He said, She said" upon arrival at work. No eternal clock watching until home time. No too tired to do anything but crash on the sofa and use the dog as a blankie when I finally make it home. No fish finger sandwiches for dinner because I. just. can't. be. arsed...

I am reaping the benefits of all of the above... but OHMYGODI'MBORED!!!!! I'm now only working at the weekend (at a job I love) and I have NO IDEA what to do with myself during the day. Do I do housework? Decorating? Visit friends? Do I join the gym (yeah right)? Do I take the dog for incredibly long walks in the rain??? Do I cook? Do I read? Watch TV? Rent a film? Go shopping?

What do I do?

... I eat.

I gotta get me another job.... and something with an elasticated waist.

* Thai Style Chicken Soup

As a relatively new food blogger, who realises that to entice people to come look at my food and recipes... that I have to be able to take a half decent photograph of my food ... I have something to confess... dun, dun, DUUUUUUUUNNNNNN...

...I'm not sure that I'm overly interested in food photography.

G.A.S.P!

OhMyGod I feel like I've just confessed to wearing the same pair of knickers two days in a row. Which I have NEVER done. Truly. Okay, maybe once after an "All Nighter" that lasted longer than just one night. I seem to remember a bus, a river and a lost shoe... LOTS of Vodka... but not whether or not I had a change of underwear with me.

Huhum... food photography... not my forté... yadayada... I bought a book in hopes of divine inspiration. It's an incredibly good one. From Plate to Pixel by Helene Dujardin. It's crammed full of relevant information that is very, very helpful for the budding and keen food photographer. 

Which. Apparently. I am not. 

Yet.

I have a pretty basic point and shoot camera - a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 - and for the moment, it does the job.... however... I reckon if I drop it into one more bowl of pasta sauce (this happens ALOT) - I'll have to buy a new one.

A DSLR.

A Canon.

This one.

I imagine I might just get struck by divine inspiration then. Don't you?

Enjoy the soup recipe - it's a simple but tasty one... that I didn't drop the camera into. Honest.

* Carrot and Coriander Soup

The weather has turned considerably colder in the past couple of days, which means I no longer look a complete numpty when dressed in my full winter regalia of hat, scarf, gloves, boots and brolly under the arm (just in case it rains... which it does... all the time). The dog envies me. I'm tempted to buy her one of those neon coat affairs to keep her back dry when it rains... but she'd ruin what little street cred I have left.

This is the time of year when my little family actually demands soup, rather than suffer it. I love a soup that's wholesome and rustic and unprocessed. Where-as both Neil and Josh prefer smooth soups, with home made white bread to dunk into it. Neil still pulls his bread apart like a child would, and drops it into his soup to be fished out by his spoon.

Oddly - I'm often asked how many children I have (I must seem the maternal type - I'm not), my reply is always two - one I gave birth to, and one I married. Though I'm never quite sure which one is the biggest baby.

I decided to indulge Josh this time, with Carrot and Coriander Soup - he has a job interview next week, so I'm feeling all "Mumsy".

A rarity.

* Rustic Mulligatawny Soup

I remember Mulligatawny Soup as being a 1970's soup. My mum used to eat it all the time when were kids.... Heinz Mulligatawny Soup - I'm pretty sure they still make it now. The smell was always so appetising, but as children my brother and I weren't exactly adventurous when it came to food. If it didn't look like a baked bean, spaghetti hoop, fish finger, sausage or Findus crispy pancake (remember those?)... we didn't eat it.

I think there is some unwritten law that all children believe they will become boring if they eat vegetables and that they have to smother all of the food that they do eat, in ketchup - then not eat it. This used to drive my dad completely nuts. He wouldn't have cared if he'd liked ketchup, but he didn't - and once we'd smothered our food in it, he couldn't eat our leftovers.

Ever seen a grown man cry, at a sausage being thrown in the bin?

I have.

The threat was always "If you put that on your dinner and don't eat it, you will never, ever have another dinner... ever." Yeeeeeaaaaah right. Like mum'd let that happen. We knew who was boss...

.. and it wasn't him.

* Celeriac and Carrot Soup

We were going to go the cinema today to watch 'Looper', but as we haven't had a *chill out* weekend in quite some time, we decided to stay home and flake out in various rooms for the day.

Well, that was the plan. Hubby is fantastic at vegetating... I'm not good at sitting still unless I have a book to read that's so amazing I'll try to justify swapping a day at work to stay home and read it. That hasn't happened in quite some time and I had ants in my pants today - so I've managed to get a load of odd jobs done to set me up for the week ahead, and I made a soup.

It was very, very tempting to make another soup with sweet potatoes, because I love them - but I had a large nubby celeriac, that  held up it's hand and shouted "Pick me! Pick me!", when I was rummaging - and he'd been waiting quite long enough...

...sadly, the okra that I'd bought on a whim must have died in it's sleep - so we had a quick funeral for it before embarking on the road to Soupdom.

* Spicy Chicken, Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

Finally, it's cold enough for me to wear my favourite Rocket Dogs. My feet love me. All warm and snug in a thick layer of cuddly suede boot. I'm hard pushed not to wear them to bed, along with my my jumper, socks, night shirt and pj bottoms. Neil reckons I don't so much get undressed for bed, as dressed for bed... even in the Summer.

We've had a majorly busy weekend... Neil has laid the turf in the back garden, we've been to the Pasta Bar on Plymouth Barbican to celebrate my oldest niece's fourth birthday. We've had friends come out to collect our excess turf for their back garden and I've been to Bretonside to collect family that are visiting for the week.

This morning I woke up with glands like golf balls, and when I got home from work all I wanted to do was pass out on the sofa - but I'd missed pottering in my kitchen all weekend, so decided to make soup instead and use up a couple of sweet potatoes.

I'm glad I did.

It was like a hug in a bowl.

* Hearty Minestrone Soup

When I say hearty... I mean... well... you won't need to eat anything else ALL DAY! I'm not even sure this meal should be classified as a soup, rather than a stew or a pasta with sauce.

Minestrone Pasta Sauce - now there's an idea!

It's not stew or sauce.

It's soup.

It's rather hugely wonderful - and when covered in a grated, gooey layer of cheddar, it's divine. I know. Anything covered in a grated, gooey layer of cheddar - is divine.

I try to always make enough to have oodles of this in my freezer, because it's the type of soup that when you're not quite hungry enough for a large dinner - this makes the perfect substitute. I never, ever experience hunger pangs of any kind, when I make this soup a part of my day. It doesn't need bread, it has pasta and beans in it - bread (even croutons) would spoil the ambiance.

Cheese is a necessity though. It's in the rules.