Soup ...

I brought up three children and never made soup in my life, that is until we got an allotment and I had lots of veggies to use up. I looked up ideas on here and other sites and now I can russel up a soup in no time. My daughters call in sometimes at lunchtime and love it when I offer them lunch which usually consists of soup and nice bread. They now make their own even though they both work full time. I was amazed how easy it is, whatever I have a glut of, squash, carrots, parsnips I can make a tasty soup. Wish I had thought of this years ago.
Best of luck

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Alizarin, even if you've eaten all the chicken-meat there will still be flavoursome deliciousness to be extracted from the bones and skin, especially if you reduce it. That is, put the pan on the lowest heat possible with the lid off and simmer until it's about half of the original volume. Just don't be tempted to over-salt it beforehand. You'll know when you've reduced it enough by the flavour. Once you've done that you can use the stock for any kind of soup from whatever veggies need to be used up.

Here's a recipe for chicken soup, which specifically uses a left-over roast carcass ...

CHICKEN SOUP

Part of the "Rubber Chicken" collection

4 servings

INGREDIENTS

1 roasted chicken carcass
100g to 125g of at least 2 vegetables (see below)
1 onion
1 chicken stock cube
1 litre of water
1 teaspoon of dried sage
Ground pepper to taste

METHOD

Remove any skin from the chicken carcass and discard it. Peel the vegetables and chop any tops and/or bottoms off, if required, and then chop them into 2cm (1 inch) pieces. Peel the onion and chop it into 2cm (1 inch) pieces.

Put the chicken, onion and vegetables, stock cube and water into a large saucepan on a medium heat. Stir thoroughly. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat until it is just boiling (simmering).

Put the lid on and cook for 1 hour. Check the liquid level from time to time and top up if it starts to dry out.

Fish out the bones and put them on a plate. Remove any meat which is still on the bones. Put the meat back into the soup and discard the bones.

If you have a food processor, put the soup in it and blend it to the desired consistency. If you have a hand blender, put it in the soup and blend it to the desired consistency. If you don’t have a food processor or hand blender, use a potato masher, press the soup through a sieve with the back of a spoon, or leave it lumpy. If you used a food processor, rinse out the saucepan and put the soup back into the saucepan.

Put the saucepan on a low heat and reheat the soup gently.

Add the sage. Stir thoroughly.

Season with the pepper.

ADDITIONS & ALTERNATIVES

Use green vegetables (celery, courgettes, leeks) and mushrooms for a light and delicate soup. Use root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, potatoes, swedes, turnips) and tomatoes for a thick and hearty soup, The so-called "Holy Trinity" of soup base ingredients is carrot, celery and onion.

For Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup, use green vegetables and add a small pack of noodles. Cook them in the soup, according to the instructions on the packet. If you freeze the soup, do this when you reheat it.

For Scottish C*ck-a-Leekie Soup, make with 200g to 250g of leeks and some stoned prunes, cut into very thin slices.

I used to be astounded that people could simply "rustle up a soup from nothing" but like Ubamother, all my soups start with sweated onion and garlic in butter! I add a tiny bit of oil to stop the butter burning, then once sweated, I add whatever else I have, coat them in the garlic and butter / oil, add veggie stock as all our "soup of the day" have to be veggie, then once the veg are cooked, I add cream and reduce it a bit then blitz it with a blender.
Favourites are carrot, coconut and coriander (I use ground coriander or fresh, and a tin of coconut milk, but bear in mind I make about 20 portions at a time) parsnip and apple, cream of highland veg (using the peelings and off cuts of things) veg broth (again peelings and off cuts included) spicy tomato and lentil, stilton and celery, leek and potato, in fact anything! Soup is sooooo great for using up anything at all, but all mine always start with the sweated onion, garlic, butter and veg stock. The fun part is using up things, and them tasting great!
Good luck!
Jex