Best Veg Soup/Stew Option

SparciaM

I have loads of Veg and Potatoes and was wondering what is the best option. A big batch of soup or a stew (as I do have some steak as well).

Can you someone point me in the right direction to a recipe or something that'll tell me the best thing to do.

Thanks

kethry

either.. both!! Sometimes i think the only real difference between the two is down to thickness and chunkiness.. LOL.. i make a minestrone soup that is so thick/chunky i call it minestrone stew!

if you want to make a beef stew then put some oil in a big pan (not a lot, just enough to cover the base), and put your beef (cubes) in.. you just want to seal the outside of the meat, to the point where you get crispy brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Then crumble in a couple of beef oxo cubes, and pour in a kettlefull of boiling water and simmer for a couple hours. Once that's done, its best to leave it overnight for the flavours to develop but you can just go onto the next stage. Bring it back up to the boil if you've left it overnight, then reduce to a simmer. Cut a potato up into very small chunks (half a centimeter across sized chunks) and tip that in. leave that to cook for half an hour, while you prep the rest of the veg. Cut up some onions (quarter them), some potatoes (big chunks), carrots, swede, turnips, leeks - whatever veg you like, really. once the half hour is up put the veg in and bring back to the boil, then reduce to a simmer again, and cook till the veg is cooked (push a fork into a selection of veg, if you can push it through easily on all of them (push against the sides of the pan) then they're cooked). you may need to add extra water at some point, that's fine.

if you need to thicken the gravy then mix a lil (tsp or so) cornflour with some cold water in a mug or something, stir so its all mixed in, then tip into the stew and stir till it thickens. If it shows no signs of thickening then you need more cornflour. little and often is the key. Before serving, taste the gravy, and see if you need seasoning, i often whack in some black pepper and some worcestershire sauce. I serve this in a big bowl with chunks of bread to dunk in. Great winter food

as for a soup.. any veg soup can be done this way: chop onions, saute lightly in a little oil. Add the rest of the veg, cut into chunks and stir through the oil, leave to steam for a few minutes. Add water/milk (if you want to do a potato and leek soup add half water half milk, for example) then stir in the correct amount of marigold's swiss veg boullion (you can find it in the gravy section of a big supermarket). leave to cook till the veg is cooked, taste for seasoning, and add herbs/spices as you wish to change the flavour (e.g. carrot and coriander soup). You can either thicken and serve with chunks as described with the stew, or you can liquidise and serve that way.. the world's your oyster in this respect!

HTH

keth
xx

spaghetti_monster

Hi!
There are loads of threads on here if you do a search for soups. I'm a veggie myself so not too expert on stews.

Soups are really easy. I usually gently fry/saute ingredients (for example this morning; onions, carrots, pototoes which I'd chopped quite small) also with some nice herbs of choice (today for me herbs prov).
Then chuck in some stock until it looks how you want it - you can always add water at any stage to get the consistency you want. Some use homemade chicken/meat/veg stock. As I don't usually have homemade I would highly recommend Marigold stock (I find it usually in healthfood shop - v tasty).
At this stage I threw in some frozen peas and lentils and just left it gently cooking til lunch. Then decided to eat it as it is - sometimes I blitz it in the blender for a creamy texture.

I guess this is the improvised kind of soup but if you want more specific recipes - I've recently seen quite a few soup threads with loads of recipes.

Particularly if you have loads of potatoes you can make quite thick soups. And also chuck other things in like cheese, cream etc to get different textures. Very versatile and loads of options so I'll stop rambling!!!!

Alex x