Friday 1.00pm
Got up this morning thinking of celery soup. Celery soup and walnut bread. Celery and walnuts, a classic combination really. I knew there was some celery in the bottom of the fridge, but when I got there I found that nature had got there first, leaving me with three small stalks and another bag of green soupy mush. Well off to the worm farm for the green mush but what else might be there . . . . two slices of bacon, some mushroom stalks ( Nicola does not eat the stalks ) and, well that’s it really apart from potatoes. The lettuce and red peppers are for tea tonight.
Ok so I have the makings of a base for a quite autumny soup.
- 2 slices of bacon, 3 sticks of celery, some mushroom stalks and a peeled potato are chopped and left cooking slowly in some oil while I search for a main ingredient.
And gazing outside I spy Nicola’s beautiful swiss chard or silver beet as it is called here. Problem solved.
- Now strip the green leaves off the silver beet stems wash them, tear them up small and add to the soup.
- Simmer for another few minutes until cooked then liquidize the whole lot.
- Put the soup back in the pan to warm through and season – I like quite a lot of black pepper.
The walnut bread is easy to make. I don’t really like flavoured breads as such, preferring plain bread with ingredients on top, so I just make some white dough in the bread maker, flatten it out onto a tray and top with some walnuts rolled about in some of olive oil (so that they toast rather than burn) squashed into the dough.
A rather nice soup I must say with a beautiful chard taste and a warm depth of flavour from the base ingredients. Of course the reason the silver beet was there is because I am the only one that likes it ! So I’ll be freezing some for my lunch next week. Extra earth mother points for me !
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2 comments:
Mmm. Apart from the bacon.
Im gonna post a pic soon of the biggest silver beet you ever did see!
A leaf bigger than my head! (I only have an average size head)
Thats ok, just miss out the bacon. I do not often put meat in my soups but it was there.
The walnuts on the bread went really well with the chard taste so if I only had ordinary bread I think I would toast some walnuts to serve with the soup.
my head is smaller than average, I think judging by the reaction whenever I try on a hat! But Nicola would say that is balanced by my bigger than average mouth.
peter
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