My 1st Souperdooper ‘blog’

My son told me that I make good soup. Actually he said its great soup and he loves it, and he thinks other people would love it too. He is a terrible cook and said that he needs to know how to make super soup, in fact he said he wants to know how to make souper dooper soup…hence the name.

My son has persuaded me to write a blog, I didn’t actually know what a blog is, and actually I still don’t know what a blog is or what the point of a blog is. Never the less, he has forced me to write some words about how to make super dooper soup so you can make them too.

On this webpage I am going to write about the types of soups I make with some recipes as well as some of the important things you need to bear in mind. I make soup because its homely, its nice and comforting and if the family are hungry you can see the colour change in their face when they have eaten it. Yes that’s why I like it.

This first ‘blog’ is about my top 3 things to bear in mind when making a soup

1) Only fresh will do:

You can’t make good soup if you use anything frozen, it has to be fresh. Fresh vegetables and herbs such as coriander, parsley sage and all those sorts of things. Also, importantly it is nice to know that what you are eating is fresh and it is good for you, there is no colorants and you can really taste that homely comfort with fresh food, which might sound a bit funny but it’s true. Also, a great complement to a super soup for me is a big wedge of fresh bakers bread or a grated cheese sandwich. Lovely.

2) Don’t boil it to bits, just simmer.

After you have prepared all of your ingredients and they are in the saucepan with water (I will talk about that on the next blog) bring it to boil for about 3 minutes then turn it down to the lowest setting on your cooker. You then let it simmer and cook for about 2-3 hrs, the time of course is dependent on the size of your saucepan so when you have a big saucepan I would suggest around 3 hours. The soup should be simmering just enough so you see the occasional bubble.

3) For the best taste, do not eat straight away.

After the soup has cooked, let it go cold whilst in the saucepan. When it is cold which will take a couple of hours, put the saucepan in the fridge for 1 day. After this time and when you want to eat it, liquidize using a blender to a texture of your choice. Personally I like smooth soup, I don’t mind vegetable soup with bits in it, but not any other. Just remember though, this is important, once the soup is cooked and cooled down (so it is actually cold) make sure you put it in the fridge, if you don’t put it in the fridge you will probably get food poisoning.

When it comes to reheating, put the soup into a saucepan and reheat very slowly on a very low gas setting. Please do not rush this step and absolutely do not put the soup in the microwave. What you need to do is reheat it for between an hour or two whilst stiring it every 10/15 minutes with a wooden spoon. Reheat the soup until it is absolutely piping hot, over 75 degrees. But please make sure you do this slowly because if you don’t you will ruin all the flavors and it will all be a waste of time. Lots of people mess up on this step.

Okay, that is about it for the first blog thing. I will be writing some recipes, my personal favorite are carrot and coriander, tomato and basil, broccoli and stilton, leek and potato, end of week vegetable soup (when you are clearing out the fridge), onion and potato, mushroom…as you can see there are lots of favourites.

I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Mum