Potato, spinach, pea and basil soup - a tasty vegan feast

Another week has passed and we have another soup recipe for you, this one does have some reseamblence to shrek's swamp but trust me its very tasty and great for making when you hardly have anything in the cupboards. For the sake of economy I use frozen peas and spinach and there is no waste either.

                     

Vegan as it contains only vegetables, however if this isn't important to you then its delicious served topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese or swirled with creme fraiche or yogurt.

Thickened by blending half the ingredients in to the soup its low in fat and containes no flours or grains so its gluten free too.

What you need

• Onion - peeled and chopped
• 2 potatoes - peeled and diced
• 3 blobs of frozen spinach
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• Vegetable stock
• Salt and pepper
• A little olive or rapeseed oil
• Handful fresh basil

What you do

• Fry the onion and the potato in a little oil add the vegetable stock to the pan, simmer until softened
• Add the frozen peans and frozen spinach to the pan and bring back to the simmer and the spinach is defrosted. Add the basil 
• Now blitz half the pan with a stick blender until smooth and retaining some chunky vegetables for texture.
• Taste and season with salt and pepper as necessary.
• Serve piping hot

We are linking up to "Eat your Greens" over on Allotment 2 Kitchen , the challenge being to cook with a green vegetable and for the recipe to be vegeterian.

Review - Philips HR1371/90 700W PURE ESSENTIALS COLLECTION HAND BLENDER

                                 

I don't know about you but I am fairly picky as to what equipment I will allow in my kitchen, appliances definitely have to deliver what they promise and  I am not one to follow appliance fads slavishly. You can buy all the trendy gadgets in the world and it won't make you a better cook or baker !, what appliances are supposed to do is make the job easier and save you time in the kitchen. I  value counter space too so only the most useful appliances get to live on my surfaces, being a great believer that if its in the cupboard you aren't going to use it.

I have had a stick blender set for about 10 years and find it a useful tool in the kitchen, particularly for blending soups and smoothies, therefore I jumped at the opportunity to review the semi professional model HR1371 from Philips when the offer arrived from Appliances direct.

Unlike my previously blender, this model has 5 speeds plus a turbo and a beefy 700 watt motor ( the other was 400W), so it seriously out performed what I was expecting in terms of results when it came to blending smoothies, whoosh and they were as smooth as anything.

Stylishly designed and with a beautiful stainless steel finish on the stick blender, the blender was easy clean but on the downside there is a  slightly annoying ridge on the blender head which hampered easy cleaning slightly, I also liked that the cutting head had 2 additional small cutting surfaces on the blade itself.

No unnecessary accessories here, just a mini processor ( actually quite a generous size so you can chop quite large quantities of bread or onions, etc) and a blending jug with a lid (ideal for storing your smoothie in the fridge). 

One of my pet peeves of my previous blender was the useless whisk attachment which just splattered the contents of your bowl everywhere, so I am glad to see that whisking head has been omitted by Philips in this semi professional version.

As for the service I received from Buy it direct, it was great the item was delivered well packaged and arrived very quickly, the pricing also looks very competitive.

The views expressed in this post are my own and was sent the blender for review purposes by Appliances Direct, I have received no payment for this post.

                                               

Carrot, parsnip and leek soup

I hate to waste food, so often as not I tend to make a soup with vegetables that are getting a bit long in the tooth in the bottom of the fridge. This soup was made with the remains of a pack of multi-coloured carrots I had picked up locally, a couple of parsnips and a sad and lonely leek.

The secret to a good soup is to use a quality stock, I either make my own (if I have time) mostly though I use a quality stock powder such as Essential Cuisine, I find their stocks are really tasty but light at the same time and not over salted.

This is a wholesome soup rich in vegetables and is ideal to serve to vegetarian guests and it complements homemade crusty bread perfectly.

Ingredients

• Carrots - peeled and finely diced
• Parsnips - peeled and finely diced
• 1 large leeks, washed and sliced into rings
• A little vegetable oil
• Vegetable stock or butter
• Salt and Pepper

Method

• Warm a little vegetable oil in a large saucepan
• Fry the chopped vegetables very gently (sweat) without colouring
• Stir frequently to make sure no vegetables catch
• Add enough stock to cover the vegetables, bring to a gentle simmer
• Simmer, covered until the vegetable are softened.
• Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly
• Blend with a hand blender to your desired consistency
• Add a little more stock to thin and taste for seasoning
• Bring back to a gentle simmer, serve in attractive soup bowls

Season of Soups, Stews and Casseroles Round Up

                                         

Firstly apologies for the delay in the round up for the blog competition, what with Christmas, a short spell in hospital for me and a change of judge things have got a little delayed. Anyway on with the round up, the blog competition saw some great entries from food bloggers across the country who gladly shared treasured recipes for the chance of winning our great prize from Essential Cuisine.

                                                          

I am also very grateful to Stosi Madi the talented chef from the multi award winning Parkers Arms in Newton in Bowland who stepped in to judge  the competition. The Parkers Arms is a gorgeously situated country inn  in the stunning Trough of Bowland in Lancashire, Stosi is passionate about the use of local produce in her fine establishment and I can whole heartily recommend a visit, I am not alone in singing her praises either as the establishment features in many of the restaurant guides and many a  food critic have sampled her culinary delights too.

A warm welcome at the Parkers Arms

On with the entries , we had 6 diverse dishes to consider, our first entry was from Karen Booths Burns over at the fantastic food blog  Lavender and Lovage, a comforting chicken and corn chowder, Karen got extra marks for using Essential Cuisine Stock in her chowder too !

                               

Karen's second entry was a delicious sounding Highland stew which despite being rib stickly warming is actually a diet food !

                               

Now we are off over to Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen who's entry was another warming comforting recipe  of Chicken broth featuring that lovely grain barley. 

                               

Our next entry was a German pork, beef and sauerkraut goulash from Claire at Foodie Quine blogging in Aberdeenshire, who came up with this recipe to get her in the mood for her festive trip to the Munich Christmas markets. 

                               

Over to Recipe Junkie now for a man sized chicken pie made with her own stock, just what you need on a cold winters day.

                               

Last but no means least our final entry is from Claire over at  Ooo Bi Doo, who's entry is a sausage and bean casserole, sorry no picture, this is Ooo Bi Doo's first blog post and hopefully not her last.

OUR WINNER IS JANICE AT FARMERSGIRL KITCHEN, CONGRATULATIONS YOU PRIZE IS ON ITS WAY ! Stosi was very impressed by the standard of entries and loved the look of this dish.

Season of Soups and Stews

The Season of Soups, stews and casseroles is well and truly with us, warming delicious recipes which provide comfort against the weather outside. Lancashire Food is proud to be hosting a great blog link up with Essential Cuisine, the fabulous stock company, to share some of the best soup, stews and casseroles recipes in the world, the only rule being they need to include stock of some type, so if you have a favourite recipe why not share. We have a fabulous prize very kindly donated by Essential cuisine of a mixed selection of their lovely stocks so you can go on creating great comfort food long after you have entered the competition.

Essential cuisine have some great recipes on the website and the definition of whats a stew and whats a casserole just in case you want to know, in fact its packed with loads of great tips and suggested uses. All the stocks are gluten free and are free from nasties and the vegetable stock is even suitable for vegans.

Rules

• Your recipe must contain some form of stock to qualify for entry
• Ensure that you include in your blog post the lovely badge
• You must link back to this blog post
• If you are on twitter please tweet about your entry using the #Soups_&_Stews
• Please be respectful of copyright and give credit to the original source if you have been inspired by another recipe, you can link up old posts but you must embed the link and use the badge
• The blog link up will run until the 10th December 2012
• The winner will be chosen by a representative from Essential Cuisine

To get your creative juices flowing why not have a look at  some of my recipes for soups, stews and casseroles.