Although I still have some stories about the Alsace-Lorraine that I want to share with you, I interrupt this sequel to write about an annual recurrent event … today, September 21st, autumn has officially started. The leaves on the trees are slowly but surely turning yellow, red and brown and soon the first autumn storm will blow them away. I hate it when I have to get up at
But let’s face it; autumn has some splendid qualities too. There is a special smell in the air, of burned wood and mushrooms and the familiar aromas that come out of the kitchen. Autumn is a great time to make stews and soups, and roasted venison, pheasants and partridges.
From mid-September till the end of March, I try to stick to the habit of making a weekly pot of soup. One and half litres will last me for the best part of the week and very often my supper when getting home from work is a large bowl of soup with a slice of bread and some cheese. Last Sunday I made a hearty tomato and celery soup. This is what I did.
Ingredients
6 stalks of green or white celery
2 medium sized onions
2 cloves of garlic
a 400 gr. tin of chopped tomatoes
some leftover fresh tomatoes (if you have some)
half a cup of coral lentils
a cube of vegetable stock
olive oil, pepper, salt, Worcestershire sauce
1 tot 2 litres of water
Method
Chop the onions, the garlic, the celery (you can use the leaves too) and the fresh tomatoes (optional). Heat some olive oil (any other type of vegetable oil will do too) in a large pot. Add the chopped raw onion, garlic and celery. Let them fry for a little while but don’t let them get brown. Add the tinned tomatoes and the chopped fresh tomatoes, stir well and let them heat through. Add the lentils, pepper and salt. Stir again to mix all the ingredients together. Make sure the lentils don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
Put in the water, the stock cube and the Worcestershire sauce and bring to a boil. Put the lit on the pot and let it simmer for 30 tot 45 min. Take the pot of the heat and blend everything together using a mixer or kitchen robot, till there are no solid pieces left.
Put in some extra 
Serve steaming hot or let it cool down completely before putting it in the fridge till the next day. It warms up beautifully and tastes even better when it has sat 24 hours in the fridge.
This soup is not only easy and quick to make, but it is also full of vitamins, exactly what we need to resist the autumn weather. Enjoy!
___
5 comments:
Looks delicious ! I love this time of year for all the reasons you gave. The only bit I don't like is that in England it is also the start of the retail extravaganza that Christmas has become. I have to walk round in blinkers from now until the end of November if I am not to become very grumpy about it.
Yesterday evening we had beef stew, made in my 80-year old stewpot that had belonged to my grandmother, followed by blackberry crumble using fruit we had picked in the fields in the afternoon.
Was that bowl the reason for your blogging alias? Or any other less mundane?
That soup looks delicious. I'll try it.
Jean, I just love homemade stews! As far as dessert is concerned, I've made apple crumble on many occassions. The blueberry version is quite new to me. Do you have to cook the blueberries first with some sugar and butter like you do with apples, or do you put them in as such? Martine
Chm, The 'ladybird' saga began with a silly nickname game some 20 years ago! To a certain person (guess who!) I've been 'coccinnelle' every since. So it was an obvious alias when I started blogging :)) Martine
Martine - it was blackberries that I used, not blueberries. Blackberries (mûres) are plentiful and free at the moment as they grow in the hedgerows around the fields. All you have to do is take the time to pick them. We do have a blueberry bush (myrtilles) in our garden and bilberries, which are nearly the same, are also free for the picking in August on the moorlands not far from home.
In any case, I don't cook them first, just put them in with plenty of sugar. We usually have blackberry and apple, a very popular combination. The apples are best partly cooked before mixing them with the berries.
(At the risk of being boring, if you have any tired strawberries that are past their best, they are also delicious mixed with apples in a crumble.)
Jean, Thanks for the useful and savoury tips ... I'm definitly going to try this. Martine
Post a Comment