Golden Vegetable Soup (aka nana's soup)

Everybody has a dish that they remember from their childhood, cooked by either their mother, grandmother, father or neighbour, I have many, in fact, I could probably dedicate half of this website to dishes from my childhood, from the suet dessert roly-poly to the corned beef hash, I can still smell the school canteen at lunchtime at my primary school, the school dinners, the plastic trays with our food portions laid out in the compartments, and the bowl of dessert, it wasn’t the best food in the world, but going on the standard of food kids eat at school now, it was pretty good. but the puddings will live on in my memory forever, especially Jam Roly Poly, I will make it soon and post it on the blog, but in the meantime lets talk about Mam’s soup.

This is a soup my beautiful mam made for us as kids and still makes to this day, every time we go back to the UK for a visit mam makes it for us, I have made it for my daughter Charlize since she was a baby and now she is 10 we call it nana’s soup, her eyes light up when she smells the scent wafting through the house, I kid you not, make a pot of this soup and the house will smell of this wonderful aroma, it’s a warm invitation back to my childhood, makes me feel emotional, our senses are so powerful, they transport us anywhere, and this soup does it to me.

Don’t be fooled, this soup won’t transport you into my grey shorts and brown jumper sitting at the kitchen table after school with a bowl of nana’s soup, but it will give you a warm hug and hopefully pass on a favourite that you can give your loved ones and enjoy the smell in your own kitchen.

I Hope you enjoy it as much as my family have xx

Golden Vegetable Soup

Recipe by The Exploration of FoodCourse: Soups

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

40

minutes

Calories

300

kcal

A hearty vegetable soup, with bacon pieces, for a vegetarian version just omit the bacon.

Ingredients

• 1 Leek

• 2 onions

• 3 large carrots

• 3 large potatoes

• 1 cup of red lentils (soaked for 1 hr and rinsed well)

• 2 large celery sticks

• 1.7 litres of stock (veg or chicken)

• 300g Bacon pieces ( large chunks are the best) Omit for a vegetarian soup

Directions

• Dice onion, celery and carrot and reserve 1 carrot for grating, later on, slice leek lengthways, then crosscut roughly.
• Fry bacon pieces in a small knob of butter in a large heavy-based soup pan until just cooked.
• add vegetables, cook for a further 5 min.
• add soaked lentils, potato, vegetable or chicken stock, bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 min.
• once the potatoes are cooked through, using a hand masher mash the potatoes to thicken the soup, you can now grate the remaining carrot, simmer for a further 10 min, season to taste and enjoy.

Notes

• If you want to increase the thickness of the soup, boil another potato or 2 and add to the soup and mash