Season To Taste

- Two Good Friends & Their Love For Food.


Parsnip Soup
{{ Sandra }} December 20, 2008

I get very excited when I can make a recipe from all homegrown ingredients. This soup started with Wardi and I taking a stroll down to the allotment to dig up the parsnips and pick some swiss chard (the stalks make a great substitute for celery).

It was a fresh but rather chilly winter’s morning and the grounds over at the allotment were rather muddy too. I guess it made digging up the parsnip a whole lot easier. (Wardi says: “I could have helped with the digging, but I had important arty shots to take!!! Hee hee hee”)

{{click image to enlarge}} You can see that my parsnips have multiple roots where the growing tip has come across a stone and then split either side of it. Not supermarket pretty but looks aren’t everything.

Whilst there I couldn’t resist digging up some potatoes and then having a nose at what everyone else is doing on their plots. Once home I pulled out some onions from their storage box in the shed and after a break for some photos it was time to start on the soup.

   
Parsnip Soup: Makes 6-8 servings.

approx 1kg parsnips (I use 6-8 parsnips of varying shape and size)
1-2 onions
3-4 cloves of garlic
1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 sticks of celery (or several stalks from swiss chard or perpetual spinach, they make great substitute !!!)
vegetable stock (1-1.5 litres)
1 teaspoon cumin
1 red chilli (fresh or dried – mine are semi-dried at the moment although give it a few more weeks and it will be completely dried)
salt and pepper

  • Peel and roughly chop the onion, garlic, celery and parsnips.
  • Heat the oil in a large saucepan.
  • Gently fry the onion and garlic for 3 minutes.
  • Add the parsnips and celery. Stir well and allow to soften a little – approx 10 minutes.
  • Sprinkle in the cumin during this time and as it warms up the smell is very alluring.
  • Pour over hot vegetable stock (I used stock powder and then boiling water from the kettle) until the vegetables are covered and allow to simmer until completely soft – approx 20-30 minutes.
  • Pop the chilli in while the soup is simmering to allow just a little heat to infuse – if you want it hot then leave it in when you liquidise the soup, otherwise take it out just beforehand.
  • Ladle the soup into the liquidiser goblet and blend till smooth, the soup can be eaten immediately, or stored in the fridge or freezer for a rainy day.
  • Serve hot, garnished with chopped chives (or parsley, or nothing).
  • Season to taste.
If you like it more runny, add more stock!

A Moment Of Nostalgia

SB: Did I tell you the time when my sister made me eat a piece of soap?
WS: No…. Really? You didn’t? (Breaks into peels of laughter!!!)
SB: Yup! You know in the old days, you have that soap holder thingy? A magnetic soap holder? You know the one I mean?
WS: OH YES!!! I remember them….
SB: Anyway, when the soap thins down it looks exactly like the sliced end-piece of a parsnip. Deborah came up to me and said “Here, have a piece of parsnip. It’s REALLY nice!!!!”
WS: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

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