Thoroughly Thifty Thursday – Soup and dumplings

Remember way back when – “Fall week – Autumn here we come” during the MTM I suggested you prepare and roast twice the amount of vegetables and par boil Charlotte potatoes.

Now's the time to use them. Set down below is a recipe I use all the time and add and subtract as my leftovers dictate.

Carrot, Coriander and Chickpea Soup

1lb/500g Charlotte potatoes, peeled and diced

l large onion, finely chopped

4 large carrots, peeled and diced

2 stockpots, vegetable or chicken

1 litre of water

1 tsp mild curry powder

1 heaped tsp coriander

Salt and black pepper

Rapeseed oil

1 can chick peas, drained

Soften onion and carrot in drop of rapeseed oil for approx 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add curry powder, coriander and black pepper, cook the spices with the onion and carrot for 2 minutes so that the flavours are released.

Add the stockpots, plus 500ml water and simmer until the pots have melted.

Add the diced potatoes and the remaining 500ml of water, bring to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes until the carrot and potatoes are cooked. Taste, then add salt to personal taste.

At this point you can set aside the soup until you are ready to serve.

Before serving pop 3 ladles of soup into a food processor/liquidiser and blitz. Tip the thickened soup back into your remaining soup, add the chick peas, heat and serve.

By blitzing a portion of the soup no artificial thickening is required. You also get visible vegetables with your chick peas.

Note

Don't put potatoes in with the carrots, onion and oil – the starch that is released from the potatoes means that they will cement themselves to the bottom of your saucepan!

You've got your cooked vegetables and your potatoes, just follow the method and it's ready. You don't have to include the chick peas – you could add leftover chicken – bear in mind the same principle applies – don't add chicken until after you've thickened the soup.

The flexibility with this supper is that it can be meat free or not.

Vegetarian Dumplings

100g (4oz) Self Raising flour

50g (2oz) vegetarian suet

pinch of salt

cold water to mix – enough for a firm mixture

Mix the flour, suet and salt with the water. Divide into 8 portions and form into balls. Place on top of your simmering soup and cover, cook for 20 minutes.

Beat that when it's a miserable, damp day. I know that there's fat in vegetable suet but the soup is healthy – assuming of course that your vegetables were roasted in rapeseed oil!

Leftovers for lunch tomorrow – absolutely.