The Season of Soups

January's BBC Good Food Guide finds one new year's resolution to always have home cooked soup sitting on the stove. I just realised this morning how easy it was to make, and how - given some time, mainly the chief ingredient of a good soup - this was one resolution that will keep one warm and toasty at home in the winter time.

For me, warm soups are comfort foods. Ever since I discovered Pret a Manger's soup collection, which started recently in autumn, I've been chasing up soups and soup recipes from all over.

In a cafe in Nuits-St-Georges on a recent French trip, I discovered what would possibly be the warmest, nicest, easiest to make vegetable soup possible. The secret? A Marigold brand vegetable bouillon stock powder that I have sitting on a shelf at home, thanks to enuwy's lovely recommendation a while back.

So upon coming down with a bad cold and wanting to experiment with the warming qualities of vegetable soup, I've decided to make my own:

Vegetable Soup

3 carrots
2 parsnips
1/2 a floret of broccoli
handful of barley (optional)
2 tsp bouillon stock powder
750 ml water
pepper

1. Chop vegetables roughly and throw into pot.
2. Sprinkle over with the bouillon powder and some pepper to taste.
3. Cover with hot water and bring to a slow boil.
4. Allow to boil for at least 1-2 hours for the vegetable flavours to set.
5. With a stick blender, blend into a creamy soup. Serve.

The soup feeds about 2-3 and in reality, you can toss in any sort of vegetable you like. In fact, I have my suspicion that this is one soup you can keep boiling on the stove regularly, topping up with leftover vegetables and other unwanted odd ends. Just remember to toss in a hearty amount of bouillon powder for taste and blend before serving.

This is one soup I'm definitely going to keep on my stove all winter!