New cookbooks!

How frustrating must it be to be me!  Even in my desire to clear out my cookbooks and have only enough to fit my purpose built bookcase in our kitchen, I still cannot resist interesting new cookbooks. Especially when they were a fantastic deal at WH Smith!  I imagine these deals are meant to help people buying Christmas gifts. And that was the first reason I picked them up, but how could I possibly give these away?  Two of my favourite things - cake and soup!



I made my decision and purchased the "A Soup for Every Day"365 of our favourite recipes - from the New Covent Garden Food Company, and "Cake Days"  Recipes to make every day special, from The Hummingbird Bakery.  Although the cakes were very tempting, I was much more interested in new soups and how fun it would be to have a soup a day.  (Not that I would make a soup a day, but it will fun to try to work through it in the next few years!)

My first choice was easy, it was November 8 and I looked at that date.....Swede, Turnip & Parsnip Soup!  Sounded interesting so off I went to buy what I needed.

The funny thing is, I never heard of Swede before moving over here and my husband is convinced Swede and Turnip are the same things!  And where I come from, we have rutabaga - which is a swede according to the dictionary!  At a local vegetable shop yesterday looking for another turnip to make this soup again, all I could find was "swede" but it was labelled "turnip"!  So the confusion will always be with us!  Good luck finding exactly what you might need for this soup. But I think any mixture of these or similar root vegetables would work.

According to my local grocery store - in the upper left hand corner is the swede, and in the middle of the plate with the purple top is the turnip!

In the list of ingredients is "double cream".  In the UK, we have single cream, double cream and whipping cream.  When I first moved here, I had to figure out what these really were in terms of my own reference. The nearest thing I could come up with was single cream is similar to what we get in the US called Half and Half (half milk, half cream), double cream seems to me to be just what it says - cream.  I have no idea why there is a separate type of cream labelled whipping cream, since double cream can also be whipped!  But there it is! 

In an attempt to make this a bit more healthy and less fattening, I used another product of which I have no idea of a substitute in the US - Elmlea Double Light.  On the label it claims to have "50% less fat than double cream", and of course, every little bit helps! 

In addition to new cookbooks, I am also a sucker for new kitchen gadgets and bought myself a wonderful treat a few weeks ago.  This was the first time I really benefited from it - a Teefal Fresh Express chopper. 

Although it might chop vegetables a bit less than "roughly", since the soup is going to be liquidized anyway, what does that matter?  And the time saved is wonderful.  (In both chopping and cooking!)






I have copied the recipe at the bottom without photos for ease of using.

And apologies, again, it seems like my life is just one big hurry, so I did not convert measurements.

Swede, Turnip & Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

25g Butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 medium carrots, roughly chopped 

(with soup what does exact measurements matter?  I had 3 carrots left, so I used all of them)

225g swede, peeled and roughly chopped

175g turnips, peeled and roughly chopped

(same with the turnip, why throw a bit away? Just use the whole thing if it is small enough anyway!)

150g parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped

725 ml (3 cups) vegetable stock

nutmeg, freshly grated

100 ml double cream 

 

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion, carrot, swede, turnip and parsnip, then cover and cook gently for 10 minutes, without browning.

 

Add the vegetable stock and nutmeg, then season to taste.

 

Cover, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

 

Blend until smooth, then add the cream.

 not much cream anyway, but using the healthier version made me happy ;-) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Season to taste, reheat gently, then serve.

 

Delicious!

 

"To stay youthful, stay useful."  Amish Proverb

 

Swede, Turnip & Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

25g Butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
225g swede, peeled and roughly chopped
175g turnips, peeled and roughly chopped
150g parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped
725 ml (3 cups) vegetable stock
nutmeg, freshly grated
100 ml double cream 

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion, carrot, swede, turnip and parsnip, then cover and cook gently for 10 minutes, without browning.

Add the vegetable stock and nutmeg, then season to taste.

Cover, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Blend until smooth, then add the cream.

Season to taste, reheat gently, then serve.