Lunch from the Lottie/Recipe Testing; Leek and Potato Soup

Leek and potato soup from Rose Elliot's New Complete Vegetarian - which has to be the easiest soup ever. There are two very similar recipes in the book - one being 'chunkier' than the other. Basically both are very simple - Put leeks and potatoes in water, add teaspoon of veg stock and some freshly ground pepper, boil till soft, mash and serve, possibly with more pepper.
It's quick, extremely easy and, best of all, it uses veg from my allotment.

Homegrown dinner #2 Goulash or something close

Continuing to 'eat what we've got', I decided to make goulash - probably not remotely authentic, it involved lots of tomatoes, an onion, some small peppers, a jalpeno, white beans, runner beans and potatoes, helped by some left-over chorizo slices and gammon stock from the freezer.

For an experimental, make-it-up-on-the-go dinner it worked well - so well I'd try to make it again, but homegrown chillis are always very variable and the next version of this may be a lot milder.

Lunch from the Lottie - #10 - with the help of some stock

Two Lottie Lunches this week; the first using tomatoes and broad beans from the freezer with the last of the parsnips







and the second with stock, potatoes, leeks and dried peas.....


Normally after Sunday's big roast I have bones to boil for stock but this week's pork was boneless. All I had left to boil up were some lumps of overcooked hard meat - surprisingly it did look and taste like stock after boiling.

 I remembered this time to do my advance planning  by soaking dried peas overnight. These are home grown and dried and this is the first time for testing them.


After their 10 minute rapid boil, I cooked them in the stock with the, now softened, meat scraps and our potatoes and leeks.

 A really thick pea soup for a cold winter day.

Lunch from the Lottie #9

 It's a while since I posted anything under the 'lunch from the lottie' banner, mainly because there isn't a lot to be picked there right now. What we DO still have are potatoes - starting to grow spindly roots - and leeks. Add to that the freezing weather today and the time seemed right for leek and potato soup!

Lunch from the Lottie #8

 Went down to the lottie this week and found salad leaves and radishes so back to salads - with cabbage, tiny tomatoes, apple and pickled red cabbage.

Even managed an almost home-grown dinner - potatoes, leeks, kale and parsnips but not the pork!

Lunch from the Lottie #4

 A lot of salads again - trying to make something different out of more or less the same ingredients each time

and for a change -- soup, with potatoes, carrots, parsnip and frozen broad beans from the freezer

Lunch from the Lottie #3

It doesn't really feel like the weather for salad lunch but I found radishes and salad leaves at the allotment so thought I should eat them!

"Green soup" made with runner beans, broad beans from the freezer, potatoes and parsnips in gammon stock.

another similar salad - red cabbage, beetroot, onion and cucumber mixed to make pink coleslaw.

Lunch from the Lottie #2

 Early in the week it still felt warm enough to eat salad for lunch - though I'm now running out of radishes and having to bulk up lunch with pickled red cabbage and home made gooseberry chutney.

 Mid week the weather took a serious downturn, so now soups are back in season.

We have lots of slightly damaged potatoes that need to be eaten as soon as possible and the first leeks are just coming ready so Potato and Leek Soup seemed like an obvious choice.