Winter is also the time for soup.  As long as I can remember Mum made vegetable soup every winter. She had a base recipe that only changed a bit in the last ten years or so of her cooking life.

Soup is an integral part of most winter meals, and even here, in Sunny tropical Queensland where others might think it is hot all the time, well, once you have lived here for a while you acclimatise and now we are really noticing the cold winters. So soup is a regular meal for us, cheap, can be made in bulk and frozen and quick to make.

Using a kitchen whizz makes the slicing and grating easy and quick.

Soup mix, buy it already  mixed from the supermarket.

I think soups are a bit of a family tradition, recipes passed on from mother to daughter, because most mothers seem to have their own way of making soup, and it is just the way it is done in their households.

Mum, about 1985. When you have five children there is a mountain
of washing and ironing to do, not to mention baking and cooking to
feed the bottomless stomachs of the boys.

My mum passed away early this year, but she would have been making soup for about 60 years I reckon, and although I have had many soups in many homes, none have been quite like this. I don’t know where she got the recipe. I don’t remember my grandmother making soup, but she used to belong to the CWI in the 40’s and 50’s so maybe it came from there, I don t know.

Anyway the basic soup recipe is dead easy, so here it is.

In a large pot, a proper large stock pot half fill it with water and add either a bacon hock, a couple of knuckles of mutton or some chicken. You can pretty much use any kind of meat or bones really, I have also used beef bones and pork bones, but they don’t have so much meat on them. If you are vegetarian, then leave the meat out.   I often buy 4 or 5 skinned chicken legs and add those. I bring that to the boil, then I add soup mix, about one cup. I let that simmer for an hour or so, until the soup mix is soft and the meat is tender. The soup mix contains pearl barley, lentils and split peas, its cheap to buy from the supermarket all mixed up.

This is a large stock pot. I don't know how much it holds.
Here, I have just added the veges.

At this stage the soup looks a bit murky, but that’s okay. When I am ready I slice celery and onions, about 3 cups of each and add that to the pot. Then I grate carrots, again about 3 cups and add that. Once you have made it a couple of times you will get to know how much to put in.

I let that slowly bubble away for an hour or so, adding water or vegetable juice as needed. Towards the end I add salt to taste, pepper and usually some sweet chillie sauce for a bit of a kick. Taste from time to time until it gets to be how you like it.  Mum would also add a tin of Watties Tomato Soup (only Watties had the right taste) and a packet of chicken noodle soup mix, but I don’t bother with those.

Eat it fresh for the first meal, then you can put it in the fridge for the next few days and I also freeze some to have whenever I need  quick meal.

You can make smaller quantities if you want, but it seems a lot of effort just for one meal, when you can do a big potful and get lots of meals out of the same amount of work.

The finished product, hot and tasty and a good meal with
a couple of bits of toast or cheese on toast.

Give it a try, you just might like it.