Spicy tomato soup and chicken soup recipes (Soups)

Member Name: clairestevens

Product:	Soups
Date:	09/01/08 (1295 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tasty, cheap, easy to make

Disadvantages: Erm, none!

Soups are one of the best winter warmer meals you can get. I get regular requests from my husband to make the following two soups, so I thought I'd share the recipes with you too! All the quantities can be adjusted to taste, and both recipes work well with other vegetables added, so feel free to experiment!

Both are best served with crusty bread as a main course or on their own as a starter. They both contain about two portions of vegetables to count towards your five-a-day too.

Spicy Tomato Soup
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Serves 4-6
Cost per portion - approximately 60p
Preparation time - 20 minutes
Cooking time - 45 minutes
Freezes well.

Ingredients

1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed
10 tomatoes, halved
3 red peppers, halved and de-seeded
3 medium sized carrots, sliced
1.2 litres vegetable stock
1 large red chili pepper, chopped finely
3 tbsp cream (double or single)
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Arrange the tomatoes and peppers cut-side-up on a baking tray. Drizzle with half the oil and place at the top of a hot oven (200 degrees celcius) for 25 minutes. When these are softened and mushy, remove from the oven and leave on the side to cool down.

Meanwhile, dice the onion and fry in a saucepan with the remaining olive oil until softened. Add the chili, garlic and carrots and fry over a low heat for another couple of minutes.

Remove the skins from the tomatoes and peppers. Don't obsess over every last scrap, just as long as you get the majority off. Add these to the saucepan.

Add the stock (fresh is great, but an Oxo cube with 1.2 litres of water works just as well) and simmer for 20 minutes.

Leave to cool for a bit and liquidise either with a hand blender or a liquidiser. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Reheat before serving and swirl the cream on top.

Chicken Soup
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Serves 4-6
Cost per portion - approximately 75p
Preparation time - 30 minutes
Cooking time - 45 minutes
Freezes well.

2 chicken quarters, or the leftovers from a roast chicken
1 onion
2 carrots
2 medium sized waxy (e.g. desiree) potatoes
3 sticks celery
2 bay leaves
1.2 litres chicken stock
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Place the chicken quarters in a saucepan with the stock (made from a chicken stock cube and 1.2 litres water) and bay leaves. Bring to the boil and simmer for 25 minutes. Take the saucepan off the heat, remove the chicken from the saucepan and leave to cool on a plate. Remove and discard the bay leaves.

Meanwhile, finely dice the carrots, potatoes and onion. Fry with the olive oil in a frying pan over a low heat for five minutes. Add to the stock in the saucepan.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and discard, then remove all the meat from the bones. Dice the meat and add to the rest of the ingredients in the saucepan. Simmer for about twenty minutes and serve. For a slightly chunkier soup, add a handful or two of dried fine soup noodle before simmering at the end.

Summary: Try these recipes on a gloomy winters evening.