Roasted Tomato Soup

Chicken and Corn Soup

Whenever I go to an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, there will always be Chicken and Corn Soup. I always loved this soup, but knew it contained many preservatives and artificial flavours. I was browsing through a cookbook, when I found a recipe for Chicken and Corn Soup, so I decided to try it out.

I realised, after I had started, that I did not have enough chicken stock, so I made up the volume with chicken broth, which has less gelatine, but still has good chicken flavour. Make sure you do not do what I did and mix one tablespoon of cornflour with 3 tablespoons water, when you're supposed to mix 3 tablespoons of cornflour with 1 tablespoon of water. This caused the soup to be very thin, when the desired consistency is very thick.

Despite the soup being thin, I still loved this. I will definitely be making this again.

Pumpkin Soup

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I was excited about making something from Simply Heaven again, and this time it turned out far better than last time. The pumpkin soup had very clear flavours and it was very healthy. The only 'fat' in the soup was Philadelphia Spreadable Light Cream Cheese, which added richness and creaminess to the soup. Other recipes I found online used regular cream, which contains more fat than Philly, so the choice is obvious. I actually found the soup just a tiny bit too rich, and after eating (drinking?) a bowl of it, my throat got a bit itchy. My whole family loved though, which was surprising.

The absolute hardest part of making this soup is cutting the pumpkin. Definitely. It's not difficult, as such, but the amount of pumpkin you have to cut into wedges and scoop seeds out of is very large. A kilo is needed, which is about a whole pumpkin. I literally spent an hour preparing the pumpkin and cutting it into a rough dice. The pumpkin is then tossed in some olive oil, along with an onion and a head of garlic. It's then baked until tender, then boiled with 6 cups of stock. I shamefully admit that I use stock cubes, but they are just so cheap!

Next comes another tedious part - the processing. Normally, if you don't mind a chunky soup, you can skip processing and eat it as is. This doesn't apply to pumpkin soup because the pumpkin is so stringy that the texture is wrong, and looks unappetising. I don't have a food processor or a blender, so I have to use a 'Magic Bullet Blender' which only blends a bit at a time. All in all, I think I made about 10 trips to the 'blender' and back. The hard work pays off though, as the result is smooth and creamy, and delicious. The croutons are just slices of bread that I baked, cubed and baked again in the oven until crisp. It's very nice with the soup.

This was definitely a success, and I hope to make more of it in the future.

Recipe

Obtained from Simply Heaven, by Philadelphia

Serves 6.

1kg pumpkin, peeled and chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 head garlic, broken into cloves and peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 cups chicken stock
250g Philadelphia Spreadable Light Cream Cheese
Salt and pepper, to taste
Parsley and croutons, for garnish

1. Toss the pumpkin, onion, and garlic in oil. Place on a lined oven tray and bake in a hot oven 200°C for 20-25 minutes or until tender.

2. Place roasted vegetables in a large saucepan with stock and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Blend or process the soup until smooth then return to the saucepan.

3. Whisk the Philly into the soup until smooth, simmer for a further 5 minutes until well heated. Season to taste then ladle into serving bowls and garnish with parsley. Serve immediately.