Carrots and cumin soup

Carrots are good... Carrots are nice... Carrots are orange...
And when outside everything is grey, orange CAN save you! Orange can make you happy!

Then you open the pressure cooker you had used to cook everything, and you see everything orange, because the steam just burnt your finger! And life is less nice then before, but, you know, you still have your orange (f#@§%&*) soup to relay on!
And you even manage, between ice, arnica cream, lint and band-aid to shoot your f#@§%&* soup to publish everything on that f#@§%&* blog of yours...
And this morning, with you band-aid finger (because you burnt the ring finger of your RIGHT hand, not the left, no, no!) you even try to write a post about it, telling the 10 people that read your f#@§%&* blog that you put carrots, potatoes (and if you still have some turnip in the fridge, too), coarse salt, grounded ginger and cumin seeds in a nice sauce pan (no pressure cooker!), with enough water to cover everything, and cook it until everything is tender, then you blend everything and you eat it. If you feel like splurging, add a drop of cream...

Nice story, no?

Mushroom soup/pâté

Well, I love mushrooms, any and all kind! As I live in Italy, in autumn is quite normal to find fresh porcini at the market, altogether with many other wood mushrooms. Of course the most widespread mushrooms that you can find everywhere, all year long, are champignon. And as we produce so good dried porcini, the most simple way to have a porcini taste even when porcini are not available, is to mix champignon with some dried porcini. And so I did for this soup.

2 celery stalks
1 carrot
1 onion
30 g of dried porcini, soaked in hot water for 30 minutes (do not throw away the water)
500 g of champignon
3 potatoes
2 tablespoon of extravirign olive oil
1 glass of Marsala wine or Porto wine
Thyme

Clean and slice the champignon. Pell the potatoes and cut them in chunks.
Clean and mince celery, carrot and onion. Stir fry them in the oil. Add the drained porcini, then the sliced champignon and the potatoes. Add the Marsala, the drained water form the porcini, the thyme and cook for 30-40 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
Serve it straight away (upper pic) or blend it (like under here) to make an interesting pâté for your appetizers!!!

Give me my soup!

Have I already told you my childhood story about my eternal hate for minestra???
In Italy we call minestra any souplikestuff with vegetables, diced and cooked in some kind of stock or just water… In classical culinary Italian there are two different type of minestra: in brodo (in stock or water, anyway something soupy) and asciutta (dry, and we classify in this section any pasta or rice dish). What I always hated was minestra in brodo, and especially minestrone. Just thinking about it I wince… And along with my hate for minestra goes my hate for cooked celery… In fact the only thought of the smell of boiled celery make my face change in a grimace…
Anyway, all this nice useless information, just to tell you that I’m now over my hate for minestra (although I’m not over the one for boiled celery) and now I can eat soupy stuff, but do not make me see a single dice or piece: I want them smooth, velvety thick, creamy…
And as much as I like to play with what I have in the fridge, I do even like to transform cheap ingredients in something “chic” (I’m so hilarious thinking that something chic can come out of my kitchen!!! Especially on purpose!!!) or maybe “shabby chic” (my real aim in this life…)!

4 carrots
1 fennel
1 potato
Salt
Pepper
Orange zest

Clean and dice carrots, fennel and potato. Place them in a saucepan, cover with water, add salt and bring to the boil. Let it cook for 20 minutes.
Blend everything. Serve with freshly grind pepper and the orange zest.


P.S. This picture is part of the set "Piperita bought bargain linen napkins"...

Mange-tout soup

Yesterday night I opened the fridge and all I saw were some sad vegetables that screamed, “Cook me or kill me!”
I cooked them…

1 red pepper
1 leek
1 fennel
1 courgette
1 little pumpkin
2 potatoes

1 teaspoon of red curry paste
Salt

Tarragon to decorate

Clean and cut in chunks all the vegetables. Throw them in a saucepan, add 2 litre of water, curry paste and salt. Bring to the boil and cook it for 30 minutes, or until all the vegetables are cooked trough.
Blend everything. Serve hot with some Tarragon leaves.