It’s Soup Season!

Ingredients for carrot and lentil soup

Hurrah! It’s the season for SOUP!

I love to make soup. I find it very therapeutic and relaxing.  It’s a good feeling to make it in batches and then freeze for cold, winter days.  The only drawback is I probably make too much, the hubster tells me off for filling up the freezer.

First soup of the season

I got the urge to make soup yesterday.  Carrot and lentil.  I thought I would share the process with you.

Carrot and Lentil Soup enough to serve 12.  (Good for a bonfire party or to freeze). Scale down for smaller quantities.

The equipment you will need:

  • a sharp veg prep knife and chopping board
  • a large soup pan
  • a wooden spoon
  • a hand blender
Ingredients for carrot and lentil soup
Carrot and lentil soup ingredients
  • 500g red lentils
  • 1kg fresh carrots
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 large or 2 small onions
  • 2 large cloves of garlic
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground back pepper
  • half a teaspoon of turmeric (or more to taste)
  • half a teaspoon ground cumin (or more to taste)
  • 2 veg stock cubes I used https://www.oxo.co.uk/ made up to a litre with boiling water.

Step 1

Peel the veg, soak the lentils

Peel the veg and immerse the lentils in cold water

Step 2

 

Chopped veg
Chop the veg

Step 3

Heat the oil. Sauté the onion and garlic for 3 minutes until translucent.  Add the carrots, stir well, cover and cook for 3 further minutes. Add seasoning and spices.  Stir well.  Cover and cook for 3 minutes. Add soaked lentils. Stir. Add stock. Stir.  Cover and cook for a further 20 minutes or until lentils are tender.

Step 4

Blitz with a handblender. Serve hot,  or portion and freeze when cold.

Carrot and lentil soup
A comforting bowl of carrot and lentil soup

Variation

Add chilli flakes and extra cumin to spice up to taste.  Serve with crusty bread and perhaps sprinkle some mature, grated cheddar on top – watch it melt! Delicious.

 

All is safely gathered in. (Winter is coming!)

 

Harvesting in the dark

Update: Harvesting in the dark

On the way home from a night out – the farmers are still harvesting.

The hubster and I went out for out for a wander yesterday afternoon.  We could hear the distant hum of the combine harvester.

You may have seen a couple of images on Twitter @SavourtheMomen1 and Instagram @Sharon28.sr. Here they are again:

Clouds of dust heading our way

Townies!

We are relatively new to this area.   It is still an absolute delight and a wonder to see the continual change in the fields around us.  This incredible summer has provided the most amazing fields of gold.  Our neighbours might well take this for granted as they have always lived in this environment – but they are far more in tune with the change in the seasons than we are.

Combine harvester up close and loud

Harvest dust gets everywhere

Our bird’s eye view was from the nearby canal towpath.  Several vehicles: combines, grain collectors and even bigger grain collectors, followed by bailers, all work together like partners in a dance.  The huge expanse of barley (yes I can recognise it now) was ‘done’ in little under an hour.  Great clouds of light-brown dust billowed up and made its way across the canal.  It left its tell-tale film on the water, to be absorbed overnight to sink to the bottom.  We took shelter behind a hawthorn hedge.  Even so everything, yes everything, inside and outside the house… and the car, has a light covering of beige dust.  I suppose it goes with the territory!

Harvesting barley

A different way of life

The machine operators certainly know what they’re doing and understand the crops, the land and the weather.  At this time of year and in this area, there is no such thing as an eight-hour working day.  The headlights of the vehicles in the fields can be seen as they work into the night.  At a guess I would say it is probably three solid weeks of working 18/20 hour days.  I could be wrong, it might be more.

Then comes the tractor.  They pull huge trailers of hay stacked so high they barely make it under the bridges.  They shower the roads and paths with yellow confetti. 

The harvest is almost finished now and the moon will soon shine on the freshly harvested fields to turn the gold into silver.

Almost done

It will always continue to fascinate.  It really is a spectacle to see.  I recommend that you take the time to go and look for yourself, before it is too late.

Hats off to the farmers.