So, as we all slowly attempt to get back into routines of work, school, and home after Christmas what are our food choices at this time of the year? I personally have an aversion to sugar at the moment – not through some little voice in my head telling me to be healthier, but just feeling overloaded after weeks of rich food. Soup is my saviour at the moment the absolute favourite being smooth flavoursome tomato soup. We are working our way through pots and pots of it at the moment. I make a huge pot, and to my annoyance it doesn’t last a week as I had hoped. It mysteriously disappears, but since it is the one way of getting vegetables into my children I can’t really complain.

Other soups don’t go down so well with the small ones unfortunately as I adore all soups – pumpkin with chilli and orange, leek and potato, roast pepper, and strangely enough considering they don’t float my boat generally - I love a good earthy mushroom soup. It is a wonderful food – full of nutrution, warmth, comfort, and is so easy to eat. There is a bit of a skill to making soup well – you can just pile a heap of veg in a pot with water, boil it, and blend but that really doesn’t taste great. To make great soup you need to bring out the flavour of the individual ingredients which is why I my heart sinks when the answer to the question in so many cafes and restaurants of “what soup do you have?” is “vegetable” – ie yesterdays cooked leftovers blended with water with a bit of powder soup mix thrown in.

Make a big pot using the best vegetables you can buy, good stock fresh or cubes, lots of complemenary herbs and spices, and keep it in the fridge heating up just what you need. Then there is no nasty bacterial threat from heating up too many times, and the flavour improves day on day anyway. Freshly made soup never tastes good – it needs time for the flavours to deepen. When it is a bit bland just after it is cooked the tendency is to add too much salt. The next day then the soup is too salty. Have patience and make it in the evening leaving it until at least the next day to eat with crusty bread. Filling and nourishing, smooth or chunky,  it is the perfect food for the start of the new year. See class schedules for soup-making classes this year.