Ratatouille Soup

Ratatouille Soup ingredients and making it.The finished ratatouille soup.

I decided to make this ratatouille soup recipe as courgettes or zucchini, eggplant or aubergine and of course lots of delicious tomatoes are in abundance. I have often made this as a thick stew or casserole and as a vegetable dish to go with meat dishes.

Ingredients

6 garlic cloves chopped fine

2 onions diced

3 courgettes/zucchini diced and sliced

1 large aubergine diced

2 red peppers/ capsicum's diced

10 tomatoes skinned and chopped. I drop them into boiling water and then skin with the aid of a large spoon

1 1/2 pints of stock. I use homemade vegetable or chicken but a stock cube will also work well.

salt and pepper

1 teaspoon of mixed herbs. I have a French mixture I got at a French market but fresh herbs will do as well.

3 tablespoons of tomato puree

olive oil 2 tablespoons

Method

Heat the olive oil in a pan

Add the onions and garlic.

Cook gently for 5 minutes. Do not put on high as the garlic will burn. Just sweat the vegetables

Add the courgettes and stir, cook for 3 minutes

Add the aubergines and cook for 5 minutes

Add the tomatoes and peppers cook for 3 minutes

Add the stock, herbs, salt and pepper and cook with the lid on the pan and on a low heat so the soup simmers. Test the vegetables. It will take about 30 minutes.

Add the tomato puree 5 minutes before the end of cooking to add some thickness and colour.

Taste and season to taste.

The photographs so the stages of making.

Thanks for reading and enjoy

Whilst looking at the French origins of this dish I noticed a new film with this title. It seems a great movie and this would be a good soup for the kids to make to go with the movie. This is the link to the Ratatouille movie site Click on this to get to the movie site .

Celeriac Soup

These are the Ingredients for celeriac soup recipe.

The celeriac peeled and cut into chunks.

The diced celeriac ready for the soup recipe.

The pine nuts toasted in a non stick frying pan and below celeriac soup.

On a visit to Southport I bought the celeriac at a farm shop. This is the recipe for Celeriac soup that I made.
Ingredients
1 celeriac, peeled and diced
1 onion peeled, and diced
1 large or 3 small potatoes. washed, peeled and diced
1 parsnip, peeled and diced
1 oz of butter or 2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 1/2 pints of homemade chicken stock or a cube of stock (vegetable stock will be fine as well)
salt and pepper to taste

pine nuts for garnish
Method
Melt the butter in a large pan or gently heat the olive oil.
Add the onion, potato and parsnip and sweat gently for 10 minutes.
Add the celeriac and cook on a gentle heat for 5 minutes.
Add the stock , stir and cover the pan.
Cook for 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are soft. A gentle simmer is better than vigorous boiling.
Add salt and pepper. Do not add to much salt. I watch our salt intake.
When cooked you can serve like this or blend 1/2 or all the soup in a blender. It is personal preference. I like it half and half to give texture.
Garnish with toasted pine nuts.
Method
Toss pine nuts in a hot frying pan until just brown. Sprinkle on top of the soup.
Variations
Add natural yogurt.
Add fresh cream.
Add fresh celery leaves.
Add small pieces of crispy fried bacon as a garnish.

Add grated nutmeg
Check out the archives for more soup recipes
Thanks for reading

Check out the Archives for

Pea and Ham soup

Mushroom soup

Celery soup

Tomato soup

Leek and Potato

Sweet Potato and Chickpea soup

Broccoli soup

Scotch Broth

Spicy lentil soup

Ham and bean soup

Roasted reds soup
Crazycupcakes