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Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together

I forgot to mention that the white wine should be dry, and that there should also be a spoonful of honey going on about the same time the white wine is chucked in. I blame too much red wine (optional).

I amd itn ecaptiaghle of drinking sthis d dar - Dr T

Do you ever have roast chicken of a weekend ? If so, stock is very easy.
Take the remains of the carcass, and chuck the whole lot into a large pan. Add enough water to just cover it.
Add a few carrots, sticks of celery, peppercorns and whatever else you may have lying around that won't turn into a mush.(Just top and tail them)
Simmer up together for an hour or two, until the juice looks like a stock and the carrots are cooked through.
Strain the whole thing through a sieve. Discard all the solids.
Bottle into large jars. Those big mayonnaise or passata ones are ideal. Seal whilst still warm, like jam, to get a good seal.
They'll keep in the fridge for a week or more.

The Czar of Accounting. No Nit Too Small To Pick

And have been going soup crazy. I do a roast most Sundays and usually blend up the leftover vegetables with some stock on Monday. It lasts me ages.

Parsnips and carrots go well together.

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It's political correctness gone mad!

For one. Really lazy style.

1x stick of celery
1x shallot or small onion
2x cloves garlic
2x reasonably sized spuds
1x decent vege or chicken stock cube, made up.
Black pepper.
Pancetta or bacon bits.

Chop everything into small cubes (thumb-width). Soften the garlic, onion and celery in oil, seasoned with pepper. Soften the potatoes. Add stock and simmer for 20-30 mins. About 5 mins before the end, start frying your bacon until crispy. Blend the soup (it will be quite thick) and top with tasty crunchy bacon. Yum.

Local wholefoods place has bags of what they call Number 1 and Number 2 soup mix. Number 1 is lentils, dried peas, mung beans, pearl barley and a few other similar things that can be cooked from scratch without a pre-soak. Number 2 is bigger beans and chick peas and so on that need either overnight soaking or pressure cooking.

My general soup base mix involves a couple of handfuls of either (or both), plus a handful or three of extras from the bag of mung beans, etc. Stick in pressure cooker with sufficient water, bring to the boil, seal it up and leave it simmering for a while.

Some time later, take it off the gas and let it cool down so you can open the pan, think "Bugger, that's done more than I needed" and throw in the contents of a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes, or real tomatoes if it's that time of year and you've got lots. You may also at this point add Soy sauce to taste. Seal up the pressure cooker again and give it another half hour.

While that's happening, in another pan start some chopped up onions and a couple of rashers of bacon (also chopped) going in a bit of oil. When they're looking about right crank down the pressure cooker again, and put some of the red mush in a liquidiser/blender and whizz it round for a bit. Pour that on top of the onion and bacon, give it a stir, put the lid on and ignore it while you put the rest of the pea/bean/lentil/tomato/etc mix through the liquidiser. You may want to experiment with the length of whizzing time, I like having it vaguely gritty rather than a smooth paste.

Stir the contents of the saucepan as it's about to burn and you forgot to turn the heat right down.

Cut yourself a couple of slices of nice fresh bread and butter, and serve the pan that's been simmering the batch with onion and bacon. You may find yourself thinking "Bugger, that's more than I'd planned" again at this point.

Later that evening remember there's at least one, if not two, pans with now cool mixture. Tip this into suitable containers (I've taken up using some plastic pint glasses as I had some around) and stick in the freezer for next time.

The basic stuff makes an adequate soup on its own, though it tends to need salt, you can also do variations on the bacon and onion additions with anything else you might have handy, additional herbs, spices and whatever takes your fancy.

Although I usually like it a lot chunkier than you seem to. A blender?!?

The biggest problem with my soups is that they are so chunky you're never quite sure if you're eating a soup or a stew.

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It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

When you get fresh spinach in the US, it often needs to be cleaned and trimmed of the stalks. I use the leaves for salad or cooked, and chop the stalks and throw them in a freezer bag to be used later in soup. Good for, er, souping up the canned variety, too.

Blame my grandmother. I save wrappers of sticks of butter for future greasing of pans for baking.

"I don't have time for martial law, I have to get to the gym!" zarathus