Lunch in our home right now doesn´t always happen at lunch time. Sometimes it doesn´t happen at all, but we do eventually eat and everything tastes even better as hunger – so they say – is the best seasoning.
Soups are perfect as they just need to be heated up and can be eaten quickly if we´re in a rush, or enjoyed with a hearty sandwich or some cold meats and cheeses if we have the luxury of a little time. This was a quick one to prepare, and was warming and tasty due to the addition of fresh ginger and smoked pimentón.
Of course, I´d recommend a soup bowl and not a coffee cup without a handle, but the choice is yours!
Ingredients (serves two to four, depending on how hungry you are)
- 500ml of sieved tomatoes (passata)
- 500ml of water or vegetable stock
- 1 large carrot peeled and chopped into small chunks
- 1 large courgette peeled and chopped into small chunks
- 1 large onion peeled and chopped into small chunks
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 medium parsnip peeled and chopped into small chunks
- About 10 green beans cut into small pieces
- A level teaspoon of smoked paprika
- One heaped teaspoon of fresh grated ginger
- A teaspoon of marmite (optional)
- Salt & Pepper
- A tablespoon of fresh olive oil
Put all the ingredients except the oil into a saucepan and simmer until all the vegetables are tender. Taste for seasoning and either serve as is with chunks of vegetables or add the olive oil and blend until smooth and creamy.
PS. The pretty napkins were made from an old sheet my best friend gave me that she found in a charity shop. She knows how I like to recycle and refashion and was sick of me commenting that I was missing sewing/knitting/crochet etc. She gave it to me and said “there you go, it´s big enough for you to make a tablecloth and six napkins by hand”. So I did!
Chica Andaluza 
I’m so happy that it’s soup season!! A heavenly pot with little clean-up.. and it usually brings me dinner on a second or third day if I make enough! I’m not sure I have marmite here… that would really add a neat flavor to the broth! xx
I adore soups too – marmite is a good quick taste boost, we can get it now in Spain but I used to have to bring it back from the UK!
Fantastic soup Tanya and how lovely of your friend to spoil you with a sheet to refashion – well done!
🙂 Mandy
It was just what we needed – and I enjoyed making our little tablecloth too!
What a great set of flavours for a winter soup on a misty autumn evening. OK, you’re having nicer weather. Maybe the warmth of the soup will take me to Andalucia:)
Am still in the UK Roger so probably a lot worse off tan you in France weather wise 😦 Soups are the order of the day (or night) here!
Soup is on my to do list this weekend, and now I’m inspired to make a roasted vegetable soup between your last post and this one, thank you! Your soup looks delicious and I love the color.
What a great idea – roasting the veg before making the soup really adds some wonderful flavour!
I never would have thought of the ginger, but it sounds great! I’ll have to try it (and very soon, I think!). Mmmm…
I´m a big ginger fan and am convinced it wards off colds!
That’s a great-sounding soup – good for using some of the over-large green beans I just brought in from the garden!
Lentils in the pot for tonight, though…expecting our first frost!
Oooh lentils – yum! Frost eh…I´m sure it won´t be long here in the UK, I think the north of England has already had low enough temps and the south is not far off…
Mmmmm … sounds delicious, Tanya 🙂
Starting around this time of year, I make soup two or three times a week. It´s just so easy to warm up after the initial making.
I agree, there´s usually a pot of soup bubbling away in our house too!
I love the soup season – and stews are pretty awesome too. This looks like a tasty brew with an unexpected addition of Marmite. I will have to give it a go!
They say you either love or hate marmite…I´m a huge fan and fortunately Big Man decided he liked it too when he first tried it 🙂
That sounds great, but I’d have to leave out the Marmite 😉
Oh no, I thought you were “one of us”!
I love Marmite! Didn’t think to use it is soups though. I’d probably have to leave it out as my husband hates the stuff.
Maybe you could sneak it in and not tell him – I find that in cooking it just adds a deep, slightly beefy flavour!
Like trying to sneak mushrooms to my son! LOL
I have been having soup everyday in Germany as the weather is very cool. Yours sounds like it was delicious.
You hae to keep warm for all your exploring – I bet they have some amazing soups!
Yummy soup! and looks like so easy to make with tons of my favorite vegetables:) I’ve got to try this one:)
You can mix up the veggies as you like – it doesn´t get much healthier or warming!
Wonderfully easy, wonderfully healthy, wonderfully appetizing: but, just perhaps, I’ll admit to leaving out, hmm, or rather replacing Marmite also . . . [nope, not with Vegemite 🙂 !
I thought I might start a bit of controversy with that spoonful of marmite!
Sounds so good. I might make this for lunch today. Thank you!
Hope you enjoy – especially with the rain we´re having right now 😦
I could go for a bowl of soup right now…and I don’t care if you serve it in a coffee cup or a dog bowl (as long as it isn’t dirty). Looks good.
Sometimes I wonder if the dog bowls are cleaner – they´re funkier than the coffee cups at least!
I’ll take mine pureed with a hunk of bread please!! 🙂
Yes…that was my vote too!
Sounds wonderfully soothing. One question…what is a courgette?
I much prefer my soup in a coffee mug! Have a great weekend 🙂
Thanks Tandy – you too!
That looks just perfect.
Thank you Greg 🙂
Yay for soups! I usually make a massive batch on a sunday, for lunch, and then freeze the rest for back-up meals in the week. Today’s variety will be butternut squash and assorted veg! x
Ooh that sounds very good – haven´t decided yet what I´ll be making but I´ll be making some too!
Love soup season. Hurrah!
🙂
That soup sounds wonderful and what lovely napkins – I am impressed!! x
Hee hee – there´s an extra one for you!
This looks tasty and warming, just the kind of soup I’ll be making when winter arrives 5not for a while I hope!). And a coffee cup without a handle is a bowl! I nearly missed this as I don’t seem to be receiving my email alerts.
WordPress seems to do funny things with e-mail alerts when it pleases…and yes, glad you agree that a coffee cup without a handle is a bowl!
ahh this looks like a heart-warming bowlful when the roofs nearly blowing off and the rain is traveling sideways as it is here! love soup for all the reasons you stated Tanya. Marmite is new to me so will do some research on that one, but the rest of this sounds right up my wet and windy alley!
Oh my word – I thought we had it bad when we had a rainbow then hailstones within an hour. And as for Marmite..they say you love it or hate it…I adore it!
¡Qué rico Tanya! Con el frío que empieza hacer aquí, esta sopa me parece la mejor idea. Muchas gracias por la receta 🙂
Encantada – pero lo encuentro difícil creer que hace frio en España 😉
¡Mucho! 6 ó 7 grados por la mañana…
Una deliciosa receta llena de vitaminas para estos tiempos de catarros otoñales. Un abrazo!
¡Es verdad! Y aquí en Inglaterra nos hacen falta las vitaminas con el tiempo que tenemos….
It sounds like your best friends knows you all too well !! Very pretty, with or without the coffee cup minus th ehandle 🙂
Ah, thanks Claire – are you back?! Did you have fun?!
yes and yes 🙂
I am definitely in soup mode. I’ve made three soups in the last two weeks. 🙂 My family might ban me from the kitchen soon! One of my fave soups is tomato and it looks so delicious! Hope all is going well in the UK!
It´s hard not to love soup! You can come to my kitchen if they ban you from yours 😉
That soup is MORE than autumnal and is soon to become a southern hemisphere spring delight! It looks smooth, creamy and delectable…everything that I love in a soup and like you, we are busy Busy BUSY out in the garden effecting change for spring before summer hits us like a hot brick and we are rendered lizard like out on the deck basking the days away. I make and freeze a lot of soups so that whenever life seems to have taken over and dragged us too far from some sort of meal we have something that we can just defrost and enjoy 🙂
Sounds like a good idea and even when it´s hot I can still enjoy a soup (hot or chilled). Actually, a soup like this would be very nice chilled I think. Happy gardening…we are waiting for a run of a few days without rain so that we can do the final tidy up in one of the gardens. It´s proving very frustrating!
I love best friends who know exactly what you need 🙂
love the napkins and the soup! it is cooling down here and soups are indeed a wonderful meal
Best friends sometimes know us better than we know ourselves!
I love vege soup and mum used to serve it up for lunch often in weekends with home made bread too. Yummo.
PS yay to getting some sewing time in when you are surrounded by dust and work! Crochet needles are pretty small too you know!?
Funny you should mention crochet – have just made an adorable little Christmas gift for a pal!
what a wanderfull recipe, thanks for sharing!