A sturdy soup steadies a seasonal shift
Hello, hello again! I’m back with some food for thought and some thought for food.
It’s about this time every year, without fail, that I feel myself resisting the inevitable seasonal shift.
The days begin to shorten and I refuse to budge, continually surprised as the night inches in.
This year it feels sooner than usual, a summer cut short or mis-sold. All hopes of that Indian summer are long gone, packed up with my flip flops into a vacuum sealed storage bag and tucked under the bed. I’m struggling to remember too many long balmy days this year. Were there any?
In an act of defiance, I remain stubborn about my usual daily routine, feeling frustrated that I can no longer go out and do outdoorsy things into the evening. I miss being outside.
The day feels smaller, suffocating, until eventually I relent and give in to doing a bit less or being a bit differently. Why do we delay the inevitable?
One of the biggest seasonal shifts I make is moving my evening dog walk to lunchtime, to make the most of the daylight. This shunts my work day around a bit — I work from home for the most part, so I know I’m fortunate to be able to do this.
Fitting in a lunchtime walk means there’s even more of a reason to be organised ahead of time with the lunchtime food.
This week, it’s batch cooking soup.
I’m feeling a shift in myself too. I find myself back to this newsletter, back to Substack, and now wondering what new things I might have to say? I hope you’ll stick around to find out.
Leek, potato & spinach soup
A Sunday soup making session will set you up for the week ahead.
You don’t really need a recipe, it’s just soup! At the bare minimum, if you threw some chopped leeks and spuds into a pan with some stock, cooked it and blended it, you’d still have a very satisfactory soup.
But I would encourage you, if you have the time, to spend some time sautéing those onions and leeks with a generous nob of butter to see you off on the right path.
After your mindful sautéing, go in with the spuds and stock and leave it to do its thing. If you’re adding spinach, do this right at the end.
Ingredients
Salted butter or oil
One large leek, washed, trimmed and finely sliced
Two medium potatoes
One small onion
Handful of spinach
Vegetable stock cubes (I use the Kallo low salt ones)
Salt & pepper
Cream or kefir (I swirled in some kefir to serve for appearance more than anything else!)
A solid batch of soup ready to reheat during the week. If you don’t fancy leek & potato, how about carrot & coconut soup with a little kick?
See you again. I’m off out to walk my dog!
