Brrrrr!

It's flipping cold here today. Southerly, and rain on and off all day. I've made vege soup so the kids can have something hot when they come home from school. (None of them are very good at putting on a rain coat in the morning.)

Here's my vege soup recipe. I call it "Five Vege Soup" because you need at least 5 different vegetables, for preference, for a nice blended flavour.

Five Vege Soup
Start heating 2 litres water in a big pot. Add 1 cup of barley or lentils (or some of both) and then one or two of at least five different vegetables, chopped into small dice, as you prepare them. When it boils, simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add 1 1/2 tsp salt and other seasonings. Enjoy!

Today's version had the lentils, an onion, a carrot, 2 sticks celery, 1 potato, some peas, some cabbage, a little bit grated ginger and crushed garlic and some chopped parsley.

It is actually very like "Stone Soup" but without the stone.

Tips:

• if you're using lentils, don't add the salt (or any tomatoes) until lentils are cooked.
• Add the quick cooking veges (eg, cabbage, silverbeet) when the rest is nearly ready

Actually, the reason I'm publishing my recipe is I have just received an e-mail newsletter from somewhere with a soup recipe in. It goes as follows:

Chunky Monkey Vegetable soup

One Onion finely chopped

One tablespoon of Olive Oil

3 tubs of Chunky Monkey (any combo)

One carton (375mls) of beef stock

Heat Olive Oil in saucepan, sauté the onion.

Add remaining ingredients

Bring to the boil and gently simmer for 5 minutes

Salt and Pepper to taste.

I don't know what "Chunky Monkey" is, but I sincerely hope that it's not true to name!!! If this is the level of soup recipe being circulated in cyber-space, then I'm doing a public service publishing my own recipe.