My daughter is hopefully being discharged from hospital this week, so I'm busy cooking up a storm of vegetarian meals to freeze down for her. She's too independent to allow me to move in and look after her, and her son's at work all day, so I thought I could be of practical help by preparing some meals they can just heat through.
Elizabeth is a vegetarian, and although Dan isn't, he's happy to eat vegetarian food - especially if it's been cooked by his Nan! My daughter's good at most things, but cooking isn't high on the list - she just doesn't have the patience. I'd made a pot of my legendary vegetable soup, but I wanted something slightly different, as eating the same soup can get a bit monotonous. Anyway, yesterday I experimented with what I had and left it cooking overnight in the slow cooker.
Along with the usual suspects - onions, carrots, celery, swede, parsnips, chopped tomatoes lentils - I added green and red peppers, lots of flat leaf parsley and some smoked paprika. The result is a thick, dark red soup which has a more intense flavour than my usual vegetable soup. It tastes just like those wonderful home made soups you get in family restaurants in Spain, on the 6 Euro menu.
I think this probably results from adding the smoked paprika - about a rounded dessertspoonful - and cooking it for longer than usual - 11 hours instead of the usual 6 - 8 hours on the 'low' setting. If you don't want to use a slow cooker, just double your normal cooking time, but allow extra liquid to compensate for the extra evaporation.
Like an idiot, I've portioned the soup and consigned it to the freezer, so unfortunately, I can't post a picture of the actual stuff. However, thanks to the wonders of Google, I managed to find something that looks very similar. I also like the serving idea of sprinkling it with grated cheese. That's a good idea for extra protein. After 6 weeks on a feeding tube and lying in bed, Elizabeth needs building up now.
