It is that time of the year when all you want is to curl up under a blanket and watch entertaining rubbish on TV, nibbling on chocolate. The clocks going back are not going to make it more cheerful, making the nightfall arrive even sooner. Blanket, streaming service and a bowl of soup: that's the ticket.
But what I said recently about watching it during autumn, as weight gain creeps up surreptitiously in October and November, is still valid. So the comfort food that we look for on stormy days should be warming, filling and nutritious, but not stupidly rich.
Soups are the best if you crave comfort. Soups are easy to make by a vatful, good to freeze in portions and microwavable for dinner. Soups mean plants, as many as five in just one meal, nutrients respective of the plants used and fibre, which we are always short of in our daily intake.
I know that perhaps not all will agree but if you lovingly peel, chop and cook the vegetables, please don’t then blitz them to a baby goo before serving. Blended or pureed soup looks awful and its texture is all wrong. Even though the fibre is not entirely lost in blending, biting and chewing pieces of vegetables is enjoyable and makes the meal last longer!
So I suggest you try to refrain from blending your soups. Apart from the above points, there’s one less (and awkward as hell) thing to wash up. And you need not actually own a blender!
Chicken noodle soup would never be blended anyway, and it’s the top comforting, nutritious and healing, as some claim, kind of soup. If you find some dried mushrooms in your cupboard, zing up an old fashioned potato soup: no blending allowed or you get watery mash!
If you want a protein insert in your soup, make it a super healthy and light fish stew. And for the halfway house between creamy and chunky, broccoli and Stilton will do very nicely.
Apart from soups, stormy days endorse food that has been cooked for a long while, exuding gorgeous smells, preferably mostly hands off. For that, there’s no beating a cassoulet or its Mexican counterpart, chilli. Earthy flavours of lentils enhanced by chunks of spicy chorizo make another option. And for a little more involved and surprisingly delicious, a veggie cabbage and walnut casserole might be an idea.
You can cook a big pot of beans, butter beans with ham hock or classic but made from scratch baked beans with bacon.
If you serve a chunk of homemade bread with either of the above, it’s going to make you wish stormy weather continued, especially if you can find a slice of ginger cake for dessert. Keep cosy and warm!