Random Cookbook of the Week: New Covent Garden Soup Company's Book of Soups

As I may have mentioned here, Mr. Fraser and I met in England, though we're both American, as part of a volunteer program that placed young adults from around Europe in North America in various British nonprofits. During our year there he picked up The New Covent Garden Soup Company's Book of Soups. To date I've tried two recipes from it, and both turned out winners, so it qualifies for me as a cookbook deserving more attention.

This weekend I made...

Grandad Elf's Spring Herb Soup

25 g (1 oz) butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 stick celery, finely chopped
110 g (4 oz) lentils
1.2 liters (2 pints) vegetable stock (I made a homemade batch)
225 g (8 oz) fresh spinach
1 T each chopped Italian parsley, chives, tarragon, thyme, and marjoram 
1 t lemon juice
150 ml (1/4 pint) Greek yogurt
salt & freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter and cook the onion, garlic, and celery gently for a few minutes in a covered saucepan, without coloring. Add the lentils and stir to coat well. Add the stock, cover, bring to a boil and simmer for about 20-30 minutes until the lentils are soft. Reserving 1 t. of the chopped herbs for garnish, add the spinach and remaining herbs to the soup and cook for 1 minute until the spinach has wilted. Cool a little, then puree the soup along with the lemon juice and most of the yogurt, reserving 6 t. of the yogurt and the remainder of the chopped herbs for garnish.

This was a nice recipe, not the best thing I've ever made, but a bright, springlike soup that even with all the chopping time involved was quick and straightforward to make. I forgot to take a picture, unfortunately.

52 Cookbooks - Week 8 & 9

Just a quick post to catch up on the last two weeks of 52 Cookbooks:

The week before last I drew The New Covent Garden Soup Company's Book of Soups, a cookbook Mr. Fraser bought the year we lived in England (we met there, started dating within a month or two, and got married a year after returning to the States and nearly two years to the day after we met). To get into the proper spirit of the thing, I made their vegetable stock despite certain oddities of ingredient. (Lettuce? Cooked? In a stock? Really?) And I'm glad I did. It gave the resulting soups a freshness and lightness you just don't get with canned stock.

I first made Cheese Soup with Crispy Bacon, which was every bit as yummy as it sounds, but nowhere near as heavy:



Since I had plenty of stock left over, I made their herbed cream of chicken soup and served it alongside a pesto bread recipe (bruschetta, basically) from my Week 9 cookbook, Starters and Closers, the Mariners' wives charity fundraiser cookbook from the 2001 season--i.e. back when we had a really good team. (Though that 116-win season is a lot less glorious in retrospect, since we weren't able to follow it up with a championship and have been wallowing in futility since 2004. But I digress.) Anyway, I decided to make one "starter"--the appetizer pesto bread--and one "closer"--Mike Cameron's contribution to the dessert section, cinnamon-dipped marshmallows baked inside crescent rolls. I thought they were kinda gross, but my husband and daughter ate them all.