Soup Dragon Ockenden

Of late, I have become somewhat similar to the famous 'Clangers' of my childhood with my eating habits. These strange little creatures were extremely fond of a green soup provided to them by the Soup Dragon as you can see here:

Yes, soup is the order of the day and here are the recipes for my latest and rather less extra-terrestrial concoctions. In both cases, they came about as a result of having run out of other things to eat, which is a great stimulus for invention.

Orange and Red Things Soup

This is actually a very classic combination of flavours, and you can find various similar recipes for it online, from which I took inspiration,  by the likes of Jamie Oliver and Jane Hornby.

Firstly take a small handful of cumin seeds and dry-fry them with a little dried chilli. Reserve half of these to add as garnish later. Then add a little oil and about 4 grated carrots, half a tin of lentils, enough vegetable stock to allow the lentils to expand a little, a knob of butter and some seasoning (and bit of sugar if you're in a naughty mood and want to soften the chilli burn). Simmer for as long as you can be bothered to and then whizz it all up with the blender.  Serve and sprinkle the cumin you set aside earlier on the top with preferably a bit of torn up coriander but parsley also freshened it up nicely for me.

Green Stuff Soup

Start with a base of two finely chopped shallots and two finely chopped garlic cloves with oil in your pan. Once they have softened slightly add a handful of freshly chopped sage. When it starts to get dry and noisy, stand back and add a slop of Marsala wine. Follow that with a good lot of frozen peas and dregs of leftover pesto. Then add a dash of milk to make it creamy, some vegetable stock, a squeeze of lemon and a generous pinch of salt. Simmer for a while and blitz. Ideally I would have topped this with some Parmigiano Reggiano but I had run out.