Making Soup Out Of Nothing At All

Its been 15 days now. I feel lighter, calmer and my yoga has definitely improved. Although that probably has to do more with eating lightly compared to attempting yoga after char siu fahn previously. I haven't done much cooking apart from the occasional grilled vegetable & roasted garlic pasta and odd green salad. I have been making a lot of soup instead. And we have the perfect weather for drinking hot soup right now.

Last week, I decided I wanted to make some stock. I took for granted that there would be vegetables in the fridge. There is always something to eat/cook in the fridge in my house. This time I ran out of luck. All I had to work with was garlic, onions and chinese lettuce. What? Yes, I attempted to make stock out of those ingredients. Not surprisingly, it was terrible! Fortunately, the rain finally stopped and I was able to run out to get some carrots and celery. And so I've been living off that batch of stock for the last week. I made a zucchini and cheese soup by boiling the zucchini with some stock. Blended the soup to make it smoother and put it back on the stove. Then I added some grated odd bits of cheese I found in the fridge which was aged cheddar and parmesan. Dash of cream and voila! A rich and comforting soup, to qoute Hunky - "to warm your cockles".

The following day, I stole some young papaya from Mum and simmered it in stock. I really liked the clean-tasting sweetness of the papaya but I added some vinegar to balance the sweetness. The resulting soup had depth and a lovely mellowness to it. Couple of days later I doused some fresh corn with olive oil, seasoned it, wrapped it in foil and chucked it in the oven along side my cupcakes which were baking away, and very yummy I might add. I didn't have to do much to it after that as it had caramelised. It was so tasty, I had to stop myself from eating it on its own. I made a soup and added a couple cloves of roasted garlic for some added kick. It was really nice. Not quite as sweet as Palate Palettes but almost as good I reckon. The last soup I made was a carrot soup. I took some carrots from the stock pot and blitzed it into a puree. It was quite bland which I didn't mind. For Hunky's version, I spiced it up with mustard, cumin, quite a bit of salt and a some cream. Although he thought I went a bit overboard with the mustard, he really enjoyed it and finished it anyway.

I'm all out of stock, I'm so lost without you. I know Mum was right about boiling for so long. I'm all out of stock, what am I without you. I've got to go make more stock now and I'll make it strong.