Mediterranean Vegetable Soup

As you may or may not know, I absolutely love soup; making and eating it! Soup is just so easy to make and it's great for when you have a few things that need using up in the fridge.

I will be leaving France next week to go home, so I've been trying my best to 'eat out of the cupboards'. I had a few vegetables in the fridge that I'd already used some of in other dishes, that I decided to bung together to make a delicious Med Veg Soup.

I have a lot of onions to use before I go home, so I decided to put 2 onions in my soup. One was large, the other small.I also had around 3/4 of a large red pepper, 3/4 of a medium yellow pepper and half of a courgette.

I chopped up all my veggies roughly. It didn't matter too much how they were cut as I prefer smooth soup.

I began frying my onion in the smallest amount of E.V Olive Oil, just to soften them. I also added a teaspoon of easy garlic to add to the flavour. 

On further inspection of the fridge, I found a pun net of plum tomatoes that needed using, so they were added to the list of ingredients!

Once the onion and garlic were cooked through, I added all of my vegetables to the pan, just so that they started to cook.

What a healthy looking pan! Once all of the ingredients were heated through, I popped them into my new Morphy Richards Soup Maker, a lovely gift from Lewis's Nan! (Thank you!)

I added two teaspoons of tomato puree....

...and 500ml of vegetable stock.

Just as I was about to turn it on, I decided to add a tin of chopped tomatoes for good measure. Then the soup maker got to work whilst I washed the dishes!

After 20 or so minutes, my soup was cooked and blended to perfection! And it was delicious.

The soup is really healthy and so easy to make. I didn't follow any recipe, I just used left over veg that needed to be eaten. This soup made 5 hearty portions, and I've only eaten it as soup, with crusty bread, but I think you could also use it as a tasty sauce to go with pasta, rice or even potatoes.

I hope you enjoy making it as much as I enjoyed eating it!

Bon appétit!

Moules

I love to cook, so one way to pass my time in France is to try new recipes. I remembered having moules (mussels) with Jacqueline at the start of my stay, so I decided to try to recreate the dish myself. I asked her for a list of the ingredients, and then got to work.

Ingredients

1kg moules

100 ml dry white wine

1 onion

A handful of parsley

Garlic (optional)

I started by throughly cleaning the moules. They must be closed shells. If they are open, and don't close with a little tap, you must get rid of these ones. 

I then started frying the onion in some butter, until it became soft and transparent.

I added the garlic and a bunch of parsley, and the wine.

Once it began to heat up, I put the moules into the pan, and put the lid on.

They steam cook in their own juices, with the added flavour of the wine. 

You know they are ready when the shells are all open.

I served them in little bowls as seen in the first picture, with a big chunk of fresh French baguette.

A very simple recipe to follow, for a very authentic and tasty French dish. The 1kg of moules recommended by the teacher was far too much for me to eat alone, so I'd say that this was a recipe for 2. Also, remember to throw away any shells that don't open once cooked.

Et voilà

Bon appétit!