Cook - roasted cauliflower soup

Cooking! Haven't done anything apart from day-to-day sustenance for a while and excitement has been sadly lacking.  Today I decided to do something with a cauliflower which has been sitting in my fridge for some time.

I roasted it with a splash of garlic oil for about half an hour. Then I softened an onion in butter on the hob, chopped up a parsnip and a couple of small potatoes and stirred those in.  After letting it all sweat gently for 10 minutes or so I added the cauliflower and enough stock to cover (I used chicken, vegetable would be fine).  Simmered for about 20 minutes until everything was soft, then blended and added seasoning and milk to get the right consistency and flavour.  Simple and tasty - lunch is sorted for the next few days.

Cook - mmm soup

I love soup, especially homemade, so thick you can stand your spoon up in it soup.  The soup I made at a ridiculously early hour this morning wasn't quite that thick but it was a good way to use up lots of slightly limp looking bits from the fridge to create 5 lunch-portions of soup. It was based loosely (as always) on another recipe  (Covent Garden Russian Vegetable Soup) but with variations due to what was available in my fridge.

First I sauteed some chopped onion and leek in a mixture of oil and butter till quite soft, then added some diced potato and let that soften a bit. Next went in about half a finely sliced savoy cabbage, outer leaves and core removed. While that was softening slightly I added 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg and 1/2 tsp ground cumin and lots of black pepper.  Finally I covered the whole lot with boiling water and added a couple of teaspoons of vegetable bouillon powder and left to simmer for about 15 minutes (while I had a shower). Once everything was all cooked. I blended it up and portioned it out.  4 portions to go in the freezer for other days - I had the 5th portion today for lunch - yummy!