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Soup monster
Mar. 28th, 2014 12:54 pmI posted a few months ago about the concealed Brie that Pellinor's Mum securely hid for us into a soup-making gift set that she sent to us. Last night, I decided to make the soup. The instructions told me to tip the entire 500g sachet into a pan, add 2 pints of boiling water and a stock cube, and simmer until done, adding additional water if needed.
Well, to cut a long story short, the end result, even with 2 pints of additional water, was not soup. I reckon you could slice it, bake it in a kiln, and make houses out of it, that not even the most determined wolf could huff-and-puff down.
It also looked, to my taste, supremely unappetising. The "soup mix" consisted of nothing but lentils, barley and peas, with nothing at all to add thickness or flavour. So basically I ended up with an absolutely enormous solid mass of boiled pulses and grains, and that's it. Sadly, it tasted overwhelmingly of overcooked peas, a taste I find very unpleasant. Even with extra water, I knew I wouldn't want to eat it as soup, so I didn't persist.
I hate wasting food, so we debated for while on possible uses. Add a scoop to each stew made? However, last weekend was a Cooking Weekend, and the freezer is therefore full of 12 dinners' worth of various stews, with no new ones to be made for several weeks. I was very tempted to make a Soup Monster out of it - like a snowman, but more fierce, with raisin eyes and orange peel teeth, but the barley didn't stick together quite well enough to allow ears and claws to be formed. Therefore I have tipped it in a big heap in the lawn, to let the local blackbirds, gulls, cats and foxes feast on it. Or not. I will monitor their reactions to this feast with interest.
Well, to cut a long story short, the end result, even with 2 pints of additional water, was not soup. I reckon you could slice it, bake it in a kiln, and make houses out of it, that not even the most determined wolf could huff-and-puff down.
It also looked, to my taste, supremely unappetising. The "soup mix" consisted of nothing but lentils, barley and peas, with nothing at all to add thickness or flavour. So basically I ended up with an absolutely enormous solid mass of boiled pulses and grains, and that's it. Sadly, it tasted overwhelmingly of overcooked peas, a taste I find very unpleasant. Even with extra water, I knew I wouldn't want to eat it as soup, so I didn't persist.
I hate wasting food, so we debated for while on possible uses. Add a scoop to each stew made? However, last weekend was a Cooking Weekend, and the freezer is therefore full of 12 dinners' worth of various stews, with no new ones to be made for several weeks. I was very tempted to make a Soup Monster out of it - like a snowman, but more fierce, with raisin eyes and orange peel teeth, but the barley didn't stick together quite well enough to allow ears and claws to be formed. Therefore I have tipped it in a big heap in the lawn, to let the local blackbirds, gulls, cats and foxes feast on it. Or not. I will monitor their reactions to this feast with interest.
