23.01.08: Sweet Potato with Red Peppers & Chilli

Returning to the Soup Kitchen following their successful debut last Friday, Daisy and Rhiannon, assisted by Holly, made (according to the new log bok) 'a splendid concoction of the following: sweet potato, red peppers, carrots, chilli, coriander... and a little bit of love'. Sounds delish, no? Well, apparently, it was. I saw, apparently, because I never got to try it. Instead, I spent most of the day trying to get to Tooting: first on a Northern Line tube train that couldn't get past a broken signal; then on a 155 bus for which I had to wait nearly an hour while several buses packed to the gunnels with disgruntled tube passengers sailed by. Cheers, TFL.

Anyway, I digress. Digress while standing at a bus stop near the Oval re-reading a dogeared copy of Metro, that is. When I got back, the soup was all gone and, heinously, our talismanic frog pot that we used to collect donations was in smithereens! According to Daisy - in loco parentis - it leapt off the counter and croaked on the floor. I don't know how she can joke about it. I was very fond of that hungry frog and it served us well over sixty full days of serving soup. But all must pass. So, farewell then, amphibious Friend of Soup. May you attain in this last leap the lilly pad of Nirvana.

7.12.07: Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash

I visited Lidl in the Old Kent Road, to stock up on paprika-flavoured crisps and confectionary that incorporates hazelnuts, and I noticed that they also sell quite a wide selection of veg. So, I bought a couple of kilos each of sweet potatoes (@ £1.45/kg) and butternut squash (99p/kg), which translated as three big potatoes and four small squashes.

I also bought carrots. onions, celery and garlic at Lidl and, on the way back to base, picked up a handful of plump green chillies and a packet of creamed coconut from Oli's and a stick of very fresh ginger (30p) from the Sino-Viet grocery store in Walworth Road. I searched for sage, but had to settle for a bunch of thyme (50p) from a stall on East Street.

Back at the Pullens Centre, I peeled probably a dozen cloves of garlic and roughly chopped two of the largish, mild onions, which I spread onto a roasting tray with a little oil and cooked in a hot oven until they turned brown and started to caramelise. I thought to do it that way rather than cook the chopped veg in the bottom of the soup pot, but I'm not sure it made any discernible difference to the eventual flavour, so I probably won't bother again.

I minced the ginger and half a dozen chillies, peeled and chopped the carrots and washed and sliced half a head of celery. Then, with my sturdiest peeler, I peeled and diced the squashes and sweet potatoes into roughly 3/4 inch cubes.

Over a moderate flame, I first tipped the partially roasted onion and garlic mixture off its tray into the soup pot, adding the chillies and ginger and cooking for a few minutes before adding the carrots and celery. While continuing to peel/chop of the other veg, I cooked this base with the lid on the pot for a good fifteen minutes before adding the diced orange roots and squashes, covering with four litres of Marigold bouillon and whacking the heat up to bring the pot to a boil.

I simmered the soup for half an hour until the sweet potatoes were soft, added a 200g block of coconut cream dissolved in a litre of boiling water, and left the pot to stand for ten minutes before going to it. I tried to use Gaynor, but Gaynor was no-go. So, I had to decant half the soup into a smaller pot and use a hand mixer to blend it. Which worked fine, with one commentator in the log bok remarking that the soup's texture was 'smooth as silk'.

Ken - in his first visit to the Soup Kitchen - wrote that 'the sweet taste of these veg. together is exactly what my acupuncturist told me to eat'. To which I say, 'hurry back, Ken!'

Later, I got Jan to see to Gaynor and she opined that - apart from the blown fuse caused by a loose lead - the basic problem was that she had been mis-named. Apparently, one cannot call a stick mixer 'Gaynor', no matter how glorious the soups she swirls. It's like there's a law against it. Especially when the blender's name is quite obviously Brenda. Like the Queen in Private Eye. So, from now on, it's Brenda the blender, innit.

20.11.07: Sweet Potato & Chilli

Lou overslept and then she got a shock, down East Street, at the price of sweet potatoes. The ones she got were Jamaican, apparently, and therefore more silky smooth in their texture than other sweet potatoes, such as the kilo bag from Somerfield that I chucked into the pot. Following this recipe to the power of six, Lou paid £13 for 3.5kg of the Sexiest Sweet Potatoes from Jamaica (I added another kilo) and six chillis. Six of those mean little red Jamaican chillies. Maybe they weren't yer actual Scotch Bonnets, but those chillis were hot, hot, hot.

So this was a hot soup. Lou sprinkled paprika across its surface, but those chillies were overwhelming. Happily, there was yoghurt in the 'fridge for those who don't like it so hot. Rather than Gruyere, Lou garnished her soup with coarsely grated Red Leicester, which worked for me. It was a damn fine soup on a cold and drizzly day and I had seconds. Lou only counted out sixteen, though it's not clear if that's bowls or people.

We seem to be stuck on 16 this week, but hopefully the numbers will pick up now that I've put one of the new fliers through every letterbox on the Pullens. The design of these fliers - the back side of which is below - was donated by Stuart Pickering and the printing was done for nothing by a geezer who works nights and is happy to remain anonymous. Thanks to both;-)

The Tenants' & Residents' Association had a meeting tonight, which voted in favour of a funding application for a Small Grant from the tenants' fund for equipment, so I'm hoping that we'll soon be able to spend around a grand on: a water purification system; a stainless steel soup pot to replace the aluminium one we're currently using; a 10 litre soup kettle to keep the soup warm and free up the stove top; a toaster to make toast; and a rice cooker.

Day Eight: Butternut Squashed

Today's soup was determined by a butternut squash donated by Mandy, who works on an organic veg. stall in Marylebone on Sundays. She's given me this perfectly good squash that's a bit bashed at one end and a few sweet potatoes to play with. She reckoned they'd make a nice soup, perhaps finished with creamed coconut? I had some garlic and a small sack of shallots, so I thought I'd roast them to give the soup another dimension.

I went down to Oli's on Walworth Road to get the creamed coconut and coriander, plus one of their great big onions (as seen, below right) and their corek bread was fresh out of the oven soon after 10am, which is wonderful. I can't find a decent link to describe this plaited bread that's covered in sesame seeds and has been a great hit at the Soup Kitchen and nor can I provide a photo because it always get scoffed. Anyway, I assembled the following ingredients:

coriander, coconut,sweet potatoes, shallots, squash, carrot, celery, onion

My other expenditure today was on a roasting tray, which I used to roast off the peeled cloves of garlic and peeled and chopped shallots at high-ish heat, using a little olive oil and moving the chopped vegetables around in the tray so that they browned more evenly and began to caramelise. Meanwhile, I made a rough mirepoix of diced onion, carrot and celery and sweated it in the smaller, six litre soup pot over a low flame with the lid on, stirring every few minutes.

I peeled the squash, split it and scooped out the seeds, cubed the flesh and added it to the mirepoix stewing in the pot, then did the same with the three (or was it four?) sweet potatoes I had, mixing the contents of the pot well. Then I added four litres of Marigold bouillon, brought the pot to the boil and let it simmer with the lid on for a quarter of an hour. Then I turned the gas off and left it to cool for ten minutes before liquidizising. I melted the coconut cream in hot water and added that along with another two litres of bouillon while continuing to run the stick mixer and, I must say, the consistency of my soup today was silky!

Natty came in early doors, fresh back from Korea, where he's been entertaining the locals with Ska Cubano. Nat tells me he and Megumi - 'probably the world's top ska saxophonist' - ran a soup kitchen at the Pullens Centre themselves, back in the day! Apparently, they served miso soup with lots of vegetables in, which sounds great, but it was hard work and they didn't make any money so they gave up after three weeks. I challenged Nat to collaborate with Megumi to do and udon soup kitchen one day soon and I think he agreed but don't hold your breath because you know what musicians are like.

Nat got the first bowl of soup, officially, but Jan and Angela are also developing the knack of turning up around 12:30 when the soup is usually ready, and Oskar happened along soon after, so today's soup was critically appraised by four sets of taste buds and none found any fault with it. In fact, three of the four had a second portion. Somebody wrote in the log bok today: '10/10, the best soup yet!' Someone else wrote, 'all problems can be resolved at the soup kitchen. What a great thing'.

Soup Maker: Russell
Soup: Butternut Squash & Sweet Potato
Other ingredients: Garlic, shallots, coriander
No. of bowls served: 18
Expenditure: £9.48
Donations: £19.62
Running balance: +£76.06