by Di Johnson

Created on: May 20, 2008

Luscious steaming soup on a chilly day, warming and revitalising. Comfort food at its best. In the summer months a cool cucumber or chilled borscht soup gives you the fresh flavours of summer. Whatever the season, whatever the occasion, soup is hard to beat.

In order to make a good soup you need to have the ingredients in there that you really enjoy. Gather together freshly harvested, good quality, seasonal, local ingredients for maximum flavour. Look at your local market or green grocers, decide what looks fresh and newly harvested. Choose your ingredients as you walk around. If you set your heart on celery and you discover a few insipid looking, wilted specimens you're more likely to give up on having soup at all!

Remember vegetables which we generally eat under cooked or al dente such as sprouts, or cabbage can release sulphurous compounds when cooked thoroughly and therefore are unlikely to be good soup candidates. Tasty options are the root vegetables such as carrots, beetroot and parsnips also broccoli, potato,onion and tomato.

Use as many ingredients as you wish for a wholesome vegetable soup or narrow down to one or two favourites. Check out the fresh herbs to add too - you may want it as a major ingredient as in carrot and coriander or tomato and basil.

Whilst out shopping consider the accompaniments. Warm cooked noodles placed at the bottom of each bowl before you pour in soup is a delicious discovery, especially for the children. Also use toppings, crunchy croutons, fromage frais, cream or sprinkled cheese or chopped herbs on top. Serve with lovely warm wholemeal or granary bread. Mouthwatering.

Fresh Vegetable Soup, Make it Your Own; serves 4

Use a golf ball amount of onion per person. Soften onions gently in a teaspoonful of butter in a saucepan large enough to hold the total amount of soup to be made. This will be a greater volume than 2 litres.

Once soft add 2 or 3 cloves of crushed garlic and mix together allowing the garlic to cook for 2 or 3 minutes.

Next you need to prepare and add your vegetables. Use approximately the equivalent of two medium sized vegetables per person; this is not a precise science! Cutting the vegetables to the right size will depend on what you are attempting to achieve. If you want a hearty vegetable stew type of effect then you need to ensure the vegetable pieces are bite and spoon sized. You don't want to have to cut up your soup, it can get very messy! If you are aiming for a smooth blended finish then the size is relatively

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