by Alison Fernandes

Created on: July 15, 2009   Last Updated: August 10, 2009

There is absolutely nothing as wonderful as a bowl of piping hot vegetable soup on a cold or rainy day, served from a pan kept warm on the back of the stove. Serve the soup with cheese and herb ciabbata bread fresh from the oven and you will have a good, wholesome and filling meal that you and your kids will be certain to enjoy - they may even, like mine, ask you to make it!

There is probably not a mum out there anywhere who has not torn her hair out at least once, and probably zillions of times, at the prospect of persuading her "little angels" to eat their vegetables so that they grow up nice and strong, so anything they are prepared to eat has got to be an added bonus.

After endless experiments and efforts trying to find new, exotic and perhaps (hopefully) acceptable offerings to give the children, only to throw the entire dish away or scrape the mutilated remains into the kitchen bin, the only option left to try is soup. Fresh, homemade, good for you soup.

The same soup, needless to say, that at 1-2 years old they spat out in disgust, left to go cold and them refused to eat because it was cold; or played with until you gave up in despair and finally took the bowl away from the table.

However, now these learning curves extraordinaire have grown a little and with a few years gap since the last time they were tortured with pureed vegetables, they now decide that perhaps after all, maybe, just maybe, they might try soup!

That's great. Now you can go mad in the kitchen, throwing every vegetable you have in the bottom of the refrigerator and in the vegetable rack into a saucepan before the kids change their minds. It seems though that some vegetables are a complete disaster to add to soup, tomatoes being one (unless of course your particular little angel happens to like them and will eat tomato soup until the cows come home). Some vegetables are great, but if you add too many then the soup will taste too much of them, having a definite tang, and you will end up throwing away a whole pan of the stuff.

A good combination for a mixed vegetable soup seems to be:

Serves 4 good sized portions

1 large carrot

1 medium onion

1 parsnip

2-3 florets of broccoli

A handful of garden peas

1-2 potatoes (depending on size)

A handful of sliced cabbage (of whatever variety)

Chicken stock cube

Sea salt and pepper

Bay leaf

Olive oil

Peel and slice the vegetables as appropriate, put into a largish pan and cover with water. Add a splash of olive oil, sea salt and pepper, a chicken stock cube and a bay leaf. Bring to the boil and then reduce heat and simmer gently until the vegetables are cooked thoroughly.

Then spend at least five minutes looking for the bay leaf (you really don't want to leave that in the soup because no one wants to eat it). Once you have found and removed the offending bay leaf, then blend the soup until it is smooth. Add more salt and olive oil to taste, plus a tiny sprinkle of sugar (which, like salt, develops flavour in food) if required.

Any soup that you don't use can be stored either in the refrigerator or in the freezer for a later date.

Learn more about this author, Alison Fernandes.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.