Albany cafe blog: Soup, both of the dancing and non-dancing variety

Today’s blog is all about soup the perfect, simple meal guaranteed to warm you up during these cold (sometimes even snowy) months…

Disco Soup

Sunday 10th December, 11.30am – 3.30pm. FREE 

What is Disco Soup? It’s when lots of people gather together and chop up surplus food and make it into a giant soup, generally while listening to music, and eat the product of their combined hard work.

Why do people do this (apart from a way of getting free soup)?  Here at the Albany we are committed to reducing food waste and, showing that with a bit of imagination you can turn leftovers into great meals rather than chucking them. We are also going to be raising money to support the Albany Gardening Club and Good Food Lewisham.

So pop in and join the fun, everyone is welcome and there should be enough soup for everyone!

Some winter warmers…

We’ve been busy making lots of soups over the past two weeks, here are some recipes for two of our favourites Pumpkin and Blue Cheese Soup and the classic Leek and Potato Soup.

Ingredients:

*Both soups have the same base ingredients*

Sliced onion x 3
Sliced carrot x 5
Sliced celery x 1 bunch
Garlic
Salt & Pepper
Parsley

Then you need a pumpkin and some blue cheese OR some potato and leek. We cook to feed loads of people so scale down our amounts depending on your needs.

Method: Pumpkin and Blue Cheese Soup

1. Prep all the base vegetables
2. Roast the pumpkin until soft, then scoop out the insides
3. Fry off the base vegetables in olive oil and cook until soft
4. Blitz these soft vegetables into a liquid
5. Fill a pot full of water and add the pumpkin, season with salt and pepper and then cook until it reaches the required thickness.
6. Mix with the liquid vegetables, reduce it, then stir through some blue cheese.

 

Method: Leek and Potato Soup

1. Prep all the base vegetables
2. Fry off the base vegetables in olive oil and cook until soft
3. Blitz these soft vegetables into a liquid
4.  Fill a pot full of water and add the leek and potato, season with salt and pepper and then cook until soft
5. Mix with the liquid vegetables, reduce it, then stir through some blue cheese.
6. Enjoy with a nice chunk of bread and butter!

 

We hope we have managed to show you quite how simple making your own soup is, and how it is a meal that easily lends itself to using up all those pesky leftovers in the fridge!