 Soup is the perfect platform for experimentation, and the sort of canvas that makes for not only a nutritious, but a cheap meal. Long before dietary fads like Atkins and the ab-cruncher, self-loathing housewives of the western world drank their weight in soup. Cabbage soup, to be precise. For most of the Seventies, my mother hurled the putrid stuff down her throat. She did, for the most part, squeeze into her size 8 polyester pantsuit. But the kitchen smelled like a Muscle Mary’s gym socks. And the wretched gruel tasted like the floor of a rarely tended sauna. The Cabbage Soup Diet influenced my opinion of soup for many years. If it were not for the intervention of a particularly fine clam chowder, I may never have embraced one of the earth’s most sensible foods. Nothing fortifies the body so quickly as a good soup. In winter, it works like a rapid-fire vitamin delivery system. Making soup from scratch can seem an arduous task, but there is no more reliable way to boost your immune system than DIY nutrition. Pour love into the pot and it will fuse with fresh ingredients to fight everything from idle sniffles to crippling colds and flu. Ideally, you’d make your own stock. This might seem labour intensive, but it’s simply a matter of throwing cooked bones and the holy health trilogy of carrot, celery and onion into a pot on a slow boil. Do like the ladies of the CWA and freeze it in bulk. By these means, you’ll make a preservative-free friend for your liver. Include garlic, herbs and legumes you've soaked with forethought and patience. A great cheat is the prepared garlic and herbs available in tubes. These can usually be found in the fresh produce section of supermarkets. Soup is the perfect platform for experimentation, and the sort of canvas that makes for not only a nutritious, but a cheap meal. Groceries don't come much cheaper than dried green split peas, and pea and ham soup is about as hearty as a soup can get. The cornerstone of great pea and ham soup is a corker bone. Soup bones are sometimes available from the supermarket, but a better quality can be found at some butchers and delis, especially those that have a good selection of smallgoods like hams, salamis, and sausages. The smokier, the better. Split green peas need only a couple of hours soaking before putting them on to simmer. Pop the bone in when you put the peas on. Use enough water to cover the peas and bone by about three centimetres. Let it cook until the peas have absorbed the water, about an hour. Remove the bone and let it cool before pulling the meat away and returning it to the soup. This is a soup that I find needs little seasoning. A little bit of cumin, cracked pepper and salt to taste will do the trick. Adding a small handful of frozen peas to the soup and garnishing with fresh parsley adds texture and lifts the flavour. A good ham bone makes a cracker minestrone. For the legumes component, use a combination of chick peas, cannellini beans and red kidney beans. You could buy these dried, but tinned will do just fine; as will tinned tomatoes. With any soup, it is a good move to make twice as much as you need and freeze a batch. That way, when you're feeling less than tippety-top, there is a meal on hand that will feed and heal.
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