Here at Slow Food on Campus Exeter, we've really been feeling the cold weather lately. It may be March and the evenings may be getting longer but things certainly aren't warming up quite yet.
And in our opinion, there's no better way to warm the soul than a good bowl of fresh, homemade soup. It'll heat you up, inside and out, all the better better to keep you going this winter in our chilly student houses!
So that's exactly what we got up to at our last cookery class...
Step 1: The Ingredients.
We buy ours from
The Real Food Store in Exeter (click for link). This means all our ingredients are fresh and local - and covered in mud! The first task was to roll our sleeves up and get stuck in at the sinks.
Step 2: The Demonstration
Charli from Slow Food on Campus took us through a demonstration of her Mum's parsnip and ginger soup. The theme of the evening was chop the ends off and slice the vegetables up - nice and simple!
Step 3: Get stuck in!
After a short demonstration, everybody was ready to get started. It was only 6:30pm but stomachs were already beginning to rumble...
The cookery classes are quite relaxed and informal; everybody hangs out and has a bit of a chat whilst they work. It's nice to come with friends or it's a really good way to meet new (food-obsessed) people on campus.
Our second soup of the evening was a cauliflower and apple recipe brought along by the society's president, Bethan.
After a similar, quick demonstration, we were ready to go again and before long it was time to put the knives away and get cooking!
The ingredients went in the pot and the heat was turned up. There was nothing left to do but wait.
Now, what's a good soup without anything to dip into it?
The second part of the class revolved around a brilliant way to turn old, stale bread into a delicious treat.
First, we crushed our garlic into some butter...
And then we mashed it up!
And where's the best place to put garlic butter?
Right
in the middle
of a delicious baguette.
And conveniently, everything was ready at just about the same time (thanks to the handy chef on site who blitzed our soups for us once the veg had cooked - thank you!)
We were really, really, really hungry by this point.
Luckily, the cooking classes also come with a taster session tacked on the end.
Which essentially means "one giant rugby scrum free-for-all to see who can eat the most".
I'm ashamed to admit that I positioned myself right at the end of the table so that I could make a quick getaway back to the kitchen for more soup!
But it really was so delicious - both soups were real winners with everybody there and when we voted at the end, the parsnip soup only won by a couple of extra votes!
Despite our efforts, there were plenty of leftovers. I learnt my most important lesson that evening; always take a tupperware to the cookery classes.
Nevertheless, after much mess, I managed to pour a portion into my water bottle.
A great success!
If you want to recreate the class' winner at home, here's the recipe:
Parsnip and Ginger Soup
Feeds 6-8
- 2 carrots
- 2 sticks of celery
- 2 medium onions
- 800g parsnip
- A thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger (we find it's best to add a little more than this!)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- Olive oil
- Veggie or chicken stock (we used veggie)
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 sprigs of fresh coriander
- Peel (where necessary) and roughly chop the carrots, onions, parsnip, ginger, celery and garlic
- Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over a medium heat in a large pan
- Put the chopped veg in the pan and stir with a wooden spoon for 10 minutes - the carrots should have softened a little and the onion should be turning golden
- Make the stock up with 1.8 litres of boiling water and pour it in
- Bring to the boil
- Stir and let it simmer for 10 minutes with the pot lid askew
- Season with salt and pepper to taste
- Garnish with fresh coriander
Ta da! A wonderfully simple and insanely delicious recipe for these chilly winter evenings! Enjoy!
P.s don't forget to buy local where you can!
