Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Monday 5 November 2012

Frugal soup


One of the things I did manage to make this week was a big batch of veg and lentil soup.

Peppers from the polytunnel featured in this soup, as I used up the mis shapen or slightly damaged ones from the big basket I harvested..




I used a couple of onions and some tomatos - the last from the polytunnel -  a few very limp bits of celery , a courgette which I had left on the plant and it got nibbled,  I also used up some slightly stringy beans, which I stringed using my magic bean stringer thinamajig, cut up very finely and simmered first until tender - so I could check there were no stringy bits in them BEFORE I added them to the soup - I HATE bean strings!

They were not stringy :-)    so in they went to the pan, cooking water and all.




I then added a couple of handfuls of red lentils, and a tub of stock made from the last chicken we had roasted for dinner. All this was boiled up and then left to simmer and turn to delishousness



We ate 3 huge bowlfuls between the three of us, with home made bread, we had 3 more portions for lunch the next day AND I froze 12 portions.



I calculated that the ingredients cost me less than two pounds, maximum - and that is at organic veg prices! but I did allow for them being in the "reduced" section of a shop - rather than at full price - because that is where they would have been.

18 BIG portions of organic lentil and vegetable soup for less than two pounds

I love home made soup :-) I could happily eat it every day I think

6 comments:

  1. The soup looks & sounds delicious. I made lentil, sausage & kale soup a few weeks ago. But, we ate it all over a 3 day period.

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  2. Mm Your soup sounds wonderful! Can I come over next time you make some?

    I have some smoked and unsmoked sausage and I have 4 sorts of Kale in the garden - so maybe a recipe would be nice?

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  3. SNAP .....It would seem we are all on a mission to turn all our veggies into soup at the moment.

    Yours sounds (and looks) wonderful.

    You really can't beat a big bowl of soup on a cold November day can you.

    Sue xx

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  4. Good stuff! I made a soup recently which was similar awesome-in-a-cup, rather thinking I need to do that again - but I really need more freezer containers to store the leftovers and stock. Frugal-soup is win!

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  5. Hiya Sue, Oya's Daughter :-)

    We had more soup yesterday - a different veg soup made by Compostman - no tomatoes so a paler but no less tasty version.

    A bowl of soup with some good bread and butter is my favourite lunch :-)

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  6. That sounds absolutely delicious, and you can't beat the price!

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Hello! Thank you for reading my blog and for commenting. I try to reply as quickly as I can and I really appreciate your interest in my life and doings here in The Compost Bin.

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