Soup du Jour

Well, when I posted the soup pic yesterday, I was so hungry that I went in search of something to make a big pan of soup with. Have I mentioned that I totally love soup? :-) My fridge is looking very empty at the moment. It's not pay day until Friday and I'm trying to cut back on how much I spend. I'm also trying to empty the fridge so that now my new freezer has finally arrived (YAY!!!), I can de-frost my little fridge/freezer and give it a good clean. The bottom drawer is frozen shut and if I pull it, I'm sure it will break. I retrieved some chicken thighs that I had bought when they were on special offer and I added them to a pan of carrots, sweet potatoes, a very sorry looking half a cabbage, and the last bits of frozen sweetcorn from a bag in the freezer. I also added a couple of chicken stock cubes and a handful of my favourite garlic and herb stuffing mix, it gives a nice creaminess to the soup. 

I'm working a long shift tomorrow and luckily, there is plenty of soup for me to take to work in my food flask for my lunch and after my totally mad impulse purchase of a gazillion bread rolls yesterday, I have more than enough delicious bread for dipping in my soup.

Cute new freezer just waiting to be filled with yummy food :-)

Oh and thank you to everyone who left comments and have kindly shed some light on my dwindling follower numbers. I have lost 5 in total so far and I'm quite upset. 

Please don't delete anymore Mr Blogger Controller :-(

Deja Vu

Well, I have clearly offended some people because I have lost 3 readers in 1 week! I don't know what it is that I said but whatever it was I'm sad to I have lost some of you. Anyway, It's now Wednesday and I have a distinct feeling of deja vu because once again, I'm sat at home waiting for my freezer to materialise. I really hope it arrives today because I got some more bargain bread rolls last night and I have nowhere to put them!!

My little furry friend seems to be a regular on my garden gatepost now, he's been back every day to have a nibble at the bird seed that I have been putting out. I managed to get a better picture of him or her once my camera batteries had charged. 

Taken with my awesome zoom lens, this is how far he was away. 

Please excuse the hideous state of my garden and patio. The weather has been totally foul and I am a self confessed fair-weather gardener. I can't wait for spring to arrive so I can get out there and start sorting it out. Still, the birds and squirrels don't seem to mind. 

One good thing about all this awful weather is that I get to legitimately eat as much soup and I want. Winter is soup time in my house. I just can't get enough of it. Whatever I have in the fridge goes into the soup of the day and yesterday, that happened to be cauliflower and broccoli cheese! Oh my goodness, it was totally delicious. I made a big dish full of cauli and broccoli cheese a couple of days ago and there was loads left. My tiny freezer is still stuffed to the brim so I couldn't freeze the leftovers so I popped it into my soup pan, added some milk and a chicken stock cube and some extra broccoli that I had left in the fridge that was looking decidedly limp and I simmered it very gently for about 20 minutes. I then whizzed it with my stick blender. It was totally delicious and was lovely and cheesy. Quite possibly my favourite soup of this winter. I am going to have to make it again very soon. 

The only problem with whizzing things with the stick blender is that all the soups end up looking the same :-)