Comfort food.

This is the sort of weather when we really need good warming meals,  traditional food such as shepherds pie,  steak and kidney,  dumplings,  roasts,  mashed potatoes,  I could go on and on there are so many favourites! 

But they are not lunchtime meals,  but evening food,  so at lunchtime we really look forward to a good hearty bowl of soup with a slice or two of toast or maybe a roll.  John made the last batch of soup - we had  the end of a white cabbage,  the cauliflower was looking sad,  just a few carrots left too -  so that was the basis of the soup plus sauteed onions and garlic.   But also in the freezer were pots of spicy lentils,  almost a mulligatawny,  plus some spicy chickpeas.  He'd made a big batch of both of them as they are a good starter for an Indian meal,  or a basis for a curry,  in this case he added a pot of each to his vegetable soup mix.

We have a large 6 litre slow cooker and by the time he finished adding everything it was nearly full.  And after a few hours of very slow simmering it tasted wonderful.  But very thick.  Now I like my winter soups to be thick and filling,  he prefers them thinner but that's easy to do when reheating them.  But is it a soup or is it a stew when it's like that?

We have comprised and call it a stewp - it could also be a stoup I suppose - but stewp it is.   The Spanish call these meals in a bowl  comida de cuchara  in other words a meal eaten with a spoon.  The dictionary term for a soup of vegetables with pulses is potaje - I suppose the English version of that is pottage,  which my online dictionary describes as "from the French potage"  to mean "that which is put in a pot" 

There are a number of blogs that I  read written by people based around this area of Spain,  one is by an American born journalist and food writer called Janet Mendel.  She has written numerous books about food  and regularly posts recipes on her blog.  This week she too has been writing about spoon food....find more about her here. 

By the way,  no more snow nor wind but only 2.8 degrees this morning,  frozen puddles, frost.....but at least the sky is blue and the sun is back out.  And in the sun today it's quite pleasant if you're busy but not sitting doing nothing weather - yet. 

Roll on summer!