h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today we've had a nice quiet, snuggly autumn sort of day.

I'd made some steel cut oats (with maple syrup) for brekkie, then made a batch of mushroom barley soup for "linner". After the soup cooked, we trekked over to the French Moroccan grill/bakery by my train station (3/4 mile away) for a few freshly baked baguettes. We got four, and ate one on the way home, with our lovely espressos. They were so hot, it hurt to hold them.

My soup recipe:
Chopped a decent sized onion, crushed a few cloves of garlic, and diced a couple of carrots. Sautéed those while cooking a cup of barley in the pressure cooker. Sliced a pound of crimini mushrooms, and added to the pot. Added the barley (strained it first), a couple of bay leaves, a big spring of fresh thyme, a few tablespoons tomato paste, a splash of tamari, about four cups veggie stock, some sea salt and freshly ground pepper and a splash of dry sherry. Cooked it all for about a half an hour.

It was fantastic, especially with the warm, fresh baguettes.

We enjoyed it while watching a few episodes of Farscape borrowed from the friends we're cat-sitting for.

Argh- a "spring" of thyme should read a "sprig" of thyme. Blame it on that glass of I had with my soup and bread...

What about the linner?

I loved Farscape, but then I'm a sci-fi fan.

Me, too. I'd never seen Farscape till we started borrowing from our friends. We're just a few episodes into the second season. We'll never catch up before they get back from their Asian rim tour.

Gosh, was linner yummy, though. I've never tried making barley soup before, and I'm pleased it turned out so well.

Sounds good!

There's nothing like a warm tummy on a chilly day.

Or Sci-fi, either, for that matter.

im gonna make some more soup this week.

carrot, cabbage, onion and possibly potato, with some "scotch broth mix" lentils and barlet and stuff thrown in too. Stick it all in a pot with some water and a stock cube, Stir occcasionally, when the vegetables go soft its ready, YUMMY!

mini

Oh P/C, awhile back I had signed up for & downloaded an open-source TV & video player called Miro( http://www.getmiro.com ). Anyway among their multitude of videos they have 200-&-some from epicurious - http://www.epicurious.com. So I was browsing through those & found a series of videos from Moby outlining his Vegan lifestyle, showing you around his kitchen, ect. Click on video(on the 'epi' homepage, then kitchen tours in the channels box.

And I too will be making soup this week!

I never buy stock cubes any more- absolutely no one has any veggie ones. But, I've been saving parings and cuttings from various veg, as well as mushroom stems and onion peels, and making my own stock, then freezing in ice cube trays. Yay!

Jaz'd, I'll take a peek at that first chance I get, thanks!

I get veggie stock cubes at Aldi

*looks at ingredients on stock cubes packet* "suitable for vegetarians" and these are the really cheap nasty ones, dont see anything to stop them being Vegan actually. . .

mini

Brit Superstore and Kallo Vegetable stock cubes - those are the ones I get, but will admit to not having read the ingredients for a while - might work?

Mine say they may contain traces of egg or milk, because the factory processes those, too. But they seem to be vegan-safe, otherwise.

Mine say:

'No animal content'.

Ingredients: Marine salt, rice flour, palm shortening (non hydrogenated), sugar, yeast extract, dehydrated vegetables (onion, celery,garlic, spinach, bayleaf, parsley), vegetable flavours

Any good? Should I see about sending some?

Where on earth do you lot find yours? They all sound perfectly suitable, since even the ones that say they may contain traces of egg/milk probably probably just share equipment rather than containing casein or anything. The only fully vegetarian one I've seen around is Vegeta, which has too much sodium and also contains MSG, which I can't have because it gives me blinding migraines.

Ivan, you're a doll. Before I take you up on your kind offer I'll see if I can track some down. I found the vegan suet that Sho suggested in another thread available for mail order from NY, which is possibly substantially less postage than from Australia.

Making my own cubes isn't too awful, either, though. I don't add salt to the stock so I can feel free to season whatever I use them in. Plus it puts all the parings to good use before throwing them out.

>Brit Superstore and Kallo Vegetable stock cubes

I'll take a look- thanks Ismarah! There's a Brit outfit I ordered from before a local grocery started stocking HP Fruity and Branston, the two things I was turned on to in the UK that I now am certain I'd die without, and then the place which has the "suet". I'll check all three.

How about powdered broth as an alternative?

I must admit to being surprised that not all vegetable stock was suitable for veegtarians and vegans. I had stupidly assumed that it would be. It was only when in the US last month looking through my Aunty's kitchen cupboard for some vegetable stock (I was making soup!) I thought it funny that a carton of vegetable stock had "vegetarian" on the front as a selling point! I am going to check the ingredients on my oxo veg stock cubes when I get home.

PC - I would be more than happy to send you a care package of suitable stock cubes from the UK if you would like?