Spinach, lettuce and pea soup, and a catch up

This week I have made two pea soups.  Fresh pea soup.  For some time I had been planning to make something like Ricki's Spinach, pea and lettuce soup.  I had a manky old lettuce that needed using.  Then I discovered that The Guardian Word of Mouth blog had linked to a pea and roasted garlic soup I made years ago.  How exciting!  Only the picture was terrible.  I remade the soup and updated the photograph.

Peas in soups seems a brilliant idea.  Lettuce in soup seems wrong.  Yet I am not huge on lettuce in salad.  I love it in an occasional salad sandwich.  But you have to eat a lot of salad sandwiches to use it all up.  The idea of giving new life to an old lettuce in a risotto or soup is hugely appealing.  If you want more lettuce inspiration, I have a list of recipe ideas towards the end of the post or you can read about when lettuce was a sacred sex symbol.

I didn't really follow Ricki's recipe.  I just used what I had on hand.  It worked really well.  I partly attribute this to the lovely vegetable stock I made recently.  Good stock does wonders for any soup.  E and I have been eating quite a lot of soup lately in an attempt to make our diet more healthy. This one was thick and satisfying, albeit a little grassy (but in a good, healthy way).

Unusually for this blog, it is almost two weeks since I posted a recipe.  I have been too busy catching up on posts from September that I put aside during Vegan MoFo.  (And there are still a few more holiday posts to go.)

But this seems like a good time to catch up some October activities.  Above is a picture of belly dancers at Bell Street Mall in Heidelberg last weekend.  They were colourful and engaging.  We were there to see E play with his ukelele group.

I had a crafternoon with my nieces and nephew in Geelong last week.  I packed up lots of craft papers and paints and toilet rolls and we made a birthday card for my dad (with flowers like on this post).  This took longer than I expected.  But the little troopers rallied and then went on to make some butterflies out of toilet paper rolls.  They painted the wings and we stuck wings and antennae on with sticky tape.  I can never resist a googly eye opportunity for the faces.

Sylvia and I were at CERES (below) for lunch and a play with her friend Amelia.  This environmental park is such a relaxing place to sit and enjoy the outdoors.  It is lovely to wander past chooks and vegie gardens on the way to the cafe.  Sylvia and Amelia discovered ropes hanging off an old tree.  They would swing for a short while before their arms would get tired and they would beg to be helped down.  We also have had lunch at Sugardough recently and I plan to write more about it soon.

My kitchen has been busy too.  I have sourdough bread underway.  Doughnuts are frozen in the fridge.  The kitchen table is laden with sugar, butter and chocolate for a birthday cake for my dad.  Below is a sneak preview.  I made a small white chocolate mudcake to experiment with making it gluten free.  It was amazing served with stewed rhubarb and strawberries.

You might also notice in a few photos that Sylvia is enjoying picking little posies of flowers that appear in glasses in our kitchen.  We were very excited to discover pink bottlebrush in our front garden.

Not only are there photos and recipes to catch up on.  I also have links to a few random articles I have enjoyed lately:

• It's not ABC4Boys: why we need more Peppa Pigs -  interesting article on The Drum about female characters in children's television and why we need more who are just kids and not fairies or princesses.
• Has the School of Pop shut its doors? - an article at The Guardian about changes in pop music meaning it does not encourage fans to read great literature and learn about culture in the way it did in decades past.
• Doctors are more likely to be depressed? I'm not surprised - an article by Dr Ranjana Srivastava about the culture of doctors that encourages them to see illness as something their patients experience and not themselves, particularly mental illness.

I am sending this soup to Jacqueline for No Croutons Required (a monthly vegetarian soup and salad event).  The theme this month is smooth blended soups.  I am also sending it to Ricki Heller for her Wellness Weekends event.

Some ways of using lettuce on Green Gourmet Giraffe:

• Baked gnocchi with radicchio, gorgonzola and walnuts
• Chickpea flatbread  with nut roast, chutney, roasted pumpkin and cos lettuce
• Green apple and white chocolate salad
• Haggis tacos
• Matthew's delicious tofu
• Salad sandwich
• Vegetarian san choy bau

Warm lettuce recipes (no salads) on the internet:

• Braised peas with scallions and lettuce - Better Homes and Gardens
• Braised romaine lettuce crostini - The Kitchn
• Lettuce and green pea risotto - A Canadian Foodie
• Lettuce and potato soup - New York Times
• Stir fried garlic lettuce - Epicurious
• Zucchini and braised lettuce tart with tapenade - A Mingling of Tastes

Spinach, pea and lettuce soup
Inspired by Ricki Heller
Serves 4

1/2 tsp olive oil
2 spring onions, sliced
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 cups vegetable stock
2 cups peas (I used frozen)
300g silken tofu
250g spinach
250g lettuce
nutritional yeast flakes, to serve

Heat olive oil over low heat in a stockpot (the vegies take up a lot of volume before they wilt.) Fry spring onions and garlic in oil for a couple of minutes. Add remaining ingredients and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 5 minutes or until wilted. Puree. Serve warm with nutritional yeast flakes sprinkled over the top.

On the Stereo:
Figgy Duff: a Retrospective 1974-1993