New year, new soup

The new year is going alright so far, and I've been making a big effort with food. On New Year's Day, I sorted some stuff in the kitchen and moved the tins and jars that were just getting lost in the big, deep cupboard over to the smaller cupboard. I moved the Tupperware containers from that cupboard over to the big deep one. I know what's in those containers and it's much easier to move them around to get at what's in the back if I need to. Glad I did this as I found a few things a lot (like, a couple of years) past their best before dates and a few things just past or getting very close to. Now, I have a better overview of what I have on hand and have been using that to help plan meals.

This weekend, I've managed to get active for at least long enough to make soup. One pot yesterday and one pot today. Yesterday's was beetroot, carrot, apple and ginger soup - a soup I intended to make at the start of December but never got around to. Still had the vacuum-packed already cooked beetroot in the fridge though, so just went for it. It also meant I used up the last three carrots that had been in the fridge for quite a while, as well as the last of the onions that had been there for a good while, and just for good measure I threw in a few of the mushrooms I bought yesterday, too. Got four good-sized portions (about 400ml) out of it. In total there was 900g of veg in that soup, and 100g of apple

Carrot, beetroot, apple and ginger soup

Then today, I just made a basic vegetable soup using carrots, onions (I bought a new bag of carrots and net of onions yesterday), potatoes, leek, and mushrooms. That's 775g of veg and 375g of potatoes.

Veg soup before being pureed

After I pureed it, I got almost as much out of it as the other soup: 3 x 400ml and 1 x slightly smaller. So, that's eight portions of soup in the fridge and I still have two portions of a curry I made last week left as well. Looks like lunches and dinners for next week as sorted. This evening, I'm going to have some pasta with pesto. Ok, I won't have any veg on my plate but at least I'll be using up some of the jar of pesto, one of the things that was languishing in the cupboard, getting very close to its best before date. I made pesto chicken last week so now I just have half the jar left. Just thinking about this and decided to chop and fry an onion to go with the pasta (a fairly big onion, so half is in the fridge to use in scrambled eggs during the week) and will throw in a couple of dried tomatoes, too. There! That'll count as at least one serving of veg, even if it doesn't make it to the 50% of the meal rule.

And finally, I did go and spend my sealed pot savings at the craft fair in the RDS this year. I have to admit that although it was lovely to go again, it wasn't as good as in previous years. It has gotten far more commercial, with fewer stalls where it's the actual crafter/artist just selling their own stuff. My big splurge was a knitting bowl and I also bought a mug that I just really liked the shape off (and didn't even realise the colours on the side actually formed a picture until I had taken a photo of it) and a tin mug, which I can use to heat up milk to make hot chocolate with. Must remember to fashion some kind of a holder for the handle so that I'll actually be able to hold it to drink from after heating the milk!

Knitting bowl made of cherry wood, ceramic mug and tin mug