Salt, snow and soup!

It's been nearly two months since I lasted posted and then it was on a glorious Christmas Day when we enjoyed fabulous weather, albeit we were in the grip of a real biting and prolonged freezing winter wonderland. When this wintry weather started in the middle of December, John and I were away on one of our mini excursions enjoying some much needed R&R along the west of Scotland and I remember not long after that someone made the comment that this winter would last well into the month of March. The commentator was pooh-poohed at the time but as March knocks on our door next week, they will be proved right.

The weather on the mainland has been exceptionally bad with snow and sub-zero temperatures; here on Mull and in Fionnphort particuarly, we haven't really had the snow but the freezing conditions we have had are unpredecented especially with it lasting over such a long period of time.

But what has prompted me to poke my nose out and come out of hibernation today? Well believe it or not it was a news item on BBC Breakfast this morning about the salt content of soup. The nation's dieticians recommend that an adult should not be consuming more than 6g of salt per day and that typically we consume around 9g a day which has health implications for us all - not least high blood pressure, strokes, heart disease and cancers!  Interestingly some soups contain more than our recommended daily allowance of salt in just one serving and can contain more than ten times the amount of salt than in a packet of ready salted crisps!!

This led me to think about and ask what soup are these people eating? And then it dawned on me - of course, shop bought tinned soup! What a travesty!!

Soup is the simplest, most nutrious and healthy food you can eat and yet somehow folks still mess it up and turn it into a health hazard.

Well the simplest solution is to make your own soup!

I can think of any number of reasons why you should and I can't think of any reason why you can't. So I'm not interested in hearing any 'Yes but, No but' answers, comments or smart alec responses.

Making soup is easy, quick, nutritious, healthy, satisfying, tasty and most importantly cost effective. You know what's going in to it (including the salt content) and its a great way of eating your 5 portions of veggies a day. You don't need a degree in food engineering to make soup, you just dig around in the bottom of the fridge (you know, the section where the veg is supposed to be housed) and make use of what you have. It's a great way of using up those less appetising bits of veg at the back too.

I don't think I ever ate home made soup until I moved here. The main reason was because soup was plentiful and convenient in tins. However once here, when I started to look at the ingredients on the can and compare the price of what I was paying, to what I was actually getting, I started to ask whether or not I was paying more for the tin (which incidentally you are) than the food in it. And why was I paying more for something that was being thrown away (ie the can), even if it was being recycled, when in actual fact I could make the soup myself and not throw anything away!!

And so several years ago I started on my journey of discovery on how to make my own soups.

They aren't fancy soups. Occasionally I look for a recipe for some inspiration but most of the time I do exactly what 'it says on the tin' - excuse the pun. I open the fridge and take a wee peek inside to see what needs using up and then I make the soup. Favourites include leek and potato, carrot and courgette, basil & tomato  soup (sometimes using fresh tomatoes, sometimes using tinned!), my stir crazy soup (literally anything there is to hand) and my green soup (I use all the green veggies I can find - including the curly bits of cabbage leaf that should really be composted).

And with this freezing damp weather, soup is welcomed by all. With a pot on every day home made soup is food for the soul. And just to help you on your way, I have made sweet potato and leek soup today which has been cooking whilst writing this and this is how I made it:

Ingredients: half a large onion, 2 sweet potatoes, 4 pathetic weedy leeks, some light olive oil (I prefer to use butter but I'm trying to lose weight), 4 teaspoons Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon (available in most food shops) and about 2 litres of boiling water (a kettle full in my house) 

This made a large pan full and will probably last the 2 of us for 3 days.

Gently heat the olive oil in a large pan, add the chopped onion and leeks, and cook for 5-10 minutes over a gentle heat with the lid on until the veg has softened. Add the peeled and diced sweet potato. Add 4 tsp of bouillon to a pint of boiling water, stir and add to the pan; top up the water in the pan with the remaining boiled water from the kettle, add seasoning to taste, stir and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for about 30 minutes or until the sweet potato is soft. Taste test and add more seasoning if preferred. Switch off the heat and allow to cool for about 30 minutes. Add to a blender and blend until smooth. Tip into a bowl and enjoy.

Go and make soup :-)

Myths, legends and rocket science!

As December and yet another Christmas rapidly approaches I thought it was time to update my blog before the year is over and I wonder (yet again) where has the time gone?

Sufficient time has elapsed for me to update Mull Musings on how the geology course went. I started out so excitedly with such high hopes and expectations - here was something new I could learn about, something for the grey matter to focus on, something relevant to my life and my everyday surroundings. I was hungry for information.

The Isle of Mull has such a fascinating and diverse landscape. So much so that it is known as a 'mecca' for geologists from all around the world. To the likes of you and I, the landscape is just pure magic - wee dips and valleys, panoramic mountains and mysterious glens, stunning lochs and forests, remote white beaches and undiscovered coves. To the geologist, the land and rock formation is pure science with ancient rocks and minerals in the making over zillions of years.

And this unfortunately is where for me it all began to go horribly awry.


Having tramped round the hillsides for a few years marvelling at the landscape, I genuinely thought my imagination would be captured and my enthusiasm for facts, figures and science would know no bounds. How sadly mistaken was I. The course was run and led by a very capable and extremely knowledgeable geologist who in a former life taught geology to degree level at university. The range of knowledge of the course participants on what had been promoted as a 'leisure learning' course ran from doctorate holders (in anthropology) to simple folk like me (in life).

It was a no brainer from the start! The course facilitator was on a hiding to nothing really and I felt quite sorry for her. How do you pitch your material to students from opposite ends of the educational and knowledge spectrum? It was without a doubt the most intense and complex whistle stop tour of any subject ever known to man. And can I say the most mind numbing - I would arrive home after the 2 hour session each week and couldn't work out if my head was suffering from brain freeze because of the cold or the subject matter.



Sadly I only lasted 4 weeks out of the 6; the balance was finally tipped in favour of bailing out when I spent a freezing and wet day on a 'field trip' on one of my favourite beaches in the middle of March trying to muster up excitement about the different rock formations. I don't think the fact that I found rock pooling more entertaining won me any favours with the course teacher and I bowed out disgracefully the following week.

And the moral of the story?

Well for me, I learnt three things. First of all, never be afraid to step outside your comfort zone and learn something new. Secondly, never be afraid to accept you have made a mistake and say 'thanks but no thanks'. And finally, if you enjoy facts, figures and mind boggling bamboozling science - fine. However, for me I prefer the magic and the romance behind the myths and legends surrounding this beautiful and ancient island and I didn't want the mystery and the love affair I have with Mull to be stripped naked and laid open to scrutiny by science.

Give me pixies, fairies, giants and little folk any day.