Soup

I will stop going on about the weather soon (honestly) - but I can't quite get my head around the fact that last Sunday, when I sat outside having a drink, I had to put up the big patio umbrella so that I didn't fry, but today after an hour's gardening (eeeurgh), I came inside shivering with cold and made soup. Anyone who knows me well will know that the very fact of me making soup indicates a thermal crisis, because I don't like soup.

This though - even for one who doesn't like soup - is a pretty good soup. The recipe for lentil soup with garlic and cumin comes from an old cookbook called The Bean Book by Rose Elliott, which I recommend to you if you don't already own it - it seems that it's been reprinted in the past few years, but the original edition is also widely available second-hand. It was a life-saver for me when I was young and poor, and in these Brexity times I think it's a very useful thing to keep next to all your stockpiled tins of tomatoes and bags of rice and pulses.

Rose Elliott's web site, listing all her other current publications, is here.