Simmer the good stuff

Winter without soup is not worth weathering, however even the most ardent fan gets bored after the 100th bowl of cream of pumpkin.

It’s a firm favourite for Kiwi families and everyone has their own version – some add a pinch of curry powder, others drop in some chopped onion and garlic. It eventually becomes a bit boring, but what else is as cheap and cheerful?

There are plenty more soups and recipes that can fill the stomach without emptying the wallet, according to foodie Sophie Gray.

Known as the Destitute Gourmet, Gray has written several books on budget cookery and believes soups are the perfect vehicle for extending ingredients, such as leftover chicken or ham.

But when it comes to cooking something a little different, she suggests Scotch broth.

‘‘They called it broth, but it wouldn’t be broth in terms of it being clear,’’ Gray explains.

Rather, the soup is almost like a stew, combining pearl barley, carrots, onions, leeks, braised mutton or mutton chops, and whichever root vegetables are available. Adding greens, such as a type of kale or a hardy green, is also possible.

The ingredients, all boiled together, create a hearty meal worthy of a Scottish sheep herder in the middle of winter.

For a less heavy vegetable soup that isn’t too boring, Gray suggests minestrone, the Italians’ vegetable soup.

It may contain meat, but minestrone typically contains a mix of seasonal vegetables and pulses, sometimes pasta, which makes for an interesting combination of different textures.

Gray says cans, jars and frozen foods can be the home cook’s best friend when it comes to soup.

She uses jars of tomato passatta (crushed, sieved and precooked tomatoes), available at the supermarket, to make tomato soups.

Wellington food writer Lucy Corry grew up eating her mother’s Chilean cazuela de pollo, a simple soup with a base of chicken, corn and carrots.

It teeters on the edge of being a stew, given that it can be eaten with a fork, but the broth that comes from simmering an entire chicken with vegetables for such a long time makes it rich.

‘‘That’s something that I really love,’’ says Corry. ‘‘It’s the kind of thing that you need your mum to make for you.

‘‘It’s a very austere looking thing, really.’’

However, the soup is spiked with large quantities of chopped coriander, which lifts its appearance and taste.

The best soups come from inseason ingredients, which are usually the most affordable and tasty, adding a liquid and cooking is the method. Gray says any starchy vegetable, such as kumara, potatoes, beetroot or corn, can be turned into a ‘‘cream of’’ style soup instead of pumpkin.

There is not necessarily cream in the recipe either, rather the name denotes the creaminess that comes when the vegetable is blitzed after being cooked until tender.

‘‘To that mixture you can add any sort of flavour profile you like,’’ she says.