I was wondering if anyone has a good, tasty veg soup recipe ?
The sort of one where you can chuck any cheap veg in that's on offer at Tesco.
Thanks.

honestly anything works really. as long as you make sure you have a good base of onions and a bit of celery sweated for a while and use a decent stock.

If they have carrots cheap carrot, ginger and honey is nice. Sweat onion in a little butter and add a little powdered ginger and a little grated ginger (however much you prefer) and a squeeze of runny honey. cook this through for a minute or so. add veg stock and carrots and simmer for about 10-15 mins till the carrot is tender. leave to cool a bit and blitz with a hand blender. Healthy (mostly), helps fight colds and yum :)

(leaving it to cool before blending is because with the sugar content of the carrots and honey it is nuclear hot!! have been sprayed when blending before and it hurts)

Open the fridge and remove anything that is past it's best, same with the veg rack and Tescos.
prepare and slice or chop add onions and leaks to a pan with a little oil or butter or both and gently fry
add rest of the veg and some stock, I use Knorr veg stock,
bring to boil and then simmer until the veg is tender,
cool a bit and liquidise of mash,
return to pan and season,
do not go easy on the pepper, a little chilli or curry powder will add a good deal but I do not use salt if I am using a stock cube. If it needs more than seasoning try a tin of tomato or tomato paste.

Do the same thing with most leftovers, tin of toms and some stock, serve with crusty bread makes a meal and saves the housekeeping.

PS use black pepper.

I have one for Chicken soup, but can be adapted to anything :-
Hearty Chicken Soup
Left over Chicken Carcass
2 Onions chopped
2 Carrots chopped
2 Leeks chopped
1 Celery Stick Chopped
1 Bay Leaf
3-4 Peppercorns
few sprigs Parsley and Thyme (I use dried)
2 oz Lentils.

Flatten the carcass and place in a large pot with the vegatables Bay leaf Peppercorns and herbs and cover with water
Bring to boil, put lid on a simmer for an hour (Last time I chucked it on the slow cooker on low overnight)

Strain the soup, Discard the bones and bayleaf and pour soup back into the pot with the veg.
Toss in the lentils, bring back to boil and simmer until lentils are tender
Season and Serve.

I let it cool and then put it back in slow cooker with Lentils about 3-4 hours before serving.

Cheap and easy, and lovely with home made bread made mostly in the food processor with a dough blade

Lea :)

> Open the fridge and remove anything that is past it's best

LOL, Nova :) That is what we do :) Surprising what can turn up in our soup - baked beans, stuffing, mashed potato, curry ..... :) :) Waste not want not :)

LOL, Nova :-) That is what we do :-) Surprising what can turn up in our soup - baked beans, stuffing, mashed potato, curry ..... :-)

Oh! mashed potato is almost a necessity, then there are sad mushrooms, the one slice of bacon, half a sausage at the moment I have some leftover shepherd pie and can't wait to introduce it to the liquidiser, mind you also have a few grapes that could prove a problem.

Left over roasted vegetables makes the most wonderful soup, add a bit of garlic and it's sublime.   I blend it and make some home made bread rolls too :-)

Spring vegetable soup -  finely dice onions, carrots, parsnips and add garden peas, add to vegetable stock and simmer  till tender.    Add a good pinch of japanese green nori sprinkle to bring out the flavours :-)

I have been given a large bag of red lentils, any ideas what I could do with them ? I have used small amounts in soups and stews but I think it will take me forever to sue them up that way.
I did think about making a stock from a ham/bacon joint, but not to sure if that would work.

You could make dhal :)  A lovely, tasty low fat supper we often have.
About 5 oz of washed red lentils, pint and a half of cold water, bring to boil and scoop off any scum, add a teaspoon of turmeric, cover with just the tiniest gap and turn down to a very low simmer for 1 hr to 1 1/4, stirring once of twice towards the end to make sure nothing is sticking. 
Then add some grated fresh ginger.  I use a piece about 1 1/2" square say, 2 or 3 fresh chopped tomato ( I don't bother with that skinning malarky).  You could add salt but I don't and simmer on for another 10 mins with the cover on or off depending on how runny it might be.
Meantime, very finely slice an onion, about 3 or 4 oz of a dark cabbage (needs to be the "drier" type") a hot red or green chilli and fry that in a little oil over medium heat for quite some time, 10 mins maybe until it is well cooked, even slightly crisp if you like. 
At the end of the lentil cooking tip the cabbage mix in and stir very slightly so the two elements stay reasonably seperate.
Can serve with rice or its nice with a naan bread.
I hope that is right, it is off the top of my head I have made it so often but it is a Maghar Jaffrey recipe which I am sure you can find on line somewhere to check.

Thanks Stooge, I will give that a go it sounds yummy !

I have a couple of books I found in a charity shop - published by the  New Covent Garden Soup Company. Not all of them are vegetarian but there are some very tasty-sounding vegetable soup recipes.

They also have quite a few recipes on their website -
New Covent Garden Soup Company - Recipes
Looks like there's a recipe for almost everything you might have lurking in the fridge.

I recently made a lovely soup from two past their best carrots, some old mushrooms, three sweet peppers that had to be "renovated" to find the bits that were still useable and half a tin of baked beans. I sauted the vegetables in a little bit of butter, added some stock and the baked beans and thoroughly enjoyed the results with some fresh bread.

Soup is a great way of using up veg and leftovers :-)

> I recently made a lovely soup from two past their best carrots, some old mushrooms, three sweet peppers that had to be "renovated" to find the bits that were still useable

Mmmmm, smak, smak, mmmmm, smak, yes, very nice, Lizzie, but many a teeny soupçon of soupçon missing don't you think :)

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Mmmmm, smak, smak, mmmmm, smak, yes, very nice, Lizzie, but many a teeny soupçon of soupçon missing don't you think <img alt=":-)" src="/images/default/sml_pos.png" class="sml" />

I didn't like to put I also added H's latest squirrel :-)

Of course!  Perhaps just a little type rubber seasoning missing then :)

Yuk if you had you would have had to use lots of seasoning and gallons of red wine to disguise the taste if the squiggle !

i never use a recipe for soup. it turns out lovely. bit o this and a bit o that!