Dreich ~ yes, dreich, that’s the right word to describe today. Dismal, dreary, bleak, a winter’s day at the end of May. Outdoors, the colours are first dulled by the grey wash of sky, then smeared by the gloom of the atmosphere. Dreich, it is; maist dreich.
What’s a body to do but wrap up warmly and take a solid meal of soup, served without fuss or finery, straight from pot
Pot of barley vegetable soup
to plate. Slop and dollop.
Plate of soup to cheer the dreich of day
A dear friend showed me how to make this soup-stew. There isn’t a defined recipe. What goes in, aside from the barley and broth, depends on what is in the cupboard. In this case I have potato, pumpkin, two kinds of sweet potato, peas, broccoli stalks, parsnip, carrot, onion, celery, and bacon. The flavourings are salt, bay leaves and tarragon, and lots of black pepper. The soup takes time to cook but time = very satisfying fodder. Even more satisfying, as an accompaniment, would have been a wee dram of that other time-dense barley concoction, whisky. Alas, there was none of that in the cupboard. 😉
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silkannthreades 
This looks just like the hearty soup my mom used to make in winter. 🙂
It seems your mother knew a thing or two about keeping body and soul together via soup. 😉
Yum, my husband and I love soups/stews and barley. Your picture of the vegetable barley soup looks scrumptious. I just happen to have some broth in my fridge—so I may just give this a whirl. I like freezing leftovers for lazy days and weekend lunches. My husband is barbecuing sockeye salmon tonight, so I’ll have the time and energy to pull this off. Thank you for the inspiration. I’ll be adding cabbage and celery to mine since I need to use them up (& hubby likes them too).
Blessings ~ Wendy ❀
Yum, for a piece of barbecued sockeye salmon. Perhaps eaten outdoors in the gorgeous light of a summer evening. Hopefully the barley soup worked out a treat and you have some leftovers to stash away.
My husband thinks it looks good. We’re having it tonight as we’re tuckered out from our visit to the beach. 🙂
Excellent!
I can smell it from up in here in the den. Don’t be alarmed if you hear growling—it’s only my tummy. 😉
😀 😀 😀 Going to the beach makes a person HUNGRY.
That’s a mighty fine soup you’ve got there G! I’ll be sure to make that when the day gets dreich. I shall think of your hearty soup the next time we read the Stone Soup with my son. I’m sure you know that little tale about a wandering man who coaxes a soup from a stone and gets the farmer’s wife to throw in an onion, a carrot, potatoes and other bits and turned it into a fine meal! Hope the weather gets better soon my dear. Sharon x
Ha! Yes, that’s one of the best soup stories.:) Hope those dreich days stay away for awhile yet, so you can enjoy summer holidays with your family.
Oh my – shouldn’t have read this on my train commute home! Now I’m really craving this kind of comfort food and the weather isn’t even dreich!
Hope there was something else equally comforting on your arrival home. 🙂
Yummy + oh so pretty:-) Iam enjoying spring here, but oh how I appreciate a fall cup of soup! Add some fresh baked bread and I am in heaven:-)
And, come fall, you will have plenty of goodies from your garden to make masses of delicious warming soup.
🙂 love the seasons they bring their “unique” joys:-)
Indeed they do.
We make a lot of one pot meals here too! Looks good.
They are so convenient!
This looks just like my mum’s winter soup. She used to make it with a bacon hock but probably never wished for a wee dram afterwards. I, however, have been known to enjoy a drop or two on special occasions.
Well, I’ll drink to that, says I , still waiting hopefully for that wee dram to miraculously appear in the cupboard. 😉
That looks delicious. I would love to know how to make the broth…I am no chef, but it would be wonderful to make soup-stew for my family! I am sorry for your dreichy weather.
I wish I could give you a recipe but it’s all about a bit of this and a bit of that; one of those recipes which I can make with my eyes closed but words fail me when I want to put the directions in writing. Makes me appreciate how hard it must be for recipe writers and people who do those excellent cooking videos on youtube. 🙂
Dreich looks delicious dear Gallivanta…. Perfect for a cold day… maybe also with a piece of cake for dessert… Have a great weekend! … best wishes. Aquileana ⭐
Definitely some cake, Aquileana. I will keep a big slice for you.
YES!…. 🌟★🌟 Thank you, [in advance].
Love!, Aquileana 😀
🙂
Dreich here most of the week and it’s supposed to be late spring. Soup looks amazing, love how you’ve emptied the contents of your cupboards and fridge into the pot. I find those meals, I call them my one pot wonders, taste the best. 🙂
They are wonders aren’t they? If I were feeling very lazy, I could be tempted to eat straight from the pot! That would really make the meal a one pot wonder. 😉
Hmmm, you may have just given me an idea for my next one pot wonder meal. Of course I won’t eat straight from the pot….unless I’m alone!
Of course not. 😉
We’re a little like some of the others that have posted here. Tom and I both like a nice thick stew like soup any time of year. It’s something he’s able to digest fairly easy and I can also add protein powder to it without altering the taste. I haven’t used barley in a while so I think we may see it on a menu in the near future. Thanks for the idea.
Soup is easy eating and often well tolerated with eating and digestive problems. And Barley seems to be a very beneficial grain according to these studies http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/health-benefits-of-barley Barley water with lemon is also another old fashioned good for the system drink. One of the hardest things about being unwell is finding food that you can eat easily and in sufficient quantities to help with healing. Hard for the provider of the food as well as the patient.
Oh boy, your post has reminded me that I have to prepare some soup for a visiting relative. She first had soup last week, loved it and her hints are that she would like some more. That soup looks very good and I am tempted to try making it.
Your soup recipe must be good, too. Relatives are sometimes hard to please. 😉 Enjoy your time together.
Nothing like an amazing bowl of soup to set things right again, eh? We got pretty spoiled with summer weather for a couple of weeks, but this week has been all rain and gloom.
Me and my tan have been pretty confused. I’m consoling myself this evening with cold weather junk food: a grilled cheese and tater tots. 😉
Grilled cheese and tater tots sound good to me. Not that I have ever had a tater tot! But grilled cheese is a standard in this house because I love cheese~ way too much. 😀
I love cheese too! I could never give it up.
Oh, Gallivanta. Tater tots are so amazing! This place does cajun tater tots, which are otherworldly. 😉
Yum, I do like spice and heat. 🙂
swoon. I am a soup girl. Just reading your post made me feel bathed in grace and goodness. It felt like I was sitting in your warm kitchen eating your soup.
Warmed my soul.
Thanks ever so much for sharing your goodness.
ps. you KNOW what I am making for supper tonight.
Enjoy your soup. I know it will be full of deliciousness. From my warm kitchen to yours come best wishes for a grace-filled weekend.
That looks so good – I love all the colors. It’s been dreich here too even though it’s supposed to be spring or summer by now so I’ll have to try this. Your photo reminded me of soup over rice – that used to be one of our meals while growing up and I always loved it because it was so heartwarming. Maybe whiskey would make a good soup flavoring. 🙂
Soup over rice….yes, that’s a good one. I didn’t have it as a child but I have certainly indulged as an adult. Mmmm…a wee drop of whisky would surely give a bit of zip to a soup. Hope the weather is becoming more cheerful for you.
I find the comments on your posts fascinating! So many subjects discussed! I am not a soup person; I have it maybe once a year, if that. It is often served in hotels and I will partake fairly often then but hardly ever at home. I am not so keen on casseroles and stews either. My husband however, is a soupaholic and has a soup-maker and makes gallons of the stuff. He freezes servings in bags and pots and takes it to work to re-heat in the microwave. He enjoys making stews and casseroles too.
Clare, the comments are like the soup I make. All sorts of things are added. It’s wonderful. I am grateful to everyone who comes by and enriches my world. As for the edible soups; my preference is for the thick sort, and, like your husband, I like stews and casseroles. My children do not like stews and casseroles..at all. Your husband gives himself a nourishing lunch. A good role model for healthy eating. 😉 Thinking about comments and soup, I am reminded of a word game called word soup.
I don’t know ‘word soup’! Sounds fascinating.
Yes, so many games, so little time. 😉
🙂
Looks like New Zealand Scotch Broth to me! My Scotch Broth is very random depending on what I lay my hands on and all the better for it. Amelia
That’s an excellent description for it, Amelia. I am wondering what Scottish recipes/ideas my great grandmother brought with her from Scotland, and how she adapted them to NZ conditions. She had 12 children (10 of them boys) to feed. Some ingenuity must have been required.
In Scotland when my mother was young that was not an uncommon number of children. Life was so different and I think leisure time would not be a concept your great grandmother would be familiar with.
Indeed. And as she came from a large family herself she probably thought that big a family was simply the norm, and what was expected of her. Her own offspring were not as productive. 🙂
Bon appetite
Thank you!
Mmm, looks lovely, definitely a dish for a dreich day.
It goes down a treat. 🙂
That looks so delicious. And I really like the practice of using whatever is in the cupboard. I am learning my way to cooking by using whatever is in the cupboard and freezer. On those days when money is tight, resourcefulness must be in big supply.
Yes, as long as our cupboards are well stocked with resourcefulness we will be fine. My parents and grandparents were big on resourcefulness. They had to be. I have had to be as well, sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t eat well. In my Zambia days, although we could afford to buy food, there wasn’t much to buy. We lived very happily on maize meal porridge, with milk in the morning, and at other meals with a pumpkin leaf and ground peanut sauce. Delicious.
Well said. How many countries have you lived in? Wow.
9, including NZ. ( UK, Botswana, Zambia, US, Nepal, India, Egypt, Fiji. ) Still seems like yesterday but it happened last century. 🙂
My goodness. That’s truly remarkable. And such interesting countries too. Is NZ the place you lived longest?
Not quite. Fiji still holds the title. But NZ is catching up fast.
We lived in Zambia, though only for a short time – in 1993. There wasn’t much in the shops then. Strawberry yoghurt, pickled beetroot and Xeres grape juice were are commonest staples, and all a similar colour 🙂 Your broth looks delicious, and dreich is such a good word. Barley is so comforting of itself.
Barley is SO comforting. 🙂 Hmmm, so things didn’t change much between 83 and 93 in Zambia, it would seem. Don’t remember grape juice, pickled beetroot or strawberry yoghurt though. I made my own yoghurt and butter from milk that was delivered weekly from a dairy farm. Juice? Probably the only kind we had was made from fresh oranges from the market. I was looking at some old photos the other day and couldn’t believe how thin I was in those days. It was the diet aided by intestinal troubles. 😉
Oh dear me. I had ‘intestinal troubles’ too in Zambia. Shopping wise things were looking up in ’93 – after a year of multi-party democracy. There were imported goods from Zim and elsewhere. Hence the beetroot and the juice.
I hope even more progress has been made since then. But it looks as though things could still be tough. http://i2.wp.com/www.lusakatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG-20150528-WA00311.jpg Lusaka Times is also reporting a typhoid outbreak. Which is worse than any intestinal troubles I had. Did you have similar troubles in Kenya? One of the joys of coming home to NZ was the utter relief of eating a meal and not having to worry about what my stomach would do the next day. 😀
I played host to all bugs that were going while in Kenya, incl paratyphoid, though did manage to avoid being blistered by the Nairobi Eye blister beetle. But I know what you mean about no longer having to worry about what you’re eating. I read somewhere that people with blood group A are very susceptible to amoebae, which is probably one of those things that’s not very useful to know after the event 🙂
Being blood group A, no wonder I suffered. 😦 I don’t feel quite so pathetic now. Thank you for that.
There’s some kind of mimicry that goes on so the amoebae can lurk in the system of A’s (and I am one too). Where as G, who is an O, hardly suffered at all. O being the older, hunter-gather blood type with seemingly a system designed to better defend itself. A’s are a more recent blood type, Neolithic farmers – susceptible to allergies and everything. This has been verified from data from allergy testing. Interesting stuff.
Very interesting stuff. A long with the amoebae, I had my worst asthma attack ever in Lusaka.
Hm. Nor have my sinuses recovered since Nairobi. Aren’t we nesh (to use one of my grandmother’s words), but then we keep going too 🙂
‘Nesh’ ! That’s as good a word as dreich. Thanks for adding it to my vocabulary. My mother will love the word, in the sense that she is always cold or feeling the cold. She’s a little infirm as well.
Yes, we keep going, and although I would have liked to have been healthier during my travelling days, I wouldn’t have missed any of it.
That’s how I feel too – travel-wise.
🙂
It’s a derich here today with incessant rain and wind. Hopefully summer will come back soon! Your soup looks comforting, I wish I had a bowl of it to hand. 😉
Wish I could send some. 🙂 But we’ve eaten the lot. Hope sunny days will be with you soon, although just read your weather forecast and it doesn’t look promising. 😦
Thank you I hope so too.
🙂
In the winter time shot of whiskey followed by hot soup is an excellent combination.
Long time ago my grandmother cooked summer dessert soup. She boiled dry apples and pears the added some millet in the bowl. After it was ready she cooled in down and served us. It was delicious. Since then I’ve never tried it again. And we used to eat few kind of vegetable cold soups in the summer time.
Your grandmother’s soup sounds wonderful. I would love to try that. I will get some millet next time I shop, and I will experiment with cold soups when summer comes around. Have you made the millet soup yourself?
Unfortunately, no I haven’t. But as I remember and understand it is really easy recipe. The only ingredients that I did not mention are salt and sugar. Just a little bit.
I am eager to try it. Thanks for mentioning the salt and sugar.
Yum, a good soup is great for a dreich day, what could be better?
Ice cream? with hot chocolate sauce? 😀
That would be great as well.
Okay, I’ll add that to my next menu. 😉
A hearty soup is the best medicine for drench winter days 🙂 This is such a perfect soup as it’s not spoiled by an exact recipe with specific ingredients or measurements. I make a similar soup on those gloomy and slightly chilly days in the winter, of which we only have a handful every year here in FL.
Do you make cold soups for the hot days? We used to like cold cucumber soup when we lived in Fiji.
I like your description of “a time-dense barley concoction.” And when a hearty vegetable soup is in order, there’s nothing like barley less-time-densely matured in boiling water.
And speaking of time and consumables, I am reminded to tell you that my buckwheat harvest filled a thimble. There will be no buckwheat porridge for me this year.
But even with that small amount, couldn’t you cook it to find out what it tastes like?
We are keeping it to sow in hopes of a bigger crop next time.
Ah, the practical wisdom of delayed gratification.
Well, hopefully it is that and not a case of wanting the two birds in the bush instead of the one in the hand.
It’s a tad too sunny over here for a warming soup, but I was just about as delighted at your use of the Scottish word 🙂 How come?
N, I have been discovering my Scottish roots. They are longer and bigger than I ever managed. I have been given a letter written by my great great uncle who moved to NZ from Scotland in 1864. It is written in the Scots dialect and, to me, it is like a foreign language. I have read the letter at least a dozen times and I am still puzzling it out, and learning new words as I puzzle. 🙂 Enjoy your sunshine. The sun has returned here, too.
Is it Scots or Scottish Gaelic? (The latter, I am learning)
Funny how I might have some Scottish roots as well, just from the side of those Scots who went to Russia/ Petersburg and stayed. A part of my family comes from one very mixed town near St. Petes! 🙂 Utterly fascinating.
Fascinating indeed! I had no idea that there were such significant connections between Scotland and Russia. http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/scoruss.html Perhaps I should investigate if any of my people went to St Petersburg. 🙂 And I am impressed that you are learning Scottish Gaelic. With my own family history I am only coming across a Scots dialect or Scots English. I don’t know if my ancestors knew or used Gaelic.
Scottish Gaelic is only spoken by 1% of the pop in the Highlands! 😀 I’m learning it just for fun, for my love of Celtic history, for some brain gym as well I suppose…
Scottish Gaelic would certainly give a brain a good workout! Well done, you. 🙂 What percentage of the population speak Gaelic in Berlin? 😉 Because of you I was able to impress my daughter with the information that Edward Grieg had Scottish ancestry. I don’t often get one over her in the music game. 😀
@ Music game: Excellent! 🙂
@ Percentage, I haven’t got the faintest idea… There would be a few academics who have learned it; a few history buffs perhaps, but I lack any knowledge regarding Highland expats in Berlin. There are many Irish and some Scottish expats, but given that even in the Highlands merely 1% can speak it. Seriously no idea. Would like to know though!
Would be interesting to know. Google is not offering much help. This is a link to an article on WordPress about Gaelic in Australia and New Zealand.
Your soup looks delicious! Love the choice of vegetables you managed to have around the house. I’m not too sure about the whiskey, though.
I cannot read a post about dreich days when you have such a lovely and beautiful header. Next time you will have to make sure there are some dying twigs up there so I can really catch the mood. 😉
I confess, I did cheat a little by not including a photo of the actual conditions of the day. But, really, they were just too bleak. Imagine a header that looked like a bedraggled piece of dirty, soggy gray paper….not a good look. 😀
You are one smart cookie, you know! 😀
I am guessing you are one of those smart cookies, too. 😀
You have touched a few things in this post, I like very much: winter weather, soup/stew simmering all day and spreading its comforting fragrance through the whole house and Scotland! Mr. Walker and I went to Scotland for our honeymoon, it was breathtaking beautiful, so want to go back. Summer in Ohio started early, it is already very hot and although summer has good sides…I love the cold and coziness of fall and winter. Though I like the sound of Dreich…show me more of your winter please ;0) Have a great Sunday, xo Johanna
I do hope you and Mr Walker will return to Scotland. Do you have an important anniversary looming that would serve as an excuse to visit? It’s been very dreich again today and I would be happy to pass on some to you. I am not really a winter person. Each year I say I will make sure I go away for the winter but each year I don’t! Never mind. You tell me more about summer and I’ll tell you more about winter and we’ll both get by nicely. 🙂
I love soups, in general and yours, in particular… ❤ any left-over, SVP?… 😉
* * *
P.S. I rarely observe a soup recipe, I always add up ma touche personnelle which has been often appreciated… bon appétit! 🙂
I am afraid you have missed the last helping of soup. I will let you know when I make some more. 😉
Yes, soup has a basic recipe, I suppose, but mostly it is a creation. Each time, it is a little different. I am sure I would enjoy your soup making.
you’re sooo right: a soup is mostly “création”… 🙂 come over and taste them, deal?… 😉
Deal!
I bet your house smelled wonderful, too! Our weather is dreich today–maybe a good, hearty soup is on order1
Definitely a good idea, especially if you have a convalescent in the house. Do you know lemon barley water? That’s another excellent source of sustenance.
I know nothing of lemon barley water (but your reference to a wee dram sounded rather familiar!)
Ha! But I have partaken of more lemon barley water than I have whisky in recent years.
I love a pot of soup on a cold winter’s day. Your’s looks delicious.
My favorite winter soups are bean (made with a leftover ham bone from the holidays) or good old chicken soup. I like to do the chicken soup in the crockpot for at least 12 hours. The stock is so good.
Joanne, I have yet to make soup in my crockpot. No idea why I haven’t tried to do so. I feel a chicken soup in a crockpot coming on. 🙂 Is chicken soup another thing you learned from your mother?
Not really! She made a lot of casserole type dishes- Greek ones mostly- but I don’t remember alot of soup. I did the crockpot soup thing on my own. I take my mom some when I make it. She LOVES it. 😉
I bet she does. 🙂
This looks delicious.yummy, I had a large helping , hope there is enough left for you….😊
I have just licked the pot clean. 🙂 🙂
Good… I was close to do that too…. hehe!
Nothing like a good lick of the pot!
Yum! I am a bit intrigued by the 2 variants of sweet potato as I have only come across one sort? We have a day like that here today, one I am reluctant to get out of bed for!
We call sweet potato, kumara. Three variants which are common here are red, gold and orange. http://www.kumara.co.nz/about_kumara/ The gold is the one I favour for roasting. The red I like mashed with pumpkin. And they all work well in soup.
Ah, yes, there are days, (not necessarily dreich) where I would love to stay in bed, all day.
Thank you for the education. I will look out for them! You will be pleased to know that I have got out of bed and had quite a productive morning. The weather isn’t so fad either!
Excellent. It’s our Queen’s Birthday weekend, so I am taking life very easy. Productivity = nil, unless I count mountains of washing as productivity. 😉
Definitely.
🙂
I agree that soup is a “comfort” year round. Ingredients sound terrific (minus meat–I’m a vegetarian.). I made cauliflower, carrots and asparagus with garlic and basil plus diced tomatoes for dinner. Spiced it with curry, olive oil and sesame oil. I also just toss into the pot whatever is available. Happy cooking…
I have made this soup without bacon and it is still good. Although I do eat meat, my preference is for vegetables. I love lots of them. Your dinner would have suited me just fine. Asparagus is a particular favourite.
In fact, your soup and your word are just right for this evening on the Texas coast. We were blessed wtih a bit of sunshine both yesterday and today, but we’re back into the gloom for a while. It’s such an either/or world just now. This afternoon I was picking fresh peaches. Now, it looks like the very depths of November.
Soup always is good.. I’ll often make a large pot, just for freezing. There are evenings when I come home from work not at all inclined to cook, and having a nice soup in the freezer is almost as good as money in the bank. I brought home fresh lady cream peas from market today, and may head off toward soup with them. Add some celery, onion, peppers, tomatoes, and good green onion sausage, and you have a real treat.
As for the farmer and the weather — more than a few farmers, fishermen, and sailors have noted that the more technologically sophisticated our forecasting becomes, the more often it’s wrong. I’d never give up the radars, satellites, and modeling tools we have. But I still use my senses. That ages-old wisdom has hung around for a reason. 🙂
I had to look up lady cream peas. I learned that they yield a bright, clear potlikker. And of course I had to look up potlikker (NOT one who licks the pot, like I do!) as well. I agree, they would make just the soup for a dreich day.
We’ve been dining on lentil soup tonight. Another good soup for cold days. Of which there are many at the moment. In fact I could probably put the soup outside if I wanted to keep it in a freezer. 😉
The soup looks so good and I think it is good for winter or cold weather season.
YC, it’s very good in winter but occasionally I will make it in summer as well. It’s comfort food for all seasons.
Nothing like a nip of whiskey in a soup to savor the Dreich-ness of the day! I will have to remember that word when Winter rolls around here. What a fascinating word (and thank you for the link, it was so interesting). Stay warm and cozy – winter, after all, is the perfect excuse to stay inside with a good book 🙂
And my Elizabeth Goudge anthology is proving to be just the ticket for keeping me warm indoors, with sweet words like these “They looked at the path and the safety of it tingled in the soles of their feet.” (from the White Witch)
What a great line. One I will remember next time I am walking down a path.
🙂 I think animals feel that safety or danger through their feet, too.
That looks like a nice, hearty soup… some damper would go well with it! This will keep one warm!! 🙂
Mmmmmmm….damper would be good.
I had the slow cooker filled to the brim with just such an assortment of vegetables, plus pumpkin,herbs but no meat. It has been delicious!! 🙂 Today the sun is shining again…..
The sun shines here today, too. Fierce frost overnight, though. Aren’t we lucky to have access to such wonderful vegetables? One of my favourites is swede. Are you a fan?
Yes we are – and organic readily available at the store and our fabulous farmers market! No swede for me though, that is one I don’t include!
Ha! Yes, swede is one of those vegetables which divide the nation’s taste buds. I am wondering if I will make a spicy lentil soup today. That will be nice and warming for the cold days to come.
It is sunny in Vancouver today. I’m sitting in my favourite coffee shop looking out at the local farmers market that has been set up at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. You have inspired me to head over to the vegetable stand and buy the ingredients for this marvelous soup. Thanks for introducing me to a new word!! Hugs
Hope you enjoyed your soup! It would be extra special with all those lovely fresh ingredients from the market.
Mam used to make a very nice, solid-looking broth, not unlike that one, using ham shank. Perfect for dreich days, of which we’ve had our share. 🙂 Summer is hovering…
Most recipes for this type of soup use ham shank or beef bones. I use bacon out of laziness but the flavour is still wonderful, or at least I think it is. Unfortunately the dreich days come whether we want them or not. However, I know you don’t let them get in your way if there’s a good walk you want to do. 😉
I’m definitely going to have to save this idea for when our winter returns. (unless I turn the air-conditioning up a bit?) I can’t guarantee I’ll remember the name, but you made the process an easy one to recall later!!
Have fun with it when you do try it.
Oh it looks so good Gallivanta – I love homemade soups and freshly baked breads. This looks yummy!!
Mary, I haven’t done much bread making lately, but I do love freshly baked bread with homemade soup. When I wasn’t feeling too wonderful a while back, I lived on good soup. It was sustaining and nourishing and good for body and soul.
You got that right Gallivanta –
🙂 🙂 Have you done any still life paintings of soup and bread?
Great idea Gallivanta – I haven’t but can see the day come winter. I’ll just have to have a session the next time I bake some bread w/homemade soup!!
Please do. I would love to see it.
Perhaps when I start up still life’s again – which won’t be until winter. But I won’t forget.
Great. 🙂
Gallivanta, and Mary! I was thinking of a freshly baked CRUSTY loaf of bread (plus butter of course) to complete the spread.( Preferably a dura pasta flour to make a really crusty loaf )
Oh, I don’t believe I have ever tried using dura pasta flour. Must give it a go. Although I have to be a bit careful with crusts these days. Need to dunk them in my soup!
Ha, great comment Maureen – who could forget the dab of butter. And crusty? A must!
I like a bit of butter; truthfully a big bit of butter. I prefer unsalted butter. What about you? Salted or unsalted?
Salted!
Like my sister. She couldn’t believe I liked unsalted butter. Of course, as children, growing up together, there was only one type of butter where we lived; the salted kind.
Sounds just a perfect meal for such a day 🙂
And my recipe makes enough to last a few days, which is another reason to like the dish.
Oh that’s so good – the flavour will only improve and it’s such a comfort to know there’s a pot of something just waiting ….I’m up early with grey skies and heavy rain and it feels a porridge and honey kind of morning !!!
Porridge is a staple breakfast in our house. Gets the day off to a good start whatever the weather. Hope the rain will lift. 🙂
It is a great word. And that’s a yummy looking soup!
Thanks Dannie. I expect you will have some lovely soup ideas from your days in Thailand.
i love all types of soup, and yours looks delicious…..and yes!! i’m sending you lots of sunshine we have some to share lol
Much appreciated. We certainly received some the other day. It’s gone missing again today. 😉
I love soup! This one looks like an all-time favourite for days like this, thanks for sharing! 🙂
It really is delicious, Dina. It would go beautifully with the KB’s home made bread.
isn’t Dreich a brilliant word – and so useful! Forgive me for not replying in our exchange on your last post, but I was planning to say in response how rich a language Scots dialect is. Quite different from gaelic of course, so we have three marvellous languages spoken here!! Your stew looks perfect for your weather. In Edinburgh yesterday, we had something which Edinburgh is famous for – all the seasons in one day: hot sunny weather; torrential rain; hail stones; very gusty and cold wind. Ah, Ye cannae beat it! 🙂
It has to be one of the best words ever! And, yes, the Scots dialect is fascinating. My great grandmother used it long after she came to New Zealand. My grandfather, her son, must have understood it, but he didn’t speak it as far as I remember. Ah, we have those Edinburgh days, too. 🙂 They keep us on our toes.
Don’t we all just love our weather!! How boring life would be if things were not as dramatic and changeable as they are. 🙂
Indeed. I think we love it because once upon a time it was very important for us to know the weather intimately. Our survival depended on being finely attuned to weather conditions. The farmer had to rely on his own senses to know when to bring the sheep in for shelter; he had to know from his senses when it was exactly right to harvest the barley……no instruments, no weather forecasts. 🙂
So true. And isn’t it satisfying still these days to look up at the clouds and think – ah, cirrus, that likely means x or y! We can see the weather coming from quite a long way across the Forth Estuary in our apartment and it is always fascinating to me.
Yes! We haven’t lost our weather sense completely. 😉 I can’t see much from my home, but my uncle, who lives much further south, always has a good view of weather heading our way. He will send a message sometimes to tell me what is coming. Gives me lots of time to bring in the washing. 😀 I also have a lovely old barometer which is useful.
Ok, now I am trying, and failing, to picture you drinking whiskey! 🙂 Soup looks lovely~
Not something I do very often. Probably the last drop I had was about 20 years ago. In my youth I used to like a hot whisky and lemon when I had a sore throat. Sacrilege! But, as I was writing, I suddenly thought, ” I wouldn’t mind a wee bit of the really good stuff. 🙂 The soup is brilliant.
twas brillig and the slithy toves
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
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