Be not downhearted

I made something discouragingly beige today, and it worked out well. 

I felt really lousy this morning, and I feel better now. 

Never say die.

Seriously, I felt lousy this morning. Post-holiday angst, allowing for two days off equalling a holiday, as I think we can these days. (I went to London! Twice! I photographed geese *and* art!) And the news, the news, and its drumbeat of dread - that just doesn't help, does it? But people cheered me up on twitter (THANK YOU, it was both necessary and appreciated), my inbox was fine, and I feel broadly productive now. I went out for a lunchtime walk to acknowledge the New Normal that is darkness before I stop working in the evenings. I have for dinner had the leftovers of last night's prawns with pasta and loads of tomatoes, and I feel cheered by that.

But earlier, in the midst of this low patch, I made lunch, which was soup. Soup lunches continue to work pretty well on reducing the endless round of what-to-eat-next, but having to make soup in the middle of the day is not ideal. (I almost never have fridge space on a Sunday night to set them up beforehand.) So I've got into the habit of prepping veg as much as I can the night before, but doing the actual soup-making at lunch. This works better with some soups than others. I'm glad to say this was a good one.

Leek and yoghurt soup (Home Cookery Year again, bless it)

Slice leeks and sweat them down for 10-15 minutes till thoroughly squidgy. Doable well in advance.

Add garlic, cumin and coriander (supposedly seed, in the case of the latter, but as Sarah said last week, I had them ground already...) and cook c2 mins. Try not to despair at the beige.

Then add fairly limited stock - 250ml or so, and cook for a brief couple of minutes to mingle. Now it looks watery. Ugh. Continue not to despair, and prep the next stage.

Cornflour (a tsp or so), an egg or two (I went two), and lots of yoghurt (500ml, in theory, I think I wimped out a bit). Mix. Take a deep breath, turn down the heat, and pour all this into your previously conventional soup.

Palpable hesitation in this action shot. Beige on beige, too.

Then keep the heat very low, but cook for 5 minutes until rich and glossy and lovely. 

To serve, dill, and in theory also sunflower seeds, and browned butter with chilli and dried mint. I did not do any of that apart from the dill and the mint. I might do more another day this week, so it's nice to have options. But this was enough to make it sharp, herby and perfumed. Very good. 

Still beige. But with some panache. Yoghurt is brilliant, isn't it? I knew I loved it, but Samin Nosrat explained it in Salt Fat Acid Heat - it's creamy acid. Perfect, sometimes. 

(If you love Samin, which I do, she has a podcast about lockdown cooking - not many episodes, but lovely so far: Home Cooking. It feeds my worrying podcast dependency.)