Stirring it up!

Until a few weeks ago I had never cooked with chestnuts. Many years ago I had chestnuts roasted on an open fire  (as one does at Christmas time!) from a street vendor in Toronto but nothing since then. I purchased some a few weeks back, sautéed them with some bacon and red onion and the results weren’t bad at all. The  next day however,  I decided that left-over chestnuts weren’t going to be on my list of favourite foods. Always ready for an experiment though I decided to try making some Chestnut Soup. I opened the pantry and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb chestnuts, precooked and roughly chopped
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 4 slices bacon cut into 1/4″ bits
• 1 medium potato, diced
• 2 c. chicken stock or vegetable stock
• thyme, a couple of good shakes
• salt & pepper

In a heavy bottom saucepan, sauté the bacon bits till cooked but not quite crispy.  Add the red and yellow diced onions and continue to sauté until the onions are soft and the bacon is crispy. Add the diced potatoes, chestnuts, thyme and stock. Cook on low heat until the potatoes are soft then simmer for a bit so the flavours can blend. Using a hand blender, purée the soup to a smooth thick consistency. Use caution when blending the hot soup and do NOT pour hot soup into a blender or processor to purée it.

Dishing it out! My dad was the soup maker in our family and his experiments in making vegetable soups were renowned amongst our friends. Dad could make soup out of just about anything and it was always “terribly healthy”. Although at the time we often thought  “Not soup again”, recently a homemade soup experiment  is often dinner for Peter and myself. Dad would be proud!