Beetroot & orange consommé

Here is a further recipe from my mother's book. I include it more for historical interest. I cannot contemplate my mother using orange juice or arrow-root in any recipe from 1980 onwards...

"Cut up one large raw beetroot and two onions. Cook them gently in butter for 5 minutes. Add two beef stock cubes in one pint water. Bring to boil and simmer until beetroot is pale. Strain. Add 1/4 pint orange juice, 1 tablespoon arrow-root to thicken, a little hot pepper sauce, freshly ground pepper to taste."

Chilled soup

I recently received a marketing e-mail from Waitrose which included the headline "An exclusive 25% off chilled soups". Below, it read: "Soup is the perfect comfort food to cheer up a chilly autumn day. That's why we're offering myWaitrose members 25% off all chilled soups until 7 October". Apart from the flawed logic, it is the misuse of "chilled" to which I object. Presumably, they are referring to soup which is served hot but sold from their refrigerators rather than in a tin or a packet. But to me "chilled soup" conjures up Gazpacho and Vichyssoise - perfect Summer soups but not, I suspect, what the marketeers had in mind. As a matter of fact, I'll happily eat Gazpacho all year round: and, in fairness to Waitrose, having criticised their use of language, they are the only supermarket in the land which sell Gazpacho (Alvalle is the brand) that bears any resemblance to what you can get in Spain.

My uncle Alex has a novel way if Gazpacho is ever on the menu at any dinner party he attends. He asks for it to be put in the microwave. Cold soup, in his view, is unacceptable.

In my mother's recipe book is a recipe for "Strawberry Gazpacho". I reproduce it below:

1/2 lb strawberries
1 teaspoon tabasco
1 tin beef consommé
1/4 pint orange juice
2 cucumbers
Salt and pepper
Blend in food processor.

I have not tried it, and must confess I would feel slightly wary about doing so. Beef consommé and orange juice? Hmmm.

There is a further recipe for another chilled soup on the same page:

Beetroot consommé

Boil pieces of raw beetroot, carrots, onions, potato and stock cube. Make up with one packet of Madeira aspic. Serve chilled with sour cream.