I love Random Recipes but for the past few months (probably more, I just don't want to count) for various reasons I haven't been able to take part. This month however I had no excuses because to celebrate 30 months of Random Recipes the lovely Dom decided we had to pick book number 30 from our collections and turn to page 30 to find out our fate for this month. By sheer coincidence book number 30 from my list of books in my Cookbook Room was none other than Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson, which I just happen to be reviewing this month anyway! Total bonus. Unfortunately though page 30 turned out to be the title page for the chapter on Pasta so since we all at times like to turn back the clock a bit I went to pages 28 & 29 which was her recipe for “Happiness Soup”.
I know
what you are probably thinking, what on earth is “Happiness Soup”
and even I myself thought she may have overstepped the mark just a
touch with this one, however the first line of the recipe is asking
us to forgive her for the tweeness of the title. Ok Nigella, you are
forgiven, especially because after making the soup I can kind
of see where she was coming from as this soup is so incredibly bright
and summery it would cheer up anyone on even the dreariest of days!
The recipe is incredibly simple and straightforward and the end
result delicious. It's very light and the lemon juice gives it a
lovely bright, refreshing taste, but the addition of the rice makes
it heartier.
If I
had to criticise it I would say that there wasn't any need for the 3
tablespoons of oil (2 would be more than plenty) and the turmeric
again could be cut down as it didn't do anything other than turn the
soup an insanely bright luminescent yellow! Next time I make this
(which I will) I'll definitely use less olive oil and half the amount
of turmeric. I also have to say that this soup rather unusually for
soups was better the day it was made. When I had some the following
day I had to add more stock as the rice had absorbed the majority of
it but the lemon flavour was a little
overpowering. All in all though if you can get beautiful yellow
courgettes/zucchini's then I definitely recommend giving this soup a
try and see if it turns your frown upside down!
