It is most definitely the time of year for soup.

Really that's all year round for me mostly, but even more so in the winter. I eat A LOT of soup, if you hadn't already guessed. For me soup is always a good choice, because...

- its generally quite easy to make yourself
- good way of using up leftovers or stuff thats about to go out of date
- or a cheap work lunch option
- you can often get most of your 5 a day in one bowl
- its easy to digest
- its usually warm and comforting...
- and filling!

My soup needs to be chunky or thick and well blended. Nothing watery for me, I'm not a consomme person.  And despite loving tomatoes and mushroom, there soup cannot pass my lips, another quirky of mine. I find them to intense and rich. Its strange.

Homemade soup favourites:

From Jamie's Ministry of Food:
- sweet potato & sausage (I substituted chorizo for gluten free sausages)
- Lentil and spinach - the name doesn't really do it justice

Simply Vegetarian by Tracy Culleton, Dee Higgs 
& the Vegetarian Society of Ireland. This one isn't widely available but its a no fuss book that I got in Dublin many years ago when I was a veggie. The curried parsnip soup gets a big thumbs up wherever you get the recipe from.

New Covent Garden Food Co - Soup For All Seasons.
This is a book for all your soup needs and its seasonal - bonus! There are several soup recipes for very month of the year. Most of the ones a like best come from autumn / winter recipe - probably cos I love the root veg. They even have dessert soups but I haven't tried these yet.
- sweet potato, butternet squash & smoked chilli
- maple roast parsnip
- bacon, broccoli & celeriac
- pea & ham
- caramelised root veg
- broccoli, leek & potato

I have just discovered they have a book with 365 soup recipe, most interesting, I must investigate.

Jamie's Magazine, Delicious Magazine, Waitrose LIVE, and BBC Food always offer inspiration, if you don't want to just bung some veggies in a pan with some stock.

Ready Made Soup
Many of the convent garden ready made soups are delicious and filling. There are so many to choose from veg & meat are both good, but its worth checking the ingredients for unexpected ingredients - for example milk in best veg soup.

Waitrose do massive pots of fresh yummy soup, I particularly like Chicken & Quinoa.

And smaller pouches (if your stomach isn't that big) such as the Organic Red Pepper & Med Veg.

For tinned soup, that keeps forever in the cupboard, the brand I like the best is Amy's Kitchen for their chunky filling gluten free veg soups. I'd happily eat any of them (apart from the tomato and mushroom, but thats just me).

Eating out - its ok to have soup as your main... especially if its an enormous bowl of Pho. I often can't finish it cos there is so much in one portion & as its combine yourself (for take away) you can make it as spicy as you can take.

Wagamama's itame's also give you a never ending bowl of chunky soup. 

For smaller bowls, get a takeaway from Nusa - I like that its always and easy to see which soup will meet your dietary specs.

All this thinking about soup has made me hungry, I better go eat...