There is nothing quite like the taste of steaming hot, home-made soup, especially during the winter months when appetites are sharpened by lower temperatures. Even more good news — there is far more to soups than meets the eye.

Soups, besides smelling and tasting delicious, retain far more health-giving nutrients from the vegetables, meats, etc. than if these very same items were cooked in any other way as, with soup, everything stays right in there. This gives the immune system a good, healthy kick during the cooler months of the year when so many people are regularly down with cough, cold, flu and the like.

Furthermore, eating lots and lots of soup helps weight-watchers by tricking the stomach into thinking — and feeling — that it is perfectly full and satisfied with nothing more than a nourishing bowl of soup. If you like, you can have a nice hunk of crusty, fresh bread. If you are seriously trying to lose weight or retain a certain balance then go easy on the bread and heavier on the soup.

Homemade soups can be simple or complicated affairs: It is all a matter of time, budget and how much patience you happen to have.

You can, as no doubt many people still do, simmer various bones for hours on end to make a basic soup stock. To this, once the bones are removed of course, are added all sorts of meat or poultry, fish or vegetables, or a combination of all these. You can, again if you like, keep the soup pot ticking away round the clock just as countless grandmothers used to do. There really isn’t any need for this, although some soups are, admittedly, much yummier the longer and slower they are cooked.

Packaged, tinned and factory-dried soups are not ideal as they contain chemical preservatives, which the body can most certainly do without!

The best soups are made sometimes surprisingly fast, from just a few, simple, fresh, preferably chemical-free, organic ingredients. There are some, like those detailed below, that can be made in as little as 30 minutes and will, using the amount of ingredients listed, serve between four and six people. You can double or triple the quantities to serve more or to freeze in suitable containers, for future use. But do keep in mind that frozen foods containing dairy products, such as yoghurt, are best consumed within three months at the most.

Soups that do not have dairy products can be frozen for up to one year but, personally speaking and given the amount of load shedding we have to endure at times, three to six months is safer all round.

Here is a quick, easy and delicious soup to get you started and it definitely serves as an excellent welcome to the ‘Soup Brigade’!

Pumpkin and yoghurt soup

Ingredients

500 ml yoghurt

1 full bulb of garlic

1/4 kg tomatoes (optional)

1 kg pumpkin of any kind

1 tablespoon corn flour

1/2 tsp turmeric

300 ml water

A little olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh parsley for garnish

Method

Drizzle a little olive oil into a heavy based enamel soup pan. Remove the outer peel only from the garlic and remove the hard clove base but do not peel fully as the peel adds a distinctive, earthy flavour. Slice, don’t pulverise, the garlic and chop the tomatoes; fry these in olive oil for a couple of minutes. Then add the peeled, de-seeded, chopped pumpkin and cook over a low heat, stirring to prevent sticking, until the pumpkin is almost cooked through. At this point, put the yoghurt, water, corn flour, turmeric, salt and pepper in a jug or bowl and mix thoroughly, ensuring that there are no lumps. Then slowly, pour this, a little at a time and stirring in between, into the vegetable mix. It may be necessary to add a little extra water if any flour, etc. residue remains in the jug/bowl. Mix well in the pan, simmer on a low heat, stirring often, until the soup is thick and the pumpkin completely soft. Serve garnished with fresh parsley and crusty bread.

This hearty soup can be served as a lunch or as a main meal.

Yoghurt and tomato soup

Use exactly the same recipe as for the pumpkin version but replace the pumpkin with tomatoes.

This basic yoghurt soup recipe can also be made using carrots, cauliflower or other seasonal vegetables with, if liked, variations in garnish to include basil, oregano or other fresh herbs too.