My first meat and veg soup of the season, mmmm. Want the recipe? Here goes:

• Take some garlic and smash it with a meat mallet because you’ve temporarily misplaced the garlic crusher
• Dice some onion, realising only then that it’s the last one you have. Make mental note to buy more.
• Ignore the expiry date on the open packet of barley. Pour some with a handful of yellow split peas into a strainer and rinse.
• Heat olive oil in saucepan, add garlic and onion, saute. Chop carrot and zucchini, add to pan with split peas and barley.
• Add stock. Exclaim ‘Oh shit I forgot to make stock’. Sort through unlabelled cubes of stock in cupboard, sniff out the vegetable cube. Recoil from foul smelling, out of date fish stock cube. Make mental note to throw it away before placing it back in cupboard.
• Add stock, lamb bones and meat. Sort through fridge in order to locate any other almost turned vegetables that need using. Discover pumpkin turning mouldy. Exclaim ‘Oh shit, I was going to make pumpkin soup with that.’ Think, what the hell, I’m in the kitchen anyway.
• Leave lamb and veg masterpiece to simmer. Begin making pumpkin soup.
• Make vegetable stock—congratulate self on forethought—chop pumpkin and potato and put in saucepan with stock. Bring to boil.
• Suddenly recall once upon a time making a thai inspired pumpkin and roasted capsicum soup that was delish. Find the almost ready to turn capsicum, cut into slices and baste with mixture of thai spices, lemon juice and oil. Decide to roast some garlic too. Baste, place it all under the grill.
• Make mental note to check in three mintues. Who needs a timer? Your brain is a timer.
• Get distracted by recently downloaded 80s power ballad (music is mandatory during all cooking experiments). Dance around living room singing ‘The beat of my heart is a drum and it’s lost and it’s looking for a rhythm like you…’ while mystified children look on. Respond to eldest’s deadpan request ‘Can’t we listen to P!nk?’ with heated lecture on the importance of understanding our musical history and respecting everyone’s taste in tunes, even those Nikki Menaj fans… actually not the Nikki Menaj fans, those people ought to know better. But don’t diss the guilty pleasure your mother takes in Air Supply classics…
• What’s that smell?

burned the garlic

• The capsicum survived. The garlic was not so lucky.
• Make mental note to start using actual notes as mental mental notes are just…mental. Your brain is, as it turns out, not as good as a timer or a post it.
• Wonder if it’s too early for wine. 11:58am, so… no.
• Just kidding. Too early for wine.
• Leave master creations to simmer, make a salami sandwich and write a blog post.
• Listen to more Air Supply and refuse to feel ashamed
• Consider applying for the next season of Masterchef. How hard can it be?

Try it yourself at home. The soup’s delish.

Sami