17 Comments
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Mark Ridsdill Smith's avatar

I made the pea soup. It is delicious. Thank you.

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Clare Heal's avatar

So glad! Thanks Mark!

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Melissa Norman's avatar

Love these recipes. I often used green split pea but find even after soaking for an hour few hours and cooking for 60 mins it is still quite firm. Do you have any tips? X

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Clare Heal's avatar

Old peas can sometimes take a long time to cook and apparently hard water doesn't help. You could try adding a tiny bit of baking soda (half a teaspoon or so) to the cooking water which can help softening. Or if you have a pressure cooker that can be a good option.

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Melissa Norman's avatar

Yep lots of hard water here. Will try the baking soda. Thank you!

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Ceri Jones's avatar

Just made the Turkish soup, was fortuitous I had everything in - so delicious!

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Laverne's avatar

I too have found Jerusalem Artichokes difficult to enjoy. Thank you for the suggestions! I need to try this!

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Clare Heal's avatar

I love the taste but, ooh, they used to torment me. This time round though, absolutely fine. I think the gradual change in my diet over the last few years must have given me gut microbes more able to digest them. Hope you can find a way to enjoy the knobbly but delicious little blighters...

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Claire Ruston's avatar

Yes to both of these soups. (And lovely bowls. You made them? Wow.) At least your first attempt at soup vaguely resembled soup. For my first attempt, in my twenties, I fried onions and bacon, then poured in stock. Done! It was greasy, weird and never repeated.

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Clare Heal's avatar

We live and learn.

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Vanilla Black's avatar

Some tasty sounding soups there. Do I spy Denby bowls?

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Clare Heal's avatar

Thank you! The bowls are actually some that I made. Their slight wonkiness would be more apparent if they weren’t full of soup.

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Vanilla Black's avatar

Wow. That’s impressive.

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Clare Heal's avatar

Thank you! I’ve been making pots for a few years now. It’s a crazy expensive hobby but I justify it as I enjoy it so much and find it so soothing. And of course there’s the endless parade of non-matching bowls.

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Vanilla Black's avatar

Sounds good to me. I bet some restaurants would happily buy them from you.

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Clare Heal's avatar

Even if I somehow got good enough to actually make sets of things that were similarly sized, I've always been keen for it to remain a creative outlet/hobby and not try and turn it into a side hustle. (Having said that, I am working some pickle weights that I might offer for sale.)

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Vanilla Black's avatar

Ohhh, it’s starting.

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