Soup

'Tis the season for chicken frames and bacon bones. With the first frosts nipping at our heels in the mornings the supermarkets have been fulling up with a whole lot of ingredients that can only be used for making soup.

I've been taking advantage of this trend because it's amazing how much meat you can get off a chicken frame that's been boiled in lightly salted water for a good fifteen minutes. Certainly more than you'd expect from the price tag of six for $1.00

It's also the only time I willingly eat a vegetable that isn't a potato that's spent its short life being cut into small pieces and coated with oil. And maybe tossed in seasoning. Do the herbs on seasoned potato wedges count as vegetables too? I'm sure they must.

My usually vegetarian averse lifestyle gets thrown out the window as I happily chop up leaks, celery, onions and carrots to toss them into a merrily boiling broth.

Once the vegetable to broth to meat ratio reaches the magic formula of thick and chunky, I let it boil away to enhance the flavour, and because you can't overcook meat and vegetables.

Last week I was being austere and only purchased the chicken frames. This week I went all out and added a hearty serving of bacon bones on top.

It's hard to describe exactly how much better the addition of bacon makes everything taste, but since it appears to be pretty universal I don't think I need to try too hard.

Suffice it to say, mmmmmmmmm bacon.

I now have a second weeks supply of soup to accompany or be the focus of my lunch and dinners. If I get especially bored with it, I do have some emergency back up sausages, but they may just be headed for the freezer instead.

When I like a food. I really, really, really, like it.

In a week, or a fortnight, or a month, I may take my soup out of the microwave, look at it bleakly, and exclaim that I'm buying my lunch instead. But until then, soups up!