About me

Welcome, my name is Peter Coulter and as you have no doubt realised I write about food, soup mostly. My credentials for doing this? Well I am not a renowned food critic. I have never run my own restaurant or been food writer for Vogue. But I do like to eat. And because I eat I also cook. You can often find me cooking for an ordinary family of five in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.

Oh, and whilst cooking I also think, and these thoughts get written down. You are reading some of them now. So explore the recipes, play with them, comment if like, but most of all  . . . enjoy yourself.

Ps - If you do enjoy my writing you might enjoy my book - it explores further my theory that soup can me made from a combination of three elements or building blocks - the main ingredient, the base and the thickening agent. You can read it online or download it here, it is entirely free and I am happy for you to print any of it out, email it, pass it onto your friends or whatever. And although you are under no obligation to do so, it would be nice if you credit me or link back to here.

A recent reader has commented -

" awesome book (and blog)! the recipes are simple and easy to learn and follow.
thanks so much for sharing! "

 

When I'm bored I make soup - the book

Sunday 7.42am

When I'm bored I make soup - the book

There are two main themes that run through my life. One is simplicity, the second is an intense curiosity. About everything.

Having got to here you probably share this curiosity, so let me explain further. Like most people I like to eat, and because I like to eat I also like to cook. Now I learnt to cook the usual amateur way, from my mother when little and then from various recipes after I left home. But have you ever wondered why certain recipes work and others don't? Why different foods are prepared in certain ways? Why some things go together better than others? I certainly have and for me making soup has become a way of exploring these themes, an artists sketch book if you like, of ideas.

And then one day it occurred to me that to make soup you only have to consider three things, three basic elements or building blocks that depending on what you use can make any soup at all. This was quite a revelation to me and has enabled me to break away from recipes and cook creatively, from scratch. The three elements are - the main ingredient, the base and the thickening. Thats it, everything flows from here.

An exploration of these three things, along with some recipes forms my book (it also explains why my recipes are written as they are). The recipes are all already on one of my blogs somewhere but the method is not. It is so simple that a beginner can quickly understand what they are doing and create something delicious and yet allows endless variation and exploration if you can already cook. You can read it online or download it here, it is entirely free and I am happy for you to print any of it out, email it, pass it onto your friends or whatever. And although you are under no obligation to do so, it would be nice if you credit me or link back to here.

Alternatively, if ebooks are not for you or you would just like a hard copy instead you can purchase one here.

As I write my book is a featured document on scribed - one that the editors consider to be of "high quality and to have added significant value to their collection of documents."

A recent reader has commented -

" awesome book (and blog)! the recipes are simple and easy to learn and follow.
thanks so much for sharing! "




Have a look, enjoy.


peter

An explanation

Friday 10.00pm

The last post is from the inside front cover of my book and explains my love of soup. But there is more to it than that . . .

So you want to make something to eat. You're standing there knife in hand, gazing thoughtfully at your chopping board and a pile of interesting vegetables and anything else you might have found in the fridge. What are you going to do? Well you could make something from memory, something that you've made before, but that's a bit boring. Today you want something new. You could go and look through your cookery books, find something that catches your eye and that matches your ingredients and make that. But of course you never have exactly the right things needed for that recipe that sounded so good when you read it. You will have to go shopping, but you only have a couple of hours before the children need picking up from school and anyway you want to cook right now, not shop. And if you did shop then there would be no time to eat before collecting the children, and it's not really a teatime dish for everybody, so you'll have to cook again. The lovely dish will just end up in the back of the fridge only to be discovered by archeologists years later.

Or perhaps you are a student, in your kitchen confronted by a couple of potatoes, what you think might be a carrot and some spices. You don't have any money to shop or what little you do have you want to keep to go out tonight. Yet you do want to eat, and actually thinking about it, if you could cook something interesting that would feed several people then your friends would come round to visit bringing alcohol with them, and your meagre resources would stretch even further. But you do not know the first thing about cookery. Hmmm . . . . what to do?

Well how about this for an idea? Using a set of basic principles you have learned, look at your ingredients and create something new from what you have right in front of you. Something that will be ready in an hour or less, is stress free and enjoyable to make, is healthy and good for you, and satisfies your creative urges.

It occurred to me a little while ago that this is exactly how I make soup. Exploring this further my ideas developed into a book, which is almost ready for publication - click on the link and you can download a short excerpt if you are curious. Following on from this I thought that if, using these principles, we are going to develop new recipes then why not share them. And hence this blog, a place for sharing ideas. So if you have an idea to share just leave a comment or email it to me and I'll post it.

Beginnings

Thursday 9.19pm

Soup is surely the ultimate food. From the poorest of the poor standing in the street beside a soup kitchen to the richest of the rich at a posh dinner party, we can all eat soup. Be it a hot Mediterranean summers day or a cold wet Scottish autumn one there is a soup that is just right. It will match your mood – from comforting and warm to spicy and exotic, full of unknown promise like a first date. Feeling alone and miserable? Just cuddle up to a bowl of soup by the fire, watch the telly and stuff the world out there. Or have friends round for lunch and put a panfull of soup on the table surrounded by bread, cheese and beer and let everybody help themselves. In a hurry? Make it instantly from a packet all glutinous and full of strange plasticky vegetables. Or take your time, like I will today and make a big pan full of velvety pumpkin soup for the family tonight. It will bubble away quietly while I get on with other things and if anybody is late, no worries, it only gets better whilst sitting keeping warm.