Treasure and Get Well Soup.

I wasn't so well the last few days and since Friday was dreading the possibilities. A friend who is often in contact by text message has been looking after me by giving instruction.

Friday he said to make lemon drinks with honey. I did. Saturday he praised me because I said I worked (online) and was happy with my submissions. I felt recognised and appreciated.

Sunday he said make sure you are using the heaters and staying warm (it was very cold). I rolled up in a quilt whenever I could. Does the bakery (on the corner) sell soup he enquired on Monday (yesterday). I found it does and it was delicious homemade pumpkin and corn soup that was crisp in flavour (I could taste just enough onion to create a lovely fresh taste).

Make vegetable soup he said today. I will look see what greens are in my untended garden I said and found a treasure trove 0f thriving parsley, oregano, thyme, silverbeet and beet.

Get Well Soup.
Water in a deep base frypan brought to a simmer and add purple garlic pieces roughly cut (a reassuring large clove is best) and parsnip that is finely peeled and sliced in small-medium sized rings at its narrow end, cut roughly angled where it is large at its swollen end so it resembles the best of pragmatic Japanese preparation (in a nutshell turn and angle cut, turn and angle cut across the angle without too much fuss).

Toss in a happily geometric tube of fresh green chili cut out of a fat chili complete with seeds and add a fat red tube for colourful fun. You will find the result is not a hot in-that-way soup when it is finished (if you like chili eat and enjoy at the end or during).

Trim the tiny baby beets you took out of the garden thinning your (remarkably) hardy beetroot that survived summer and an infestation of something eating the leaves a methodical quarter of the row each day that loved them. (I was happy truly for the consumer whatever it was in my own garden (never seen).

Trim and wash the three tiny beet without damaging the ends so they don't pour too much red into your broth instantly when you toss them in (now).

Find the remnant of last season's best pumpkin in the fridge that you had felt panicky about finishing (for sentiment) and happily cut chunks from it.

Leave on the skin if it's a nice say Queensland blue with a clean appearance and not cutting the pieces too narrowly anywhere to avoid them sogging and falling into the final broth that you want to look translucent. Celebrate if you like with a gracious thought when they cut well without waste by tossing the pieces into the simmering water where garlic, parsnip and red and green chili are looking bland alongside a tiny trace of pink-red in the water from the beets.

Don't throw pumpkin pieces away if they do not conform each to each (delay putting the pumpkin in the broth until after the next ingredient if that were the case so the pumpkin vegetable will be crisper in the finished product and hopefully create gentle traces of yellow pumpkin flesh only in the broth).

A sweet potato you thought to buy for your entertainment for such a moment is too large to use completely if it's a big fat (perfect) one. Peel (perhaps under) half making sure in this case to remove the tip of the end lest the bitterness sometimes in sweet potato leach into the delicacy of the final product you are beginning to salivate thinking about. Cut the peeled chunk of trimmed sweet potato into circles moderately thick and in half and put those in the cooking idly (see what I did there) savouring the look of everything.

Take the zucchini out of the fridge. It is half used and fills a refrigerator shelf front to back wrapped in a plastic bag so is a carefully cultivated giant you grew and have been eating on and off for a few weeks now (what a treasure). There were two bigger ones you gave to best friends, a neighbour or if you rent the landlord's family (chutney and soup) and they are neighbours (and neighbourly). Cut a round from the zucchini. Trim its interior and cut wedges from the circle, each piece is placed perfectly skin upwards in the broth.

Trim the silverbeet and wash the leaves which are small (unblemished was my choice) but a little tough because you want the dark colour really and contrast of their texture juxtaposed against the anticipated tenderness and contrasting look of gorgeous beet leaves you trim and wash as well. Excited now the pan is filling and you imagine (if you use them in cooking) eggs poaching on top of a garnish of greenery, you add to the reserved silverbeet and beet leaves a half a handful of sage leaves and eagerly tear off garnishes of parsley (stop adding too much parsley to the pile because you want only a trace of their cooked flavour).

The delicate leaves scraped-torn from the oregano have to be picked through to discard a few of summer's dead leaves and a risque clutter of delicious thyme leaves.

My basil was looking forlorn so you picked none of it (I overuse basil and have missed the delicacy of Get Well Soup as an alternative to that hearty flavour.)

Toss the massed greenery on top of the glowing, vegetable mix in the frypan and notice the broth is delicately pink-red now the baby beet juice has suffused it. You add some red onion somewhere around the green (you cut roughly across the face of the onion in generous gestures after you peeled it.)

You feel impatient and want to forge ahead. Leave the lid off and let steam escape so the greens will not sog up instantly (neither do you want their flavours to entirely blend, but subtly trickle down into the vegetable mix below).

Clean up your bench a little.

Impatience will get the better of you. Crack however many eggs you fancy (three for a full frypan) and lay them carefully in indentations in the green and put the lid on. Walk away and do something. Put out the food scraps in the compost. Immediately when you come back turn off the heat. Remove the pan off the heat. Let it stand while you take out your white china bowl and choose an implement that will scoop enough of the soup? out without disturbing the egg you target and surround it by some chosen root vegetables and garnish with fresh raw parsley. Likely not enough broth that you can see. Serve your family members portions each and distribute some broth.

If you like a garnish of freshly squeezed lemon juice and a few drops of sesame oil with cracked pepper usually, leave the cracked pepper off and be sparing with the lemon juice and sesame oil. This is a delicious meal.

I was inspired by a photograph blipped by abasu and thinking about how I enjoy the clean look of Japanese (and other Asian) cooking. Abasu takes beautiful photos.