23 Hour Vegetable Soup

One of the really amazing things about our experience this time and the flat we're living in is that the kitchen has an Aga. Ahhhh, the Aga. You know how much I looove to cook and learning how to cook in this new way has really been fun and creatively rewarding. An Aga is a stored heat oven that is always on. It makes the kitchen always feel cozy and welcoming. (for anyone really interested in the technical details, here's the Wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGA_cooker ) It doesn't have burners on top, it has two "plates", the boiling plate and the simmering plate. The boiling plate is very, very hot and is great for stir fry, quick boiling of veggies, making yummy aga toast, etc. The simmering plate is not quite as hot. It's good for sauces, scrambled eggs, omelets, etc. There are 2 ovens - the roasting oven and the simmering oven. Both have levels of heat and it's by experience and practice that you learn how to cook and where to cook certain items; you have to decide to keep dishes in deep or up front, on a high rack or on the floor of the oven. so timing the chicken and vegetables and bread can be a challenge. I've been doing lots of cooking and I am really beginning to feel like I'm getting the hang of this oven. and what is so great about it is that its 'radiant' heat (heat radiates from the top and bottom and sides and front and back) cooks the food marvelously and gives it real depth. Chickens come out moist and crisp, vegetables come out creamy and crunchy, bread is lovely and crusty but moist.

And, I learned that you can cut up a lot of vegetables that you'd like to use up, add some tomatoes, some potato water, some olive oil and a mix of spices and leave it all on a rack in the simmering oven for 23 hours (yes, 23 hours) and it comes out amazingly rich and deeply flavored. So much so that my 4 year old ate it right up - even the beans and other assorted veggies that she didn't even really recognize.
We had friends to brunch today and I used the soup as a starter course. Our dear friend Libby (who will soon be 7) told me that the soup was "really lovely, just marvelous". What fun. :)

There are many more Aga stories to come; I wanted to get started on this blog and try to be more regular with my posts. I will also be adding photos soon. Ta!