The soup that gets me through the week

There is one pot of soup I come back to whenever the week feels thin, and it has no real recipe. It changes with whatever the market had and whatever is softening in the vegetable drawer, and it has never once turned out badly. That forgiveness is the whole reason I love it.

It begins the same way every time: an onion and a clove or two of garlic, softened slowly in more olive oil than feels sensible, with a pinch of salt to draw them out. Slowness matters here more than anything else. If the onions catch or hurry, the soup knows; if they are given fifteen unhurried minutes, everything after is easy.

Then whatever the season offers. In autumn it is squash and a handful of lentils; in the depths of winter, potato and the last of the kale; in spring, peas and a fistful of soft herbs stirred in at the very end. A jug of stock or simply hot water, a lid, and twenty minutes while I set the table and pour a glass of something. That is genuinely all it asks.

I finish it the same way each time — a little lemon or a spoon of yoghurt, a slice of bread worth the name, and the pot left on the stove so I can go back for more later without ceremony. It is not an impressive dish and it never photographs well. It is just the meal that makes a tired Tuesday feel looked after, which is more than most fancier things manage.