To dream of carrots, portends prosperity and health. For a young woman to eat them, denotes that she will contract an early marriage and be the mother of several hardy children.

One of the main reasons I love autumn is because I can serve soup, especially carrot soup, and not be given the crazy/angry/disapproving glance. Because people in Greece only eat soup when they are sick. Or in funerals. What I love about Britain is that if you are in a hurry, you go to the supermarket and grab a fresh soup and just heat it and it usually tastes very good (the ones I had from Waitrose at least). Many times when I have been thinking with friends about future business ventures, the conversation leads us to soup in cartons, but half a minute later one of us says "who is going to eat soup?" and we sulk in our corners, sipping the soup that apparently nobody else would. So, yes, carrot soup. Clean your plates. 4-6 Servings

• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 big onion, peeled and chopped
• 1kg carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1400 ml vegetable stock
• rind and juice of 1 large orange
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the butter in a large pan, add the onions, leave them for 2 - 3 minutes. Add carrots and the stock to the pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the carrots are tender. Do not throw the stock away. Liquidise all the ingredients and add the puree in the stock. Reheat gently for a couple of minutes. Season to taste. Before you serve, add the orange juice. Grate the orange rind and garnish the individual bowls.I think this soup needs a good crunchy bread, preferably wholemeal.

People are at variance on the point of red food. Some say red food is not real food. I talked about it to my friend Steve and he said real food cannot be red. Not even tomatoes, “the devil’s food”. But this red soup is made of beetroot, not tomatoes. Just two beetroots and other vegetables too, which being of a more inoffensive colour, disappear in the soup. However, it is a very tasty soup, not to mention invigorative too. Beets are a very good source of potassium that regulates blood pressure, and vitamin C an antioxidant that works against free roots, against cholesterol, heart disease and other evil things. If you stll think red food is not food, thin it with some cream or soy milk or yogurt. That way it’ll turn pink. Pink is good.

Try eating it while listening to Beth Orton’s “Comfort of Strangers”.

You’ll need:

• 2 beetroots scrubbed

• 2 potatoes scrubbed

• 3 carrots scrubbed

• 6 walnuts, finely processed

• 2 tbs oil

• 1 tsp nutmeg

• Vegetable stock

• Salt – pepper

Boil vegetables until tender. Peel them and cut in halves. Puree in blender. You might have to do that in batches unless you have a really big blender.

Heat olive oil, add nutmeg, vegetable puree (it’s red!) and a glass of vegetable stock and let it simmer for 5 minutes so that everything is combined. Adding more stock depends on how thick or thin you want your soup. Alternatively, you can thin it with some yogurt or milk or soy milk. Sprinkle with some walnuts.

Magiritsa is a traditional Greek Easter soup. In fact it is the very soup that Greeks break their 40 day fast with, after they have returned from the midnight mass on Easter Saturday. This soup is traditionally made with lambs’ innards and avgolemono, an egg and lemon sauce. Some people also add rice but I don’t think it’s necessary.

I know that Easter is in April but I have already made my magiritsa for the magazine which is always a month ahead at least. So I am used to cooking Christmas food in late October and Easter food in early March.
Still, my version of the soup is fine for Lent too since it has neither innards nor eggs. It is made with oyster mushrooms -so it retains some of the texture of the traditional thing- and all the usual vegetables and herbs like dill and spring onions. It is very very tasty, a fact admitted by sworn carnivores too.

For four servings

• 350 gr chopped oyster mushrooms (you can use scissors to cut them more easily)
• 4 artichokes, cut and peeled
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• ½ cup of chopped dill
• 1 ½ lt vegetable stock
• olive oil
• 2 tablespoons corn flour
• juice of one lemon

Sautee the onions (not the spring onions) and oyster mushrooms.
Chop the artichokes and put in a large pan along with vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and then reduce heat and boil for about 30 minutes.
In a bowl add ¼ cup water, corn flour, lemon juice, spring onions and dill. Stir well and add the mixture to the pan with the vegetables. Cook for another 5 minutes in moderate heat. Season to taste and add more lemon juice if you want to.