I Channeled My Granny!

Yesterday the girls were off sick with a cold, and I can't say I was feeling 100% either.  My energy was low and when my eldest asked for soup for lunch, I admit, I did an internal sigh.
I went to the cupboard and grabbed a couple of potatoes and an onion.. and that is when it happened.  That is when I began to channel my Italian Granny!  Seeing the potatoes and onions and thinking.. what else? What other something could I add to the soup to make it, well, soup.
It was then I had a recollection from my childhood, a flash of an image, a forgotten smell, of a soup made up of the lowliest ingredients, that tasted so good, was warm and comforting and embodied everything a soup should be.
My Granny's rice soup.
By some twist of good fortune I had some left over rice in the fridge.  And as I searched through my memory the tantalising images came flooding back of Swiss Chard and perhaps, celery?
So I set out to make it.. and as an afterthought, grabbed my camera to photograph this humble soup and share it with you.  There is no recipe exactly, more my intuitive understanding of how the soup might have been made, so I'll list the ingredients and how I made it and I'll leave it to you to add or take away quantities as it suits you.

The Ingredients

2 to 3 large fluffy potatoes

Some leftover rice - about a big cup full

A few stalks of Swiss chard or a large handful of spinach

2 or 3 celery stalks
a large onion

a large clove of garlic

Stock of your choice - I used some beef stock.   I'm sure my Granny would have used a stock cube.

Oil/butter to sauté the onions in

Salt and Pepper

Grated Parmesan Cheese for that extra Italian flavour

a drizzle of olive oil if you wish

Method

Dice up the onions and celery, squish the garlic and sauté them in the oil/butter till softened and they have a bit of colour.
Chop up everything a uniform small size, and add to the pot.
Add the rice
Add stock (cube) and seasonings
Add roughly 1.5 to 2 L boiling water

I used a pressure cooker to cook my soup - once the soup had come up to pressure I let it cook for about 5 or 6 minutes.
You could easily bring the soup up to the boil in a regular pot and let it simmer till the potatoes are soft and begin to fall apart.  When the soup is done, use a potato masher to roughly mash the potatoes.  Don't make a puree of it, you want it to remain chunky.
Serve into bowls and sprinkle with Parmesan Cheese, lashings of black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil if it takes your fancy.

A note on the rice.  I used a mix of brown, basmati, white and wild rice - I'd used up all the little bits of rice I had left over that weren't quite enough to make up a full meal.  

But you could use any rice you like really.  I suspect my Granny would have used white rice, nothing fancy.

At the first mouthful it all came flooding back, the smell, the taste.. all were spot on.
Just as if my Granny had been standing beside me in the kitchen guiding me through this recipe, something I'd not eaten in nearly 20 years!

Buon Appetito!