Spot on Andy!!  Nice to think you and I are sharing the same recipes!  Ahh, I'm getting a warm gooey feeling ...........

Oh hang on, that was page 38 wasn't it?  <winky emoticom>

Ah Yes, my goodness it does say that!

But I am not a bloke, nor married, so I guess that lets me off the hook!  Snork!  Whereas you .............. <snigger>

Thanks MJ!   I get over to W Europe 4-5 times a year, so the nearest Asian food-market is usually a compulsory stop!  Vacuum-wrapped paneer travels happily in the suitcase, so I usually buy 2-3 chunks and stick it in the freezer once I get home.  There are quite sizeable Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese communities here, so finding ingredients for Far-Eastern cuisine isn't too hard... you can also get Thai ingredients (the importers are very persistent despite low take-up in the shops), but at super-expensive prices.  There's just one Indian spice shop which keeps eccentric hours, but if you catch them open (2am seems best?) they have almost everything except paneer....  as Antheil said, I guess you are supposed to make your own?   Russians adore dairy products and the range of curd-cheese, cottage-cheese, sour cream, smetana, kefir (mmmm!), yoghurts etc is immense...  maybe I should try making paneer from something that's already "half-way there"? 

But do persevere with tofu...  I agree, its own taste is too bland for most uses, but it goes very well in spicy dishes of all kinds    Makes great koftas, and for the veggies amongst us,  I recommend using it to make "Italian meatballs" - crumbled and scrunched with rough-cut wholemeal breadcrumbs (add an egg to bind it, if you eat eggs), lots of chopped taragon & basil, salt and pepper (and a bit of cayenne to give it some "bite" - I also add a tbsp of olive tapenade if I've got some handy), then pan-fried.  Serve with a nice tomato sauce and fresh-ground pecorino    Make a batch and freeze the rest.

I like Middle-Eastern food, but the part of town where I live is called the "Georgian quarter" - there are three Georgian cafes & one upscale restaurant, two Armenian cafes, an Azeri kebab-house and an Abkhazian cafe (the "Abkhazian Consulate" is around the corner, but the Moscow-based Georgians are completely cool about this)... all within 400m of my flat,  and all as cheap as chips for delicious middle-eastern food.  So there's little incentive to cook it myself,  especially as they deliver (the Abkhazians even know my address without asking, ehem...).    Mmmm, Adzharski khachapuri - stuffed cheesebreads with an egg cooked on the top 

So I cooked the butternut squash soup to great acclaim last week. So, where to go from here soupwise? (I also managed a carrot and orange soup, which went down quite well).  (and remember, it must be veggie).

I'm not at *all* a fan of minestrone soup really.  However...tomato soup w/ chickpeas?  Now that *does* sound something tasty!

Doesn't minestrone strictly have a base of beef stock in any case?

Recipes, like rules, are made to be broken! I`d prefer to think that I improvise Although not a veggie, I have never used beef stock in minestrone. I don`t think it needs it. Traditionally, it is started off with gently frying some cubed bacon with the garlic, but I don`t do that either, well, not the bacon bit. I don`t think it suffers for it, it`s still packed with flavour.