This weekend I decided that cawl sounded like a great lunch idea, so I wrote down the ingredients and went shopping.  The bright side is that I made a good tasting soup.  The down side is that it’s not quite a traditional cawl.  Some of my changes:

1. I couldn’t find parsnips, so I substituted some rootabagas.
2. I grabbed what I thought was a red turnip, but turned out to be a beet.
3. The store was out of savoy cabbage, so I subbed in some radicchio.
4. I subbed one of the leeks with a spring onion.

So, while not “classic,” it’s still pretty good (it was my first attempt at a lamb stock using bones and that came out wonderfully).  Next time I’ll have to do my best to dig up the right ingredients!  I will admit, though… it is a pretty shade of red.