Soup, beauuuuuutiful soup

After reading about Technodoll's fabulous sounding soup, I thought I'd have a go at making some of my own.

Fry up half a chopped onion, half a sliced leek, 4 halved new charlotte potatoes, 1 sliced carrot, a few chopped slices of chorizo, 1 can of green lentils, 1 can of butter beans, 1 sliced parsnip, a few splashes of tobasco, pepper, herbs de Provence and a little salt. Then add enough water to fill the pan.
Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes, pad out with rice if desperate for carbs.

This is perfect for a chilly British Summer afternoon. Eat in front of the fire staring out at the swallows on the telephone wires who are probably plotting an early migration this year...

Healthy Eating?

We don't do diets in our house and so far we have coped pretty well with eating very much as we pleased. However, we have a posh do coming up in month or two and V has ordered a rather dashing outfit. I think he will look rather toothsome in it but now he is debating the wisdom of ordering a 34" waist. I told him at the time that he was probably being optimistic but who am I after all :o)

The do and the fact that he is off to the depths of Africa this summer has starting him thinking that he might want to shape up a bit so he's started swimming again and has drawn up a truly boring diet made up of equal parts tuna, bananas and brown rice. Gah!
Never the less I stumped up a breakfast recipe and here it is:

Oats, dried cranberries, hazelnuts, dried apricots, wheat germ, sun flower seeds and puffed rice.

Healthy no? Just looking at it makes me feel full. He is out training right now.

But I had better not tell him what I had for tea...

Guess the Impostor...

...If you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same...
from If by R Kipling

Lemon meringue pie, from scratch and from Delia no less... Looks good doesn't it?


Yup, still looks good (forgive the wobbles, I was back chatting V who was laughing at me for photographing my food)
mmm, butter...
and no, I didn't put salt instead of sugar in the meringue and the eggs were fresh, just in case you are wondering...
It just tasted terrible.


moar funny pictures

Sunday lunch

Traditional roasts don't go down well with my lot :( but sometimes I can sneak a vegetable into them by stealth...This is tasty and pretty easy on the pennys too.

peppers, mushrooms, chorizo, onions

sausages, chop 'em up and sling 'em in the pot

add a small glass of port, a pinch of salt, some pepper, some smoked paprika, a little vegetable stock and a can of puy lentils.
Pop in the oven 180 C for a few hours.

serve with mashed potatoes, spring greens and lashings of butter.
We had tinned peaches and ice cream for pud. I didn't need to eat for the rest of the day.

Pudding and the Pogues

Croissant and Butter Pudding
(PS. the pics were added 30th Jan. I just had to make this after posting the recipe up. It was delicious)
75 g unsalted butter
75g sultanas (these are optional - I never use them 'cos I think they look like bugs)
5 stale croissants, I tear them up to fit
3 tablespoons good quality apricot jam
4 egg yolks
1 egg
3 tablespoons caster sugar
700ml full cream milk (or 400 ml milk and 300 ml single cream if you want to play dice with your cholesterol count - I say life is too short to count your cholesterol but I suppose others think life is too short not to)
2 tablespoons demerara sugar

Preheat oven to 180 C

Grease a 1.5 litre dish with some of the butter. Spread the croissants liberally with butter and apricot jam; you should leave some of the butter to spread on the top later. Squish the croissants into the dish. Some people manage to do this artistically, I'm in too much of a greed induced hurry to get the thing cooked and eaten to bother. If you are using sultanas, now is the time to scatter them over.

Whisk the egg yolks and egg together with the caster sugar and pour in the cream and milk. Leave to soak for about ten minutes. Spread any sticky out bits with remaining butter and sprinkle the demerara sugar over all.

Pop the pudding dish on a baking sheet and cook for about 45 min. Let it sit for a little while for the puffiness to subside and spoon into bowls.

Apparently this can be eaten with custard. I never bother as it is quite rich enough.

And for dessert...

The deeply untasty Pogues with an annoying vid. Ignore that 'cos the song is a favourite of mine...

Blueberry Conserve

Well, that was a nice tea.

Left over chicken (from dinner) chocolate muffins with cream and a spoonful or two of blueberry conserve. The chocolate, cream and blueberries was an inspired decision if I may say so. We normally do strawberries but I couldn't find any decent ones and there these blueberries lay, fat to popping with juice and I thought I reckon I could do something nice with that lot. So here it is, so simple it's barely a recipe

Two or three large handfuls of blueberries, rinsed but not dried.
Four handfuls of granulated sugar.

Throw the dampish berries in a pan and heat gently until burst, juicy and bubbling.
Add the sugar, turn up the heat and boil hard for a minute or two, stirring hell for leather so that the sugar doesn't stick and burn.
Take off the heat and leave to cool. It turns a bit jammy if its left to go cold, which is okay, but for muffins or croissants (Mmmm heaven) then I warm it up a little in the microwave on a very low setting in 5 second bursts until desired level of warmth is reached.

Today's leftovers will keep in the fridge for quite some time but they have never lasted beyond four days anyway. It is very good on Greek yogurt... if you can spare some from the croissants.

(Three posts in one day. You can tell Sunday is a slow one in our house if only V goes to church)