Fennel and Apple Soup

Fennel and Apple Soup

This morning I decided to make fennel and apple soup - no particular reason. It looked straightforward. From the ingredients listed - spring onions, garlic, fennel, celery, a cooking apple and vegetable stock - all I needed was fennel and the apple. Off went the spouse to the shopping centre. After a while came the text: "No fennel." The spouse is very pleased with the new green grocer up at the shopping centre. He finds him very obliging and chatty. The green grocer had no fennel, having thrown the previous day's supply away. The spouse would have taken even that, saying it was "only for soup." Only for soup? Harrumph! Anyway, the green grocer explained that fennel doesn't keep well. According to Celia Brooks Brown's introduction to the recipe, fennel will store better in the fridge if you remove the feather fronds. (I hadn't heard of Celia before but she has her own website.)
I went down to the local green grocer's place and "Young Stephen" had a supply of fennel in his fridge. When I arrived home I got stuck straight in, washing, peeling and chopping. It didn't take long to cook.

I predicted that the younger offspring wouldn't like it, but he didn't dislike it. The spouse warned him against being critical. I intervened, saying that when he (the youngr offspring) said that last week's soup tasted "like nothing", it was probably because I had said to the spouse something like without the chicken, the chickpea soup would have been nothing." I suggested to the younger offspring that he might like to use words like "bland" or "insipid" when criticising food that he found didn't taste of much. The spouse retorted that I would still have been offended, to which I replied, "Yes, but I would have been impressed by his vocabulary."

The verdict on the soup: the three adult members of the household liked it very much. It can be served cold too - I'm not sure I'd like that.

Bee Brief

I didn't come across bees in my reading during the week, apart from an e-mail from MH, who is just back from France and still buzzing about a bee she named Berthe. Welcome home, MH!
Someone at Irish Seed Savers rang me during the week and asked if I'd prefer to go to a session on bees this Sunday (tomorrow). The woman running the session had said that there is more happening with the bees tomorrow than there will be during the Getting the bees ready for winter course (see blog of 8th August). I declined to swap dates, as I have other arrangements in place. I hope that workshop goes ahead - I'm looking forward to wearing a bee suit.The tension of it al!
Bee box project: project status - static. I will have to try and pin the older offspring down to a date. Or a particular week.
This is a rather tenuous link: I met a friend whom I haven't seen for a while and she gave me a late birthday present, a pendant by Alan Ardiff. This prompted me to look at his website and - lo and behold - there is a pendant entitled Honey and depicting a bee. The matching earrings have little honeycombs in them!

Tuscan Bean Soup

Tuscan Bean Soup This recipe calls for canned beans (borlotti, flageolet or cannellini) and as I have been tidying and cleaning out our cupboards I've used cannellini beans. I have to mention that the younger offspring has done an impressive job on the cupboards. That's enough about him. Back to me and my soup! Other ingredients include onion, carrots, leek, garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree (I substituted sun-dried tomato paste as there was an open jar of it in the fridge), chicken stock (I had to use a cube as my home-made reserves have been used up) and spinach.When ready it's served with ciabatta bread, grated Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil. So it's quite a rich soup. We've just had the Tuscan bean soup for lunch. All enjoyed it. The adult males were particularly forthcoming in their praise. The spouse liked the "tomato-ey sharpness" and mused that ham stock should be considered as an alternative to chicken stock. Bees' Cheese and other recipes H...

Lovage Soup

Lovage Soup Today I made lovage soup, the second recipe by Sophie Grigson in The Soup Book that I have used in the last four days. She introduces the recipe with these remarks: "If you don't grow this old-fashioned herb yourself, ask around among your gardening friends or head down to the nearest garden centre to see if they sell it. " As I mentioned in my last blog entry (18th May), lovage now features among the herbs in my front garden. As the spouse left the camera at home, I took some photographs. Parsley, sorrel and lovage in Minnie's garden. Rosemary, parsley and lovage in Minnie's garden. I had hoped to add chervil to my collection of herbs - there's a recipe for vegetable and chervil soup in The Soup Book - but "Young Stephen" wasn't able to source any for me. At least he tried. Just while I'm mentioning Stephen, I have to reveal that the spouse and the older offspring claim that he has been mention...

A Sting in the Tale

Nettle Soup I have hesitated to make nettle soup from The Soup Book but last weekend I decided to overcome my doubts. The spouse and I were having a leisurely, offspring-free day in town and I spotted bagged nettles on a vegetable stall in Meeting House Square . I checked with the stall-holders that they would have nettles again this weekend and determined to go back. The next day I was at a friend's and her husband was about to make nettle soup. My fate was sealed. I had to bring the younger offspring into town this morning and once I had completed various other errands I made my way to Meeting House Square. I bought the nettles and some chard and spinach for my next soup-making stint. Yesterday the younger offspring and I could have picked all the free nettles I could ever have wanted down by the local river, but I wondered if they'd been sprayed with anything or by any beast. On arriving home from town this afternoon I put on my rubber gloves and washed the nett...

Minnie's Soup Kitchen

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