Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Italian Wedding Soup   Avid readers of Minnie's Soup Kitchen will recall that on the 4th September I considered making Italian wedding soup because the older offspring had expressed an interest in a meaty soup.  He's just back from a week away in Scotland and no doubt has missed his parents' home cooking, so he deserves some spoiling. Yesterday I baked him a rich chocolate almond cake with orange and lemon, using a recipe from a favourite book, Chocolate by Gill MacLennan. For chocolate lovers everywhere I will list the ingredients: white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, grated orange and lemon peel, eggs, butter, caster sugar, ground almonds, white breadcrumbs and cocoa powder. Now wipe all the drool away from around your mouths and pay attention to the soup. Cake batter in progress Chocolate by Gill MacLennan Ingredients for chocolate almond cake A slice of chocolate cake Italian wedding soup - the raw ingredients As I write, the meat ingr...

Well , I did the course Getting the Bees Ready for Winter in Capparoe near Scarriff and I wore a bee suit!  The spouse and I headed down to Co Clare last Saturday afternoon (18th September) and stayed in a B&B with the kitschest website I've ever seen. The next morning we were well fed by our host - delicious smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. After checking out we drove along beside Lough Derg and on to Scarriff. Irish Seed Savers is signposted and - as with many Irish roads - the signpost for the exact road is right on the corner instead of several yards ahead of it and brakes have to be slammed on, teeth have to be gritted as you skid past the turn, and gears have to be changed! The road to Capparoe is just one lane wide, so you need to be watching out for cars coming from the opposite direction.The spouse dropped me off in the carpark before heading off to Ballyvaughan (he had a good seafood chowder there, by the way) and the Cliffs of Moher.  Wellingtons on, Marigol...

If anyone out there wondered where I was last weekend and why I wasn't making soup, I have to confess I was otherwise occupied with the younger offspring's birthday party preparations (he was eleven last week).  We had to go into town on Saturday morning to do some shopping. I tried to get past the shoe shop that stocks my size, but I felt my feet turning of their own accord. "I'll just take a quick look," I tried to promise the offspring. My lips spoke but my heart lied. One pair of shoes later, we went to splurge on the sister-in-law's birthday present. "Suggestions," I texted imperiously. "Surprise me," she texted back, out-imperiousing me. Just in case she's reading this, all I'll say is there is a lot of pink involved in her surprise. Sorted! A tad more shopping was done before the offspring and I rendez-vous-ed with his friend who was to stay the night with us before the next day's party. Back home and...

Roast Potato Soup  Today's soup - selected this morning before the spouse went shopping - is roast potato. The weather has been lovely just lately and today promised more of the same. Suddenly, at around 8 o'clock, thunder rolled and then the rain fell, stopping again shortly afterwards. But back to the potatoes. This soup contains floury potatoes, which are roasted separately, before putting into a pan with shallots, garlic, parsnip and vegetable stock (prepared by the spouse recently). I am not a fan of parsnips, but hoped that the yet to be added cream, bacon and onions would help to disguise the taste. The bacon and onions are fried separately and served as a topping. This week I was the only one not too keen on the soup. The younger offspring joined his father and brother in voting it a good soup. All three would like to have it again. The older offspring asked about having a beef soup - he missed the Hungarian goulash back in June - so I checked the index ...