Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Lebanese Lentil and Lamb Soup My soup effort came about by chance. I was going to slob around after last weekend's hosting activity (the sister J'Zo and husband G'Cro were staying with us) but when the spouse said he was going to make soup I thought I'd better take up my wooden spoon and stir. The spouse has acquired a few new cookbooks lately, one of which is Salma Hage's The Lebanese Kitchen . I'm not familiar with typical Lebanese foodstuffs, let alone recipes, but for me cooking can be like travelling without leaving the confines of my kitchen. The ingredients for this recipe include onion, garlic, lamb, a bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, dried green lentils, sun-dried tomatoes, baby spinach and mint. The preparation involves the usual peeling, chopping and cooking. I gently fried the onion and garlic, then added the lamb and browned it evenly. Then I made a mistake. The recipe says, "Pour in the hot stock and add all the herbs." I did, but then r...

New Recipes Since my last post I have tried out a few new recipes. Well, not exactly new as I have owned the books in which I found the recipes for many years. Except for the muffin recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi' s Ottolenghi: The Cookbook . Couscous with seafood and fresh tomato sauce On the 7th February I made coucous with seafood and fresh tomato sauce. The recipe is from Claudia Roden 's Tamarind and Saffron (first published in 1999). The sauce was delicious, rich and interesting. For the spouse's birthday on the 9th February I made Gill MacLennan 's seriously chocolatey muffins. The spouse is on a man diet but told me he'd like muffins with chocolate chips in them. I knew I could rely on Gill. The recipe came up trumps and was worth the effort of tracking down chocolate chips. For Shrove Tuesday (12th February) I made apple and yoghurt pancakes with blueberry and honey sauce using a recipe in the Irish Times magazine. A little bit of effort but agai...