Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Curried Honey Sweet Potato Soup This weekend I was back into the Collins Beekeeper's Bible and made three recipes from it: one starter, one main course and one pudding. Yesterday (Saturday 12th October) I made curried honey sweet potato soup, the ingredients for which included sweet potatoes, curry powder, honey, garlic, ginger root, a red chilli, a red onion and vegetable stock. Having prepared the vegetables, I roasted the sweet potatoes which I had tossed in oil, curry powder, honey, garlic, ginger and chilli. The smell was gorgeous. While the potatoes were roasting, I gently fried the onion. When both were ready, they were processed together with the stock and some coconut milk. Then I reheated the mixture and soon it was time to dish up. A very tasty soup, improved by the addition of some thick yoghurt. Moroccan Honey-Chicken Tagine with Prunes Still dripping with honey, today I made this chicken tagine. First I had to marinate the chicken pieces in a combinat...

Cauliflower and Stilton Soup I like cauliflower but I love Stilton cheese. Always a good combination. The spouse and I have long since disposed of a cheese recipe book we bought in the 1980s but I remember making Stilton and cauliflower soup in that decade of the big shoulder pads. A more recent addition to our cookery books is the Riverford Farm Cook Book , which is where the current recipe can be found. Check out the website too. I ate the soup on my own, the spouse and younger offspring being otherwise occupied by a significant rugby match. I enjoyed it. The next day the spouse enjoyed it too. The offspring made positive noises but did not finish his portion. Hurrummph! Honey Bakes After a little faffing about, some of my improv acquaintances came round to practise last Saturday. Just as well, because I had baked for them: a traditional honey tea bread and walnut and honey cookies, the recipes for which are in the Collins Beekeeper's Bible . Bee Brief   A few month...

Zuppa di Pesce Yesterday (13th September) it was my turn to do the shopping so I pondered what I might make for dinner and glanced at our kitchen bookshelves. For some reason Sonia Allison and Ulrike Bielfeldt's The Gourmet's Guide to Italian Cooking caught my eye. Published in 1973, this book found its way into my parents' house but I don't remember them ever using it. The soup recipes include minestrone, tomato soup, haricot bean soup, pea soup, and a few broths. I chose the fish soup. Among the listed ingredients are tomatoes (skinned and chopped), parsley, onion, celery, dry white wine, smoked cod, white fish fillet, a choice of prawns, shrimp, and pieces of lobster or crab, and anchovy fillets. What's not to like? I couldn't get smoked cod so I substituted smoked haddock. One of the things that struck me about how old the recipe book is is the reference to parsley and how the type of leaf (flat or curly) isn't specified. Back in the 1970s there ...

The Secret Great Dublin Bake-Off My improv group have continued to meet at my house and other venues, which gives me lots of opportunities to try out new baking recipes. I have begun to work my way through Martha Day's Baking . Two weeks ago I made farmhouse biscuits and crunchy oatmeal biscuits, most of which I brought to a different event. The ingredients for the farmhouse biscuits include butter, light brown sugar, crunchy peanut butter, an egg, flour, cinnamon, muesli, raisins and walnuts.  My baking trays are not quite big enough, so the finished biscuits did not look like the neat rounds pictured in the book. It was the same story with the crunchy oatmeal biscuits. Never mind. The reaction to the farmhouse biscuits was particularly gratifying and so I have promised to make them again for the Hospice Coffee Morning at work. Biscuits good, but muffins better. Three weeks ago I made oat and raisin muffins and maple pecan muffins. The former were not exciting, but the latte...

Cotriade From my "make again" list Last Saturday I made cotriade again. I first followed this recipe by Marie-Pierre Moine in July 2011 and put it on my list of soups to make again. I went about it in a labour- and time-saving way, buying frozen pieces of cod and haddock rather than fresh fish, and using fish stock cubes. The spouse and I enjoyed the soup, but the younger offspring struggled to get through his portion. He eventually admitted he didn't really like fish, only shellfish. I can understand that. Cherry tomatoes ready for roasting Today I made Eric Treuille's sausage and bean soup for the second time (see 10th October 2010 ). The weather wasn't really suited to a spicy soup, but I went ahead anyway, only to be told by the younger offspring that he was going to his friend G-Banger's house when there was only twenty minutes' cooking time left. Grumpy face. Well, let him go off to the cinema with his friend. All the more for the...

 Baking is one of my favourite things. I like the process (usually) and I like the end product (more often than not). My mother didn't bake so I definitely didn't pick it up from her. I can remember the first time I tried to bake a cake. Was I nine? Ten? Did I need a recipe? No. Intrepidly I gathered ingredients and mixed them all together willy nilly: flour, sugar, margarine, dried fruit, glace cherries, milk. No weighing, no measuring, no recommended temperature setting. There must have been a baking tin in the house because I remember putting the mixture into a round tin. I probably kept opening the oven to check the progress. The cake was edible and I thought I'd try baking again. In those days certain shops gave out Green Shield stamps  with purchases, the quantity depending on how much you spent. My mother would distribute her stamps between my siblings and me, and when we had each had filled our first book, she brought us off to the nearest depot where we exchan...

Clafoutis: cherries ready Every now and then during the last couple of months my conscience has pricked me. I haven't made soup during that time nor have I formally said goodbye to any remaining loyal blog readers. Goodbyes are difficult. Decisions cause me stress ... or anxiety ... I can't make up my mind which word to use. I have been otherwise occupied. Soup-making was a diversion from my academic pursuits, but I abruptly called a halt to those pursuits earlier this year. While waiting for certain matters to resolve themselves so that I could finally decide about returning to university or not, I undertook a comedy improv course. I had previously done occasional workshops but this was the first time I was able to give some sort of commitment to a continuing course. The course was different to my previous improv experiences in that there were more men, I was now among the oldest students and a group dynamic was nurtured. Then in late spring this year I leaped into a le...

Nearly Nettled Yes, it has been a long time since I last blogged. No, I didn't make any soups in that time but I was on the verge of making soup at Easter. The younger offspring and I were in Norfolk as guests of the sibling J-Zo and sibling-in-law G-Cro. They have a large garden that provides them with apples, rhubarb, figs, herbs and other vegetation, despite the only sporadic attention they give it. The main crop that I could have used was nettles! I offered to harvest and cook; I even found recipes on the internet. I was quizzed by my various relations and in-laws. All I could say was that I made nettle soup last year and it was tasty enough. I could sense their reluctance. I didn't make nettle soup but I did bake: rhubarb crumble, gooseberry tart, and asparagus and cheese flan. I have eaten soup in the intervening weeks since my last blog. While in Norwich J-Zo and I ate a delicious red pepper soup in a quaint cafe. Yesterday I ate a really good carrot and mint soup ...

Mulligatawny I see it's only been six months since I last made mulligatawny. The first time was back in May 2011 when I followed Roopa Gulati's recipe in The Soup Book ; last September I used The Essential Asian Cookbook . Today I used Rick Stein's India , a Christmas present from the spouse. It's one of those luxurious recipe books with thick paper and beautiful, vibrantly colourful photos. We had all been impressed by Roopa's recipe, less so by the second book, so how would we fare today? Well, those two recipes both involved apple. Rick's did not, so I felt that this must be a more authentic recipe. If Anglo-Indian cooking has any authenticity these days. Still, Rick states that his recipe is on the menu at the Madras Club in Chennai. It involves making a spice paste first and then the soup. Ingredients: The paste called for coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, curry powder, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and fresh coriander, curry and mint leave...

White Bean Soup Two milestones achieved yesterday (22nd February): soup number 170 from The Soup Book and the last of the soups from the Pulses and Nuts section. I'm getting there, slowly but surely. Finishing touches: pancetta and shallots   Ingredients:  onions, garlic, cannellini beans (I used canned rather than dried), celery, a bay leaf, parsley stalks (no leaves!), lemon juice, vegetable stock, shallots, pancetta and Taleggio cheese (you could also use fontina). Cooking method:  I first fried the onions over a low heat then added the garlic. Next into the pan were the cannellini beans, celery, the bay leaf, parsley, lemon juice and stock. I left the mixture simmering for about an hour before blending. I then left the soup sitting while I watched the Low Charioteers beat the Boys in Green (13-10). Separated at birth? The younger offspring signalled that he would be home by 7 o'clock so I went back to the kitchen to finish the soup. I had sliced t...

Seafood Chowder Let there be no doubt about it: I love seafood chowder. If I see it on a menu anywhere I have to try it. It's my adventure, my search for a culinary holy grail. Sometimes I am very pleased with what I eat, sometimes I am very disappointed. Recently I was having a quick lunch in a hotel bar in Waterford. Seafood chowder was on the menu and I ordered it, only to be advised that it would take twelve minutes to cook, too long to wait if I wanted to catch my train. I made do with a very disappointing tomato and fennel soup. Let's just say if you have ordered a soup with tomato as the main ingredient, you would expect fresh tomatoes rather than canned ones. So, back to my own little chowder venture on the 15th February. Still trying to get value out of our various cookery books, I picked on one I bought a few years ago: Complete Comfort Food edited by Bridget Jones. (I used it last weekend to make boeuf bourguignon and key lime pie for the spouse's birthda...

"Penny" Soup Today I made my first The Soup Book soup in 2014 - it's also the 169th soup from that book that I've made. Ingredients: a leek, potatoes, carrots, small sweet potatoes, vegetable stock and parsley (from the garden, even though it's January). Preparation: basically, slice the vegetables into thin rounds. Cooking: sweat the vegetables, pour in the stock, simmer until all the vegetables tender; liquidise some of the vegetables with a little of the liquid. To serve: stir in the parsley, pour the soup into the bowls and make a little stack of sliced vegetables in the centre. The bliss of a day off on a weekday! I woke up thinking it was my usual wake-up time: "Oh no! I'm awake! I'll never get back to sleep." Then I discovered it was 8 o'clock, not 6 o'clock. I began the day in a good mood. My friend Bella was coming for lunch and I was pleased to have a new soup taster. I had the soup ready in good time for ...

Dhal Soup On Friday 3rd January (the older offspring's birthday, by the way) I went through The Soup Book and made a list of the thirty-two soups I have yet to make. Will I get through them this year? Let us see. Following the post-Christmas cull of moss-clad cookery books, I cast my eye over the kitchen book shelves this morning (Saturday 4th January) in search of soup recipes.  Rose Elliot' s Not Just a Load of Old Lentils was first published in 1972 and the spouse and I bought our copy in 1984. We went vegetarian that year in an effort to lose weight and be healthy. It didn't last. We missed meat and we found that preparing truly tasty vegetarian meals was too time consuming and not always worth the effort. That said, we gained a lot from the experience. The ingredients for this dhal soup: red lentils, a bay leaf, sliced onions, crushed garlic, ginger (I used fresh rather than ground), turmeric, garam masala and lemon juice. Cooking: I simmered the lentils,...