Skip to main content

Mushrooms and Muffins

Mushroom Stoup 


Mushroom stoup: prep work done
Yesterday (12th March) I made Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's mushroom stoup. In his book River Cottage Veg Everyday, he describes this mushroom fest as "somewhere between a soup and a stew." The ingredients include dried porcini mushrooms, onions, carrots, celery, fresh mushrooms, garlic, parsley and dill. There's the usual chopping in order to prepare, but there is also the soaking of the dried porcini mushrooms, the liquor from which is used later in the stoup. What really tempted me to make this stoup was the addition of dumplings. As might be expected from a vegetarian recipe, vegetarian suet was required. Vegetarians should look away now. I couldn't find any vegetarian suet so I used the well known non-vegetarian brand. 

I haven't made dumplings in a long time. The spouse thinks he remembers me making them but can't say when. I can remember making them in domestic science at school as an accompaniment to liver and bacon casserole. My mother used to make great dumplings, usually to go with oxtail stew and probably heavier than Hugh FW would like, but always tasty all the same. 


Mushroom stoup with dumplings
Anyway, the mushroom stoup was very good. Even the younger offspring liked it. 

I love mushrooms. And I quite like Sylvia Plath's poem about mushrooms, which I first came across ten years ago: 


Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air. 
It begins quite innocently and benignly, but it ends with a sense of threat: 


We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.
 
Don't go down to your cellar alone. 

More Muffins 


Rocky road muffins
On 10th March I baked rocky road muffins using Gill MacLennan's recipe. The ingredients include chocolate, walnuts and marshmallows. I had to substitute a combination of creme fraiche and yoghurt for soured cream and it seemed to work. I made a double batch (thirty muffins in all) in order to cater for the needs of the younger offspring's buddies and my colleagues. 

The younger offspring was contributing to some sort of multicultural food fest and his group's theme was Indian food. I suggested that he call the muffins Rajasthan or Rajput road muffins. 

And now to finish with a bit of music. A while ago I mentioned Adrian Crowley and a song called Squeeze Bees. Now you can find it on YouTube. 

Bye for now. 


Minnie

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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

Mulligatawny Manoeuvres

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