Minnie's Soup Kitchen

January started off at its usual crawl then got a wiggle on. I didn't do too much out of the culinary ordinary for the first half of the month.  I found a recipe for a marmalade fruit cake that I remembered making years ago. The recipe turned out to be in our old M&S cookery book, bought in 1983. Not an exciting recipe but it was a good way of using up some rather dull shop-bought marmalade. (As an aside, I thought my handful of readers might be interested in the spouse's marmalade venture . He even designed his own jar labels.)  Muttleys with cheese and walnut scones and fruit scones Later in the month I travelled to North-East England to look after my youngest sibling (I can't remember my earlier pseudonym for her so I'll call her "T Rex" for now). She broke her leg before Christmas and is enduring enforced rest at home. Anyway, my other sister J'Zo gallantly took care of T Rex for ten days then I jetted over for five days. It gave me a grea...

Cabbage Patched with Pork Banana gingerbread I first made French cabbage soup ( The Soup Book recipe) in October 2012 and on checking my blog entry I see that I was not impressed with it. I made it again last week but this time I served it with fried slices of pork steak which I had coated with sun-dried tomato paste. It was a good combination: the tomato paste helped to disguise the blandness of the soup. Medley of Gingerbread, Muffins and Chocolate Slice Baking is still my favourite activity. I recently made Paul Flynn's banana gingerbread - a favourite in this house for many years. Sometimes I make things because I have an ingredient I want to use up before its expiry date. For example, a packet of muesli has been languishing in a cupboard so I made muffins with it. They weren't too sweet and were well received both at home and at work. Muesli muffins Next I was under orders from a colleague to make something nice for her before she gave up goodies f...

Root Vegetable Soup Chopped vegetables coated in oil and ready for roasting What else would you do on a cool May bank holiday weekend except make soup? This roasted root vegetable soup from Complete Comfort Food looked interesting. Lots of vegetables to be prepared: butternut squash, onions, leeks, turnip (swede), parsnip (yes, I hate them but surely one parsnip would be overwhelmed by the other ingredients) and carrots. Prep work done and bay leaves, rosemary and thyme interspersed, I popped the vegetables into the oven to roast. I had to leave the house for a few minutes and when I re-entered, the aroma of rosemary rose to greet me. Mmmm!  Roasted vegetable soup with creme fraiche and cayenne When softened, I simmered the vegetables in stock and then liquidised them. The soup was a little too thick. We ate it with a dollop of creme fraiche sprinkled with cayenne pepper. A little bland, I thought, but the spouse and younger offspring were very pleased.  Pea...

Banana and Cranberry Muffins  Banana & cranberry muffins In recent weeks I have been particularly busy at work and yesterday (Saturday 23rd April) I allowed myself the indulgence of going around in my dressing gown all morning. I felt a little guilty about not making much progress on my list of soup and baking recipes and so was easily prompted by the sight of three blackening bananas into baking muffins. In addition some dried cranberries were approaching their "best before" date and I decided to substitute them for the raisins mentioned in the Martha Day recipe. Brown sugar and sunflower oil helped me to feel they weren't too unhealthy. I had one today on return from the gym and a 10k cycle with the spouse.  Benson Revisited Another indulgence I'm allowing myself is a re-reading of E F Benson's Secret Lives, which I first bought and read in March 1985. And I have just this minute discovered that it was dramatised for radio by the BBC ! Why did no ...

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...