French Cabbage Soup
This weekend's foray into soup-making involved Savoy cabbage, onion, garlic and lardons (I used ordinary rashers). When I was out at the supermarket I spotted pre-chopped cabbage, which I eventually bought when I couldn't find a whole head. Incidentally, after my long search last weekend for turnips, what did they have this week in the supermarket? Only white turnips!!! I thought I'd buy them for the remaining turnip soup recipe in The Soup Book (turnip soup with pimento, chilli and noodles). Could I get my phone to work so that I could ring the spouse at home and get him to check the ingredients? No, of course not. It was one of those mornings: I thought I'd lost my house keys and went into every shop looking for them, only to find them at the bottom of an empty shopping bag when I got home. It's all sorted now. Deep breath.
Anyway, I started to cook yesterday evening at about 5.30pm. The pre-chopped cabbage saved a lot of time, so all I had to do was peel the onion and garlic, and chop or slice as required. I got out the bigger dekshee and heated up the oil before frying the chopped bacon, onion and garlic. Into this was added the cabbage (I reserved a little of it for the finishing steps), lightly sprinkled with sea salt and more generously seasoned with pepper. Having covered the bacon and vegetables with boiling water, I dropped in some parsley and left the lot to simmer for twenty minutes. During this time I fried some remaining bacon and the leftover cabbage. At this point the soup looked liked plain cabbage rather than soup. I dished it up and topped with the the fried cabbage and bacon mix: cabbage and bacon with extra cabbage and bacon on top. The three of us sat down to eat. The spouse was the most impressed. Marie-Pierre Moine advises that vegetarians should omit the lardons, but then you'd be left with a bowl of a cabbage. If I were to make this soup again, I would buy a whole head of cabbage and shred it more finely. If.
Bee Brief
The spouse has some time on his hands at present and so is filling it doing things like sorting out old photos, going to stamp exhibitions and tying knots. The knot pictured on the left is a bumble bee knot!
I've just re-read Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes. A great piece of writing. A contemporary author has written some detective novels using Josephine Tey as a character. I've read two of the series and having re-read The Singing Sands and Miss Pym Disposes, I don't think I'll bother with the rest of those intended tributes. Anyway, the honey reference in Miss Pym Disposes is contained in a description of Miss Desterro, a Brazilian student at the fictional Leys College. She is slim and graceful, everything about her is "smooth and fluid: her voice, her drawling speech, her body, her movements, her dark hair, her honey-brown eyes." She is an important figure in the story as she gives an outsider's perspective of the main characters.
That's it for this weekend. Until next time ...
Minnie
By the way, did you get the reference in the title of this week's blog? Don't freak out!
Bee Brief
 |
| Bumble bee knot by the spouse |
I've just re-read Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes. A great piece of writing. A contemporary author has written some detective novels using Josephine Tey as a character. I've read two of the series and having re-read The Singing Sands and Miss Pym Disposes, I don't think I'll bother with the rest of those intended tributes. Anyway, the honey reference in Miss Pym Disposes is contained in a description of Miss Desterro, a Brazilian student at the fictional Leys College. She is slim and graceful, everything about her is "smooth and fluid: her voice, her drawling speech, her body, her movements, her dark hair, her honey-brown eyes." She is an important figure in the story as she gives an outsider's perspective of the main characters.
That's it for this weekend. Until next time ...
Minnie
By the way, did you get the reference in the title of this week's blog? Don't freak out!
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