Honey, Honey, Honey!

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 combination of chopped parsley, cinnamon sticks, onion, preserved lemon and honey. When the time came to start cooking, I had to brush the marinade off the chicken. I then browned the chicken in a frying pan and set the pieces aside while I fried the onion mixture. Not having a tagine, I put the chicken and onions into a casserole together with stock and prunes. These were left simmering gently for an hour while I made the pudding and got the couscous ready. I disobeyed the instruction to discard the cinnamon sticks before leaving the meat to cook and I am glad I did. The cinnamon was the making of the dish.


Honey and Cinnamon Baked Apples with Honey Yoghurt

The final dish of the honey trio was this simple pudding. Well, it wasn't as simple as it could have been. I left sultanas marinating in calvados with ground cinnamon, grated orange zest, flaked almonds and honey. All I had to do then was core the apples, fill them with the sultana mixture, pour orange juice and melted butter over them, and leave them to bake. In the meantime I whipped some honey into Greek yoghurt and left that mixture to chill. After we'd finished our tagine, it was time to tuck into the apples. Mmmm!

I feel very pleased with myself this weekend.

Book Brief

When I was in my twenties I read The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield. I remember my copy was published by Virago. Eventually I admitted to myself and the spouse that I was unlikely to re-read the book and so gave it away or donated it to a charity shop. Of course, I've had to re-buy the book as my book group is reading it. Fortunately I was able to buy the whole series of Provincial Lady books (five in all) for 77 pence on my e-book reader.

Here is an extract from the lady's diary:

Take entire family to children's party at neighbouring Rectory. [...] Party otherwise highly successful, except that I again meet recent arrival at the Grange, on whom I have not yet called. She is a Mrs. Somers and is said to keep Bees. Find myself next to her at tea, but cannot think of anything to say about Bees, except Does she like them, which sounds like a bad riddle, so leave it unsaid and talk about Preparatory Schools instead. 

And so that's it for now.

Minnie