February: The Smile of Early Spring

Early-flowering camellia

February 2019 was surprisingly mild. The camellia in my back garden has dressed herself prematurely, fooled by the smile of early spring (a line from Anne Bronte's "In Memory of a Happy Day in Spring".

I baked a couple of things, one of which was a very old favourite: chocolate brazil nut cake. The recipe was published in Good Housekeeping in April 1989, just in time for the older offspring's christening party. It became a firm favourite of the spouse's. I would make it for his birthday each February. As we battled against middle-aged spread the recipe languished in a folder. This year I decided that the spouse deserved a special treat and so dusted off the recipe. We are more restrained than in previous years and my office colleagues enjoyed their share of this special cake.

My second bake of last month was from the Kaul sisters' "Three Sisters Indian Cookbook": semolina saffran biscuits. I had a job tracking down semolina: it was easier to find saffran! Flavoured with cardamom and decorated with chopped pistachios, these biscuits reminded me of barfi, one of my favourite Indian sweets.

Prawn biryani and spinach with garlic and cumin

Indian cooking featured quite a bit. I used Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Easy to make baked chicken with onion and almond sauce, yellow basmati rice with sesame seeds, yoghurt relish with spinach, prawn biryani and spinach with garlic and cumin.

I haven't forgotten how this blog started. The Soup Book was pulled from our tightly pack cookery book shelves so that I could make Mexican chilli bean soup, a firm favourite from my soup-making days.

That's it for now.

Minnie

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Minnie's Soup Kitchen

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