Minnie's Soup Kitchen

What a month it's been! The spouse celebrated a milestone birthday and had surgery five days later. I've continued to bake at a frenetic pace in preparation for an event I'm hosting to mark International Women's Day . I wrote a poem about reading an anthology of diary extracts ( The Assassin's Cloak , edited by Irene and Alan Taylor ). I re-joined the gym (but haven't been exercising there). I completed two panels of a throw I'm knitting. Oh, what a busy woman I am. Just as well there was an extra day in the month.  On the savoury front, I made: ￫ a sausage, bacon and onion casserole using venison sausages from our local butcher (recipe from Fiona Beckett's Sausage and Mash ). Delicious.  ￫ toad in the hole using sausages with black pudding from the nearby German store (recipe from Bridget Jones' Complete Comfort Food ). I love toad in the hole and the batter recipe was glorious!  ￫ vegetable moussaka (also from Complete Comfort Food ). Not ...

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...

I was very busy last month as I prepared for Christmas. My cooking ventures included making three soups from The Soup Book : zuppa di verdure, Brussels sprout soup and kichidi, which I first made in January 2013, December 2010 and November 2011 respectively. I'm not sure what happened to the kichidi when I made it two days ago, but pouring out the water in which I simmered the lentils, rice and ginger was probably not a good idea.  Jamie Oliver's Christmas rocky road I spread the Christmas love by making Nigella 's and Jamie Oliver 's Christmas rocky road. Nigella uses amaretti biscuits, Brazil nuts and glace cherries while Jamie uses popcorn, coconut and stem ginger syrup. Cut and put into bags left over from the older offspring's wedding, both types of rocky road were well received as gifts. A large cake tin full of Nigella's was put to good use at my sister T's house over Christmas.  Nigella's Christmas rocky road One of my colleagues p...

Over the land is April  Coconut and pine nut cookies Over the land is April, Over my heart a rose; Over the high, brown mountain The sound of singing goes. Thanks to Robert Louis Stevenson for the title of this entry. April activity This month I made Chetna Makan's coconut and pine nut cookies. Distracted by something, I left them in the oven a little too long. Even so, I quite liked them but I'm not sure that my tasting audience was hugely impressed. Easter bark with Smarties I haven't bought a copy of Good Housekeeping for a long time so I treated myself to the April 2017 issue. There were lots of tempting chocolate cake recipes but I opted for the fairly straightforward Easter bark recipe . I made two batches: one with the suggested chopped mini eggs, the other with chopped up Smarties. These were very much appreciated by my tasting audience. Sometimes I have to remind myself of why I started writing this blog: to encourage...

September: it's all back to school, sunny days and increased traffic volumes. Then someone injures himself and earlier events fade from the memory. But there's always baking. My fifteenth recipe from Norfolk's Own Cookbook was for lemon and blackberry cake. The key ingredients were grated lemon zest, rapeseed oil, sugar, ground and flaked almonds and sugar. The blackberries were added to the top for the last fifteen minutes of baking. I have to admit I didn't pick my own blackberries. I bought these ones and I am not a fan. Next time I will put my boots on and scramble among the brambles.   As it was the younger offspring's birthday earlier this month I made him one of his favourites: rocky road muffins from Gill MacLennan's Chocolate recipe book. He was appreciative. Then as a treat for when he was in hospital I made him Nigella Lawson's rocky road crunch bars .  Yesterday I reverted to The Soup Book and made a lentil and vegetable soup that I...

Mango and Curry Leaf Soup Yesterday was a sunny Saturday afternoon - our second hint of summer in six days. I had spent the previous evening baking Ottolenghi's marzipan muffins  (adapted - I didn't make the plum compote) and making fudge and  Nigella's rocky road  for a parish  fête . My teeth were on edge from checking that everything was up to standard and I had spent yesterday afternoon manning (personning?) a stall. But, I still wanted to make soup. I hadn't made anything from the fruit section of The Soup Book for a long time - since the 15th March 2012, in fact.  The recipe for mango and curry leaf soup is by Roopa Gulati , of whom I usually expect great things. I gathered together the ingredients: Alfonso mangoes  (I'm not sure that mine were Alfonso), black mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chilli, dark muscovado sugar, turmeric, coconut milk, lime juice and coriander. Roopa gave the preparation time as fifteen minutes: a huge un...