Minnie's Soup Kitchen

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...

Sometimes Things Go Pear-Shaped As you know, I enjoy baking and usually things turn out well. Last month (16th March) things went pear-shaped when I attempted to make what should have been a delicious, caramel-flooded sticky pear and ginger cake from my Norfolk cookbook . I carefully weighed the ingredients, I followed the instructions to a T so I'm not sure what caused the problem. First of all, you have to make caramel which will sit in the bottom of the baking tin. Unsalted butter was specified for the cake batter but not for the caramel. As I was short of unsalted butter, I used salted butter for the caramel. The other ingredient was soft dark brown sugar. I melted the two ingredients together and stirred but the mixture seemed too thick and grainy, and it was too salty.  Once the caramel had set in the baking tin, I placed pear halves over it before getting on with the batter. This contained chopped pears, chopped crystallised ginger and ground ginger. I checked the oven ...

Kitchen Notes Has it really been over four months since I last wrote up my soup-making activities? Oh dear. I've only made soup three times in the that time: cabbage, tomato and meatball soup, wild salmon chowder and brandied lobster chowder. Preparing brandied lobster chowder (2015) I first made the cabbage soup from The Soup Book  five years ago in January 2010 . On that occasion the tasters were the younger offspring (then aged ten), his cabbage-hating pal and myself. I made it again on 8th November 2014, the husband and younger son having booked their places in front of the TV to watch Ireland vs South Africa, so I was on cooking detail. I've made the salmon chowder three times: twice for the sister J-Zo and brother-in-law G-Cro. Always a pleasure. Most recently I made the brandied lobster chowder again (cheap lobsters in the local supermarket: duty calls) without setting fire to my hair. Cherry marmalade muffins and pamperato I still enjoy cooking and bak...

Soup Review Mixed mushrooms Since my last post on 13th November I have made three soups: mushroom soup (on the 17th), Thai chicken soup (18th November) and garbure (25th November). All that activity has meant I've now completed 149 soups since I started working my way through the recipes in The Soup Book back in December 2009. Nearly three years after I made spinach and rosemary soup I can hardly believe I'm three quarters of the way through the book. I am not sure that I will get through all the recipes and so will change my approach to making soup. I may make it less frequently and try out soup recipes from other cookery books that the spouse and I own. We'll see. Mixed mushrooms: chopped and cooking The spouse and I now have a new favourite vegetable shop . It's not cheap nor is it especially convenient to get to from where we live, but the selection of fresh fruit and vegetables and other produce is impressive. The spouse has been talking about this p...

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...

Pichelsteiner   Last Sunday I spent some time making a list of all the recipes in The Soup Book after someone asked me how many more recipes did I have to get through. I counted 199 soup recipes and ten bread recipes, and I have made thirty-seven soups, including the most recent. So I still have some way to go. At this rate, it could take me five years! So, Pichelsteiner. What is it? The Soup Book lists it as a German soup containing lamb, but suggests that it is "versatile enough to work with pork or beef instead of lamb." On looking it up on the internet (including German language descriptions), I discovered that Pichelsteiner (from Buechelstein, a mountain in Bavaria) is a mixed meat stew or Eintopf (one pot). Other recipes use a combination of beef, pork and veal, but not lamb; the common vegetables are onions and cabbage. The Soup Book's ingredients include lamb (shoulder or neck), onions, dried marjoram, dried lovage or thyme, vegetable stock, carrots, leek...

Portuguese Haddock Soup   Today finds me in the middle of a cooking blitz and it's not all going to plan.  Last week I thought I'd make oxtail soup. The spouse and I had the tails freezing in preparation for two recipes ( The Soup Book's oxtail soup and oxtail braise from Nigel Slater's Appetite ) but as I was browsing through The Soup Book I noticed that I haven't made too many fish soups; in fact, I've made only three out of the thirty-two in the Fish and Shellfish section. So I decided to make a fish soup and the Portuguese haddock caught my eye. Its ingredients include cavolo nero/kale/Savoy cabbage, onion, garlic, potato, milk and smoked haddock fillet. The spouse duly did the shopping, coming home with a Savoy cabbage and haddock fillet, the latter bought at Feeney's Fish (see blog of 14th August). Because there was plenty of cabbage and twice the weight of haddock needed, I decided to make double the quantity. The plan was to freeze the soup that ...

Italian Wedding Soup   Avid readers of Minnie's Soup Kitchen will recall that on the 4th September I considered making Italian wedding soup because the older offspring had expressed an interest in a meaty soup.  He's just back from a week away in Scotland and no doubt has missed his parents' home cooking, so he deserves some spoiling. Yesterday I baked him a rich chocolate almond cake with orange and lemon, using a recipe from a favourite book, Chocolate by Gill MacLennan. For chocolate lovers everywhere I will list the ingredients: white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, grated orange and lemon peel, eggs, butter, caster sugar, ground almonds, white breadcrumbs and cocoa powder. Now wipe all the drool away from around your mouths and pay attention to the soup. Cake batter in progress Chocolate by Gill MacLennan Ingredients for chocolate almond cake A slice of chocolate cake Italian wedding soup - the raw ingredients As I write, the meat ingr...