Minnie's Soup Kitchen

It's 7th January 2016 and the new year is well under way. We still have foodstuffs from Christmas: dried fruit, cheese, etc. The parsimonious streak in me has come to the fore. Yesterday I flicked through the cookery books in search of a recipe to use up some dates I'd bought for my Christmas festival cake. In Doreen Fulleylove's Simple Country Fare I found a recipe for date and walnut cookies. I doubled the quantities of the ingredients (self-raising flour, semolina, butter, caster sugar as well as the fruit and nuts). The younger offspring was favourably impressed, as were my colleagues when I brought the surplus into work. This evening I made pear and stilton soup using the recipe in The Soup Book. I first made it in August 2010. I made half the quantity, substituting a shallot for the onion and some lime juice for the lemon. Very nice, if sweeter than I expected. 

Cauliflower and Stilton Soup I like cauliflower but I love Stilton cheese. Always a good combination. The spouse and I have long since disposed of a cheese recipe book we bought in the 1980s but I remember making Stilton and cauliflower soup in that decade of the big shoulder pads. A more recent addition to our cookery books is the Riverford Farm Cook Book , which is where the current recipe can be found. Check out the website too. I ate the soup on my own, the spouse and younger offspring being otherwise occupied by a significant rugby match. I enjoyed it. The next day the spouse enjoyed it too. The offspring made positive noises but did not finish his portion. Hurrummph! Honey Bakes After a little faffing about, some of my improv acquaintances came round to practise last Saturday. Just as well, because I had baked for them: a traditional honey tea bread and walnut and honey cookies, the recipes for which are in the Collins Beekeeper's Bible . Bee Brief   A few month...

Pear and Stilton Soup Pear and Stilton was the perfect soup to make on a busy day. It was quick to prepare and took only twenty minutes or so to cook.  The ingredients include onion, unsalted butter, pears, chicken stock, Stilton cheese, lemon juice and chopped chives. The younger offspring was elsewhere, so it was left to the spouse, the older offspring and me to taste and appraise.  I liked it and the testosterone-fuelled ones enjoyed it too. What more can I say? Bee Brief  Here are a couple of items I came across during the week. Smart bees are facing lethal threat (Irish Independent, 19th July 2010) I'm not quite sure what this Irish website is called but the people behind it seem to be involved in bee keeping and selling hives . Check out the blog. Agroscope - The Swiss Bee Research Centre.  From Bill Bryson's At Home - A Short History of Private Life : "[John Lubbock, a banker and keen entomologist who was known to Charles Darwin] had a particular i...