Minnie's Soup Kitchen

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...

As I write I'm listening to Summer Breeze sung by the Isley Brothers . Makes me feel fine.  Salted coffee, pecan & lime rocky road Lots of baking since my last blog entry. At the end of June I revisited a couple of lemon and lavender combination recipes - Bronte Aurell's blondies and Paul Hollywood's loaf cake. But an absolute triumph was Ottolenghi's salted coffee, pecan and lime rocky road . Oh yes. Make it. Make it soon. Make it often.  Now I'm listening to July by Mundy. Oh my my, July.   July is baking competition time.  The baking competition is just one section of a local horticultural society's annual show. It took place last Saturday. In preparation, I made sticky gingerbread using Doreen Fulleylove's recipe (Country Fare published in 1972) on the previous Wednesday and set dried fruit soaking in chai for my tea brack which I baked on the Thursday evening.  Pistachio shortbread I took a half day on the Friday and set to with m...

Usually I love June. After all, my birthday falls in June. Roses are the flowers of June and pearls are its birthstone. I used to assume that the weather would be good on my birthday and that I was entitled to good weather on my birthday. How innocent I was! Last year we had lovely weather but all was not right with the world. This year there is more to be positive about.  Cranachan cheesecake with raspberry coulis I have baked some very good cakes and other items since the end of April. Exactly a month ago I baked a cranachan cheesecake , using a recipe from Paul Hollywood's book Pies and Puds . My mother-in-law had asked me to provide a dessert for a family lunch and I was happy to oblige.  Orange and marmalade cake A second recipe from the same book was a marmalade and almond cake . A couple of people said that orange and almond shouldn't work and then they tasted the cake. Orange has been a surprisingly luxurious flavour or ingredient in anythin...

These days I am spending my spare time trying out new recipes. Well, new to me even though the recipe books have been on my shelves for some years. Walnut and halva cake Three of the books lingering on the shelves are Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty , Plenty More and Jerusalem . Plenty More has definitely found favour with me. I made Ottolenghi's  walnut and halva cake . Not just full of flavour but also full of texture: the chalkiness of the halva contrasted with the moist baked batter and chopped nuts. The savoury recipes were for cauliflower cake , ricotta and rosemary bread pudding (the recipe is more interesting than the taste), and aubergine cheesecake (essentially, roasted slices of aubergines baked in a cheesy custard).  This year's simnel cake While Felicity Cloake's recipe for tagine worked well, it's her cake recipes that have scored me lots of  likes on FB: her rhubarb frangipane cake was heavenly. More importantly, her  simnel cake  ha...

January. Does it go by quickly or does it drag its heels? Whichever way you think the first month of the year passes, once it's gone the rest of the year gathers speed. It's going by quickly for me but at least I can look back with satisfaction about the various things I've been doing.  This is a blog about my cooking so I'll stick with that for now.  I have followed two recipes from Nigel Slater's Appetite (2000) this month, both in the same weekend. On Saturday 19 January 2019 I made sausages with mash. Delicious gravy with onions and marsala. The following day I made Nigel's hearty and warming chicken stew. Very simple: carrots, parsnips and leeks cut in chunks, onions cut in wedges. Having browned the jointed chicken, I removed it from the pot and added the vegetables. The chicken was returned to the pot, covered with water and some pearl barley (cooked separately) was mixed in. So were lots of herbs from the garden.  Finally the ingredients were topp...

Okay. So I haven't been a conscientious correspondent. I admit it but I am not making a new year's resolution about being a more consistent and regular blogger. In the interests of catching up, here's an entry I started writing last October (three months ago!) and forgot about: A few weeks ago a recipe for chicken with fennel and clementines in Yotam Ottolenghis' Jerusalem  (2012) caught my eye. All I needed was Pernod or a similar aniseed-flavoured drink. Then, as if they'd guessed, the older offspring and his wife returned from Greece bearing ouzo for the younger offspring. I'm not sure how delighted he was with it. Let's just say he wasn't unwilling to let me have some for the chicken recipe. The spouse and I are trying out a new shopping regime: we're no longer driving the mile or so to the supermarket we've patronised for years. Instead we're popping over the road to the nearby German discount stores. While we're saving money, w...

Nigel Slater's sausage and potato pie Where has 2018 gone to? And while it was evaporating around me, have I been baking? Yes. I am not going to write a dreary list of what I've made but I'll share some of the highlights. Back in February I took out Nigel Slater's "Real Food" and made his sausage and potato pie. It was delicious. I used sausages containing black pudding. A little bit fiddly but worth the effort. "Quality!" said the younger offspring. "Put it on the 'make again' list." In the same month I made Yotam Ottolenghi's plum, marzipan and cinnamon muffins, which I first baked five years ago. On that occasion I went to the trouble of making fresh plum compote according to the recipe. Subsequently I've used jam out of jar. Life's too short. Other bakes in February were muesli muffins, banana gingerbread (Paul Flynn's old reliable recipe) white chocolate fruit and nut slice.   Simnel cake (Irish ...

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...

New Recipes Since my last post I have tried out a few new recipes. Well, not exactly new as I have owned the books in which I found the recipes for many years. Except for the muffin recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi' s Ottolenghi: The Cookbook . Couscous with seafood and fresh tomato sauce On the 7th February I made coucous with seafood and fresh tomato sauce. The recipe is from Claudia Roden 's Tamarind and Saffron (first published in 1999). The sauce was delicious, rich and interesting. For the spouse's birthday on the 9th February I made Gill MacLennan 's seriously chocolatey muffins. The spouse is on a man diet but told me he'd like muffins with chocolate chips in them. I knew I could rely on Gill. The recipe came up trumps and was worth the effort of tracking down chocolate chips. For Shrove Tuesday (12th February) I made apple and yoghurt pancakes with blueberry and honey sauce using a recipe in the Irish Times magazine. A little bit of effort but agai...