Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Recipe Round-Up An e-mail went around at work on 1st June: baked goods were being sought for a fund-raiser. Great! I was home early from work but I had to cook the dinner before going out. Somehow I managed to make two batches of scones (one containing sultanas and the other cheese and chives) and a coconut jam slice from Successful Cooking: Slices . We were planning a quiet bank holiday weekend after the spouse's busy week. Flicking through Doreen Fulleylove's Country Fare I came across a recipe for wine cobbler, the ingredients for which are a bottle of white wine (this book was published in the days when no one was expected to know anything about wine regions), ice cubes, sliced lemon, mint, maraschino cherries (I substituted fresh blueberries), lime juice and a pint of soda water. This quantity was supposed to give you fourteen cups! The spouse and I had about two glasses each before it disappeared. Very tasty and refreshing, all the same. I also baked a cheesecake....

Pre-Christmas Soup Break It's the Sunday before Christmas and I've opted to have a break from soups. Yesterday I was very busy, what with chauffeuring the spouse (who had come home "by railing" from a night out) to the shops and hunting more elusive ingredients and baking and cooking.  Later today the mother-in-law is coming for lunch. It will be something of an expedition, the cold and ice having played havoc with her travel arrangements and the logistics for the entire day.  The plan at present is for the spouse to go and collect her. As I write, he's preparing the vegetables for our lunch. We're having some sort of smoked salmon and smoked mackerel roulade to start, followed by roast beef and various vegetables (I'll be making Yorkshire pudding). I spent a lot of time yesterday preparing the pudding for today: compote of figs in port and prune ice cream using Delia Smith's Christmas recipe book (our copy was given to the spouse by one of my sibl...