Minnie's Soup Kitchen

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

 Mixed Seafood Gumbo  Yesterday (22nd April) was Good Friday. Easter is falling very late this year. I heard someone on the radio explaining why Easter Sunday is a movable feast. I'm going to list the key words rather than give an explanation: ecclesiastical full moon , astronomical full moon and vernal equinox . You do the maths. For the last twenty-two years or so I have made a simnel cake for Easter - just in case people weren't getting enough calories from their chocolate eggs. My favourite part of the cake is where the marzipan in the middle melts into the cake batter around it. I felt very organised yesterday: I put out all the listed ingredients, lined the baking tin, made the batter, rolled out the marzipan circle, put half the batter in the lined tin, put in the marzipan and topped it with the remaining batter. The oven was warm, I opened the door, and what did I see on the work surface? The unopened packets of sultanas and currants! Too late to rescue it, I put th