Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Samphire Soup with Poached Eggs My one hundred and sixty-third recipe from The Soup Book is by Carolyn Humphries. I'd been looking to making this soup once I realised it was possible to buy samphire . Of course, when I wasn't looking for samphire, I could see it on sale in various shops; but when I wanted to use it, it couldn't be found. Anyway, the spouse found it and bought it for me yesterday: "€8 for 300g is not cheap," said he.  I trotted down to Young Stephen's for a potato and a leek. I asked him if he ever stocked samphire, to which he replied in the negative. Another reason I wanted to make this soup was because of the addition of poached eggs (or "pouched eggs", as they were called on the menu in the Italian hotel I stayed in recently). I love poached eggs and the spouse is becoming quite an expert at making them for me. Carolyn Humphries specifies that white wine vinegar should be added to the water in which you poach your eggs. We

Bouillabaisse Sophie Grigson's introduction to this recipe in The Soup Book describes bouillabaisse as "nothing more than a humble fisherman's soup using the remains of the day's catch [that] has evolved into one of the great Provencal dishes." For the mix of fish she suggests gurnard, John Dory, monkfish, red mullet, prawns and mussels. The spouse took the list up to Fergal (his favourite fishmonger   - by the way, that link will bring you to a radio item about the fish shop) and bought monkfish, John Dory, hake, salmon, tuna, crevettes and mussels. Not a cheap selection but only for the fishmonger's advice it would have been almost twice as expensive. I first mentioned this fishmonger in my blog on 16th August 2010 because he gave me a bag of samphire free of charge to try. Today he boned the fish. If I'd thought about it, I should have asked the spouse to bring the bones home so that I could make my own fish stock. The Soup Book advises soup-makers t

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 interes