Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Lebanese Lentil and Lamb Soup My soup effort came about by chance. I was going to slob around after last weekend's hosting activity (the sister J'Zo and husband G'Cro were staying with us) but when the spouse said he was going to make soup I thought I'd better take up my wooden spoon and stir. The spouse has acquired a few new cookbooks lately, one of which is Salma Hage's The Lebanese Kitchen . I'm not familiar with typical Lebanese foodstuffs, let alone recipes, but for me cooking can be like travelling without leaving the confines of my kitchen. The ingredients for this recipe include onion, garlic, lamb, a bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, dried green lentils, sun-dried tomatoes, baby spinach and mint. The preparation involves the usual peeling, chopping and cooking. I gently fried the onion and garlic, then added the lamb and browned it evenly. Then I made a mistake. The recipe says, "Pour in the hot stock and add all the herbs." I did, but then r...

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...

Winter Minestrone with Barley and Beans This weekend I have something to prove, namely that this blog is regularly updated. The older offspring was lonely and sad in his temporary accommodation so the spouse and I phoned him. During our conversation he mentioned that my blog was more regular than my spouse's, which led to my decision to make soup sooner rather than later. I chose a book given to me by my brother-in-law "Tod" and his wife "Sal" a couple of years ago: the Riverford Farm Cook Book   by Guy Watson and Jane Baxter. The spouse, younger offspring and I were staying with them and they had a glut of courgettes, which they had cooked using various methods. On leafing through the book I came across a recipe for chocolate and courgette cake. I baked it for them: you couldn't taste the courgette at all, smothered as it was by the cocoa. I digress. Back to the minestrone. The recipe in the Riverford book lists leek, celery, carrots, turnips, garlic, ...

Pause for Thought A month has passed since I last made a soup from The Soup Book but it seems like many more. Christmas and the associated festivities, preparations, socialising and recuperation have all intervened, all requiring their own investment of time and effort. The preceding months had been emotionally fraught as my family dealt with a serious health issue. Other events of significance included the younger offspring's initiation into the business of secondary school, a family wedding and adapting to the demands of a new role at work. And all the while I was trying to keep up with my self-imposed soup-making schedule. So this year calls for a new approach: less frequent soup-making and more experimentation with other recipe books. The spouse and I have a lot of cookery books, a few of which were my parents' and date from the 1970s. I flicked through one of these yesterday: Alison Burt's The Gourmet's Guide to French Cooking , first published in 1973. Its r...

Creamy Scallop Bisque I hadn't planned to make soup at the weekend of the 8th-9th December but the older offspring was at home, keeping his room tidy, and I let myself be persuaded. The recipe is by Marie-Pierre Moine and calls for dry white wine, onion, shallot, a tomato, prawns, cod or pollock, scallops, parsley, dill seeds, brandy, cream, chorizo or black pudding, and chives. One of the factors driving this choice of soup was the presence of some delicious black pudding which the spouse had bought at the National Crafts and Design Fair the previous Friday. White wine, prawns, scallops, brandy and cream can be pretty persuasive, too. Scallops, prawns and blossom fish with the younger offspring's spatula! On the Saturday morning I prepared my list. There was a little breakdown in communication regarding the type of scallops needed for the recipe but we overcame any difficulties. The spouse headed off to his favourite fishmonger 's where he was told that pollock ...

Puy Lentil Soup I am very pleased with myself. It's three years since I started this blog and I have made 150 soups from the 200 recipes in The Soup Book . The latest recipe is by Marie-Pierre Moine . I made it on Monday (3rd December) with the assistance of the spouse. While I was on my way home from work he chopped the onion and crushed the garlic. When I arrived home I took over, rinsing and draining the lentils and gathering the herbs. The other ingredients included gammon steaks, thyme (from the garden, of course) and fresh parsley. I can't remember when I last ate gammon and I wondered if it was still available. Obviously it is! So I fried the onion and garlic, then stirred in the lentils. I have to admit I couldn't find canned puy lentils so I used green lentils. Having seasoned this mixture I lay one of the two gammon steaks on top of the lentils and added the herbs. A covering of water and I was ready to leave the pot simmering. About twenty minutes later ...

Soup Review Mixed mushrooms Since my last post on 13th November I have made three soups: mushroom soup (on the 17th), Thai chicken soup (18th November) and garbure (25th November). All that activity has meant I've now completed 149 soups since I started working my way through the recipes in The Soup Book back in December 2009. Nearly three years after I made spinach and rosemary soup I can hardly believe I'm three quarters of the way through the book. I am not sure that I will get through all the recipes and so will change my approach to making soup. I may make it less frequently and try out soup recipes from other cookery books that the spouse and I own. We'll see. Mixed mushrooms: chopped and cooking The spouse and I now have a new favourite vegetable shop . It's not cheap nor is it especially convenient to get to from where we live, but the selection of fresh fruit and vegetables and other produce is impressive. The spouse has been talking about this p...