Creamy Enoki and white mushroom recipe. Great, easy starter or side dish.
I had a doctor’s appointment late afternoon so I changed out of my ragged decorating garb into vaguely normal human clothes and left work early. As I was working in Newmarket, I could walk to the surgery without the stress of checking that I had the right coins for the car park or worrying about the extra time that I would need to negotiate the massive road works in the High Street. Walking along the street, I was struck by the smell of petrol, diesel and dust for the first time in years. In an instant I was back in Soho (London). Our...
read moreSuperb field mushroom soup recipe. Created by S
It’s suddenly got a very Autumnal. A mist was rising just above the paddock grass when I slipped in to deliver The Chicken Lady’s smoked bacon this evening. S welcomed me in, wearing an apron. “The paddocks are full of field mushrooms. So I’m making mushroom soup.” I dallied, watching him wash and scrape the skins. Large flat opened gilled specimens picked just hours before. Happy horses, paddocks and mushrooms go together. I’ve read about this bounty. Around here every field and paddock is owned by someone....
read moreThe ten minute soup challenge: Low fat spicy tomato and courgette soup recipe
“What do you think galengal tastes like?” My mum shrugged. “I would leave it if I was you.” I was examining the spices to add to our ten minute soup. So I put back the galengal and grabbed a small jar of Massaman Thai curry paste. This includes a lot of the ingredients that I use for our soup all in one jar – chilli, lemon grass, tamarind, corrriander and a few others such as shrimp and cumin. Galengal has a small walk on part too. We don’t eat soup every day for lunch. Sometimes we still eat a...
read moreThe ten minute soup challenge: Quick Asparagus and Coriander soup recipe
Danny reached for the ladle. “How can you run up a soup like this in just ten minutes? I can’t believe that it’s low fat. It’s delicious.” He didn’t mention the soup disaster that had been poured into the dogs the day before. Unbeknown to Danny I had researched soup based simply on a good stock, a few herbs and spices, a handful of fresh vegetables and some noodles. Many Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai and Indian soups use this principle of combining a stock that has simmered for hours with fresh vegetables,...
read moreThe ten minute soup challenge: Quick hot and sour vegetable soup recipe
My night time dreams have been rich and startling recently. I dreamt that my pond was full of tropical fish, molluscs and crustaceans. Bright pink and yellow scallops hung on the sides as I watched small electric blue fish swim between my toes. I woke in the morning exhausted from this adventure and longing for seafood. But we’re back on the soup for weekday lunch regime and I needed to make some while I rustled up breakfast. In the winter I’m happy to cook large batches at the weekend, freeze them and pull out a carton each night....
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Light summery vegetable soup recipe
We should be sylphlike by now. We were gradually shedding the pounds with the new half veggie diet and soup each day for lunch. The dangerous thing about losing weight with little effort is that you can start to take it for granted and assume that whatever you eat will have no effect on your size. Unlike multi national corporations, we didn’t want to grow. Gradually we’ve slithered back to sandwiches for lunch. Chocolate bars, biscuits and the occasional ice cream treat on a hot day have tempted us. “Gosh, you’ve put on...
read moreAsparagus and ricotta tarts sprinkled with lemon zest and parmesan recipe
Although we are in the middle of the asparagus season it wasn’t until last week that I found English asparagus on sale locally. I bought a couple of bunches, put them in a large jug of cold water and forgot about them. I spotted them a few evenings later, looking less than their best so I snapped off the tops and made these savoury tarts. Perhaps it was desperation to get the best possible return on the small harvest that made things move up a gear in the cottage smallholder kitchen. Or possibly the fact that Danny had left a tempting...
read moreFoodies in a hurry: Quick broccoli and stilton soup recipe
Kay who writes the Blue World Gardener blog has inspired me with her suggestion of a store cupboard meal once a week. I reckoned that I needed to fine tune the larder and start practicing immediately. So when I next visited Daily Bread, I popped a bag of dried onions in my basket. My mum used these a lot when I was growing up. In fact, when I left home for university back in the early seventies, she put a carton in my suitcase along with a very handy cook book Cooking in a Bedsitter by Katharine Whitehorn. This little gem of a book came into...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: comes to the rescue. Tasty, easy, low fat leek and potato soup recipe (vichyssoise)
When I pointed out that soup was on offer at Waitrose my mother’s reaction was instant. “Who’d want to eat soup at this time of year?” Well, Danny and me for starters. We’ve stopped eating soup for lunch for the past month or so and now the weighing scales are in danger of collapsing when we step on board. Soup is so easy to make – why does it seem such a palaver? I’ve been working much nearer home so lunch boxes are no longer planned. I swoop home grab some Boston Baked beans, a chunk of polenta bake...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Sweet potato and acorn squash soup recipe, topped with red Romano pepper, spinach and sweet corn
I had the whole weekend off – the first for weeks. Mainly catching up and tackling a few jobs that have been crying out for months. This afternoon, I lolled in the luxury of a few hours to experiment and make the soup for next week’s lunches. By chance the theme was orange. I made an intense carrot and coriander (cilantro) using an Italian recipe as a starting point and also a sweet potato and acorn squash soup. The latter was inspired by a post on a great blog that I have recently discovered. Clare sometimes comments on the...
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{ I was thinking the same as Magic Cochin but then like you I don't have my phone attached by an umbilical cord wherever I go.... } – Wed 8 :47 pm
{ Good point but I don't tend to take it about with me everywhere 
} – Wed 7 :25 pm
{ Doesn't your mobile phone have an alarm setting? C x } – Wed 6 :32 pm
{ I would put it towards a bbq, it's just a shame you can't purchase some sunshine from b&q } – Wed 12 :04 am- { Hi Lesley The clucking means that she is brrody also plucking her own feathers is a sign too. } – Tue 11 :58 pm
- { Hi Lesley They have to stay in the broody coop 24/7. Could you put in a garden shed or garage? } – Tue 11 :57 pm
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