green soup and onion tart

Maybe it was all those rabbits but I really didn't feel like cooking meat today. Besides, the garden is full of veg, and the weather was horrible so I felt like something warming and comforting. I bought a Good Food mag the other week (October 2011 if you're interested), on the basis of having had a skim though while staying at mum's. There was a recipe for an onion tart (p 40) made in the same way as a tarte tatin, but using a scone base. There's also a similar recipe in Domestic Goddess (p.85 of my edition), so in the interests of crossing another DG recipe off the list, I got out DG too and picked out the best bits of both. I cooked the onions according to Nigella (30 mins, rather than 5-8 mins specified in GF), and did this before I went up to school to collect the kids. I also used Nigella's scone base recipe. The GF one used wholemeal flour and in the interests of getting the kids to eat it, I thought I'd go with all plain flour - the browner food is, the more suspicious they are of it, unless it's HP. However, I didn't use the cheese that Nigella specifies because my kids can be a bit funny about cheese in things, and I cooked the thyme with the onions rather than adding it afterwards which is what Nigella does.

I thought the kids would probably enjoy it, but I was really pleased by how much they liked it. They did have HP with it (Nigella endorses it as an accompaniement to this particular recipe, so it must be OK), and beans from the garden, and it all disappeared. Blue even had seconds and asked if he could take some for lunch tomorrow "but only if the onion doesn't slide off" - he does have a point! I don't think it would freeze particularly well, but I think it will taste OK cold, although as I type, it is sitting in the oven covered in foil trying to stay warm for when the husband gets home.

More in hope than expectation, I started the meal with chard and coconut soup from Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook. I found this recipe the other night - or rather the husband did as he was recipe surfing trying to find out how best to use up his bumper celery crop (!). I was actually looking up the chard & feta parcels he'd mentioned, as they may be the answer to my food dilemma this coming weekend, and on the same page (395) is this very simple and, as it turns out, delicious soup recipe. It's basically sweated onions & garlic, add chard, veg stock and coconut milk, simmer for 10 mins and whizz up - how easy is that: and totally delicious. Now I am not an idiot - just because I like something doesn't mean the kids will, and I was definitely not expecting them to have more than a sip. I did dress it up, giving them each a little espresso cup to try, rather than a big green bowl ful, and I actually managed not to call it 'special green soup' (or similar. I wouldn't tell them what was in it - Blue was convinced from the colour that it would be pea (peas being his nemesis) - but they both tried it nevertheless, and both finished their cups up. I even managed not to try and force them to have some more, but was satsified that they'd tried it and finished what I'd given them. Probably a first for me!

I haven't had my onion tart yet, but I did have some soup with the kids becuase after all the weather today and 2 'bracing' walks (for bracing, read very wet and windy) with the rabbit catcher. I'm looking forward to proper supper when the husband gets home.