Poached eggs, chard and pancetta on toast

Ask me about how I feel about the Husband travelling.

Go on. 

I'll shrug, perhaps give you a wry smile, say something like "Well, to be honest I get twitchy if he hasn't been away for a couple of weeks"

A hang over from the fact that we pretty much had a long distance relationship from the day we met, perhaps, that he was often away for weeks, or, even, months at a time, so I was just used to it. I'd miss him, but it was OK. 

The fact is that whatever I say, these days, when he goes away, it's not OK. I miss him, the kids miss him, even the dog misses him. Things always seem to happen the weeks he's away. Busier than normal after school schedules, a car needing to go to the garage, admin to deal with. And then on top of the general busy-ness, we're trying to fit phone calls or facetime in - usually before school & work at the same time as we're finding PE kits and assembling packed lunches - so that we can stay in touch.

Whereas before I could use the opportunity to watch trashy TV too late into the evening, these days, I'm competing with Blue, his new found assertiveness over bed time, and his desire to watch such gems as Top Gear (the irony of mentioning this yet keeping my counsel as to recent events when everyone else has an opinion is not lost on me) or - worse - Extreme Fishing with Robson Green. What is it with 11 year old boys??

He's been away this week, the Husband, and, as usual, it's been a busy one. I feel like I've barely caught breathe let alone eat properly: this week has mostly been a tale of toast for me (not the kids, of course). Sometimes I think that if you got me on the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) day and asked me what I'd choose for my final meal, it would be toast. Sourdough for preference, spread generously with salted Welsh butter and marmalade. Or perhaps some marmite. Peanut butter and avocado (yes, really. Don't knock it till you've tried it). Mushrooms sauteed in butter. 

This evening, though, I managed something more approximating a proper meal, and truly, this is on the list of possible last suppers. And so what if I didn't get to sit down with it till 9, having chased the 11 year old up to bed. This week's veg box revealed a lush bag of 'bright lights' chard leaves, slices of pancetta - and a free range egg on top. Nothing more than a slice of buttered toast underneath and a grind of pepper on top and you have a meal fit for a king, queen, or knackered working mother. And no, the toast wasn't sourdough, but it was still mighty fine.


This isn't a real recipe, more an exercise in timing; an assembly job - steam the chard, fry the bacon, poach the egg, toast the bread and serve. The perfect meal for a multitasker juggling kids, dogs and day to day life... You can of course use spinach for this instead of chard, and bacon instead of pancetta. One egg or two, it makes no odds, but I insist on free range, soft and poached.

Poached Eggs, Chard & Pancetta on Toast

A couple of handfuls of chard (or spinach), any big stalks separated and roughly chopped
2-3 pieces of streaky bacon or pancetta
1 or 2 organic free range eggs
1 or 2 slices of bread of your choice and butter, ditto

Start off with the chopped stalks in a steamer. Steam for a couple of minutes before chucking in the leaves.

Heat a small non-stick frying pan and start frying the bacon.

Boil a kettle and fill a small saucepan or frying pan. Bring the water back up to the boil and pop the toast on.

Crack the egg (or eggs) into the boiling water and poach for 3-4 minutes till cooked but with the yolk still soft.

When the bacon is cooked to your liking, remove from the heat and drain on kitchen paper. Set aside.

Butter the toast, squeeze the chard to get rid of excess water and pile on to the toast. Top with the egg(s) and add the bacon to the plate. Finish with a grind of black pepper and some peace and quiet.

I'm submitting this to the lovely Dom's new linky, Simply Eggcellent - a great celebration of eggs on the Belleau Kitchen blog.

Don't judge a soup by its colour...

Last Saturday we were at a wedding where the starter for the post ceremony lunch was soup. I can be quite suspicious of soup produced in big kitchens, having too often been presented with something that's just too pretty and too smooth to be convincingly 'home made' despite the exhortations on the menu. It might be mussied up with swirls of sour cream, croutons, basil leaves, crispy pancetta, but the soup itself can be disappointingly bland, and sport a frankly dubious texture that smacks of unnatural additions (whatever they might be).

You see, I am a child of soup - frugal soups, chunky soups, left over soups where the original pot stays on the stove and is added to over the course of a few days, so that what might have started out as carrot (mostly) soup will, 3 days later, have effortlessly morphed into something approximating "leek-broccoli-and-chicken-but-don't-tell-your-father-about-the-broccoli"... Soup is part of my psyche, but as a result of my soup education (the whole process of making stock, the addition of any veg that's to hand), soup is not always pretty. In fact, a pretty soup is something to be eyed with a certain caution as unlikely to be of any nutritional value whatsoever. Pah.

I've moved some way from this position myself, and can see the benefit of producing soup that sings of wheat fields ripening in the sun, or luscious tomatoes warm from the vine rather than appearing to have been dredged up from the bottom of a canal somewhere, especially if you're trying to encourage kids to embrace soup, but I guess what I'm saying is that I am OK with ugly soup - and I hope you are too, because you'll need to be to enjoy this one (nothing like building something up is there?!)

So back to the wedding, and the menu announcing "Butternut squash, chickpea and spinach soup". I had my doubts, but it was truly delicious - sustaining, nutty from the chickpeas, flavoursome. There had been no attempt to 'pretty it up' yet it came, green-flecked bowlfuls of turmeric golden warmth. Just the thing after a couple of hours in a freezing churchyard and a tot of sherry... 

Pink is in a hating phase at the moment, and although she tried it, rejected it, but Blue wolfed down his bowlful and declared it delicious. So much so that when I ventured to ask what kind of soup I should make for tea a few days ago, he suggested that I recreate it. I misjudged the quantities of spinach required to provide the green flecking and ended up with something approaching pond sludge in colour, but it's really good - and got the Blue seal of approval too.

This makes a huge vat of ugly but delicious and nutritious soup - enough to keep the world and his dog fed for at least a week, I'd say, so you might want to think in advance about freezing some!

Otherwise, enjoy - whilst doing something to distract you from the colour if necessary...

Butternut squash, chickpea and spinach soup

2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
750g peeled, chopped butternut squash
2 * 400g tins of chickpeas, drained
1 tsp each of cumin & turmeric
1/4 tsp cinammon
2 litres of hot chicken (or veg) stock - I made mine with 3 Knorr stock pots which I love in the absence of proper stock
450g spinach leaves, washed

Put the onions in a large pan, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes or so. Keep and eye on it and if it dries out before the onion is softened, add a splash more water.

Add the squash and the spices, cook over a gentle heat for a minute or so, then tip in the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 15-20 mins until the squash is tender.

Chuck in the spinach and stir for a couple of minutes (there's a lot of spinach so you need to incorporate it into the liquid to get it all to wilt!)

Once the spinach is wilted, add a grind of black pepper and a pinch of salt if needed, then blitz and serve.

Spinach & Lentil Soup

I have been off my food.

Yes I know. Strange.

I had a run of irritating infections, general 'under-the-weatherness', a couple of weird migraine type things - and then a complete stinker of a cold that lasted for about 10 days and I'm only just really feeling better. It's been very irksome and makes me feel like I may not be quite as invincible as I thought. I wonder if it's one of those 'getting a little bit older' things - like the moment you hit 40 you get invited for a health check up thing, get lectured about all the things you know - make sure you get enough exercise, eat healthily, drink very very sensibly... They might as well send you a letter saying you're basically past it and it's all down hill from here.

Generally, I refuse to accept this - that I can ever get ill and stop working quite as efficiently as I was. But then something like this happens - and I do begin to wonder. Of course, as is my normal course of action when any kind of adversity strikes, I assumed the usual female standpoint of arch-soldiering on and carried on regardless, but this time, twice, I ended up in bed, and the whole thing culminated in nearly a week of just not wanting to eat much. Very, very odd.

Anyway, the end of this run of 'struggling on' (as we women tend to do) coincided with a period of the dog also appearing to be quite off colour. Nothing specific, but for a springer spaniel to not want to go for a walk 3 days running, well, reader, I was concerned.

Fortunately, in the end, all was well with the dog, and as I started to feel stronger, so he decided it was time to hit the fields. On a day of the most foul and horrendous weather possible.

The only thing that kept me going as I sploshed along was this soup. I know I've put spinach soup recipes up here before, but this is a definite improvement to the standard, involving lentils. It's perfect for miserable Autumnal days - and perhaps if you've been feeling off colour too, this might tempt you in the way it tempted me.

Spinach & Lentil Soup

1 tbsp oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic, quite thinly sliced
1 small lump of fresh ginger (about the size of your thumb top), peeled and sliced
1.2 litres of hot chicken stock (I made this up with 2 chicken stock pots which I've been pretty much converted to since I won some a couple of years ago)
1 medium hot chilli
100g red lentils
500g baby spinach

Heat the oil in a large pan.

Sweat the onion, garlic and ginger for a few minutes till softening.

Pour in the stock, split the chilli - remove the seeds if you think it will be too spicy - and chuck that in, along with the red lentils.

Bring it all up to the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes till the lentils are soft, then add the spinach and cook for a further 4-5 minutes till its all wilted down, then blitz to make an amazingly green and spicy soup.

Spinach & Lemongrass soup

I know - I have made plenty of spinach soup before, but this is another variation, slightly more thought through than those I have previously posted, and it was so quick and delicious that I feel compelled to share. This makes a big vat of tasty & healthy-ish soup that should keep us going for lunches this week. And it tastes great with peanut butter on toast. A classy accompaniement if ever there was one.

Spinach & Lemon Grass Soup

1 tbsp oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 piece of ginger - about the top joint of your thumb, peeled & sliced
1 lemon grass stalk, hard outer layer remived, based a bit with a rolling pin
1 tbsp tamarind
1.5litres of stock (I used chicken but veggie would be fine)
500g of thereabouts of spinach - I'd separate stalks and leaves if you're using proper adult spinach, but I used baby spinach
1 tin (400ml) coconut milk
juice of 1 lime

Heat the oil gently in a large pan, then sweat the onion with the ginger and bashed lemon grass stalk for a few minutes before adding 1 litre of the stock and the tamarind. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins or so, then add in the spinach and cook till wilted.

Once the spinach is wilted down, remove any big bits of lemon grass, add the remaining 500ml of stock,the coconut milk and the lime juice, give it a good stir and then blitz with your blitzing tool of choice.

Reheat gently before serving.

 

Pork Fillet & Coriander - and some Ginger Wine

So the veg box arrived on Tuesday and I checked out the contents and my list of likely meals culled from various sources in order to put together a meal plan and finalise the rest of the shopping requirements. I was still feeling uninspired and I won't lie that it was a chore, despite being faced with the kind of fresh and delicious vegetables that would normally make my heart sing.

Among other things, there was a small bunch of asparagus - such a treat, but not more than one serving's worth, so I supplemented with the final spears poking up from the garden and made a quiche on Wednesday.

A huge bag of spinach. Always tricky - I love it, kids don't.

A big bag of a herb that I knew I knew, but I couldn't identify.  How embarrassing.

Turned out it was coriander. Aromatic and fresh, but loads of it and I wasn't fancying carrot and coriander soup, despite the bunch of carrots. Curry? No. Pesto? No.


In the end I reached for Sarah Raven (she of the velvet gardening coat and close personal friendship with Emma Bridgewater - not that I'm jealous or anything). Her Garden Cookbook is a real winner if you have more than a passing relationship with vegetables. The book isn't a vegetarian cook book, but there are loads of good recipes, divided loosely into seasons and by different veggies, which is a Godsend when you have a glut - or a lack of inner inspiration.

 
One thing, they can often be quite fiddly, so that even 'simple' meals turn out to be quite task intensive. She also often uses some less common additional ingredients. Thanks to my foray into the pages earlier in the week, I am now the proud owner of a bottle of ginger wine. I suspect that sherry or marsala (for all Nigella fans) would work equally well here.

Pork Fillet with Coriander

Serves 4

450g piece of pork tenderloin, cut into 2-3 cm thick medallions
1 red onion, finely sliced
30g unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
3 large mushrooms, quite thickly sliced
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
70ml ginger wine
2 heaped teaspoon soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
200ml creme fraiche
large bunch of fresh coriander, finely chopped


Melt the butter with the oil in a frying pan, then add the sliced onion and crushed coriander seeds, and cook gently for a few minutes till the onion is soft. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the mushrooms & garlic to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes then add to the onions.

Add a little more oil to the pan if necessary and then turn the pork slices in the butter and oil in the pan for 3-4 minutes, before putting the onions and mushrooms back in the pan.

Add the ginger wine, sugar and lemon juice to the pan, turn up the heat a little and allow everything to cook and bubble to become syrupy.

Add the creme fraiche, salt and pepper and then stir in the chopped coriander and serve.

As Sarah suggested, it was delicious with her Spinach with Puy Lentils (my way), thus killing the spinach bird at the same time, but I have to confess that I also cooked some pasta for the kids. The creamy sauce went down very well whether it was lentils or pasta - and to give them their due, both kids ate the small amount of the lentils & spinach I gave them. 

I can feel my mojo very slowly returning...

Linking up to Herbs on Saturday hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage with the beautiful coriander that went into the dish.