Soup of the week ... Parsnip and Ginger

This is almost unheard of but I have nearly 2 hours to myself, and THEN a hair cut booked. On a Saturday. So I’ve walked the dog, and done the washing up from last night, sorted out the washing and completed (in case you were worried that I was being all efficient there, please understand that ‘completed’ has a fairly loose meaning) my menu planner for the next couple of weeks. I’ve started compiling the shopping list (first shop of the month – the BIG one) and retrieved some bread from the freezer (the last sourdough loaf) for lunch. So that took care of the first hour or so.

Fortunately, apart from making sure the bread was out of the freezer, lunch is pretty much sorted due to my new ‘soup of the week’ regime, which is proving very popular (well, it is for me anyway). I make a batch of proper soup on a Friday night which will feed us over the weekend and then provide enough to be frozen in portions for the Husband to take to work with him for lunch.

Take last week. Soup of the week was Mexican Tomato and Bean. Along with some portions left over from other weeks, he had a veritable feast of soups throughout the week. That, some left over roast root frittata (on Tuesday) and the game pie that he made a couple of weeks ago which also got frozen into portions, along with the beetroot variation of the Pumpkin and raisin tealoaf also out of Veg Everyday - I was really quite jealous assembling his lunches. To be honest, anything that reduces the amount of sandwich making to be done has to be a bonus, but the flaw is that he gets the good stuff, and I go fridge diving every day. Sometimes this is good – it all depends on what we ate at the weekend.

Last weekend was a Veg Everyday triumph (ish). So my lunches this week have mainly been fusion soup, which in this case involved left over ‘3 root boulangere’, left over ‘steamed greens with a hint of garlic’ whooshed (technical term for what my ‘stickblender’ does) and some extra stock, then some left over leeks added in on Tuesday – more whooshing. It was rather tasty.
Soup of the Week this week is another new one for me – back to Veg Everyday and the Hefty Soups section – Parsnip and ginger. I’m definitely liking this section of Veg Everyday, and this soup is looking good. I have used ginger with butternut squash before, but haven’t really thought of parsnip as anything other than something to roast, although I do recall a parsnip risotto somewhere in the dim and distant past.

I had to grind up some cardamom seeds for the ‘ground cardamom’ specified, but otherwise, the ingredients are fairly standard store-cupboard stuff. I do usually have root ginger in the freezer because I got fed up of being told that I should have once too often. My major breakthrough has been to peel it before freezing it in chunks, because trying to peel it when frozen is a recipe for losing fingers but once it’s defrosted it just goes to a mush, and it’s all I can do to chop it up/grate it (or whatever is required) without worrying about peeling it too.

Back to the soup. Very easy to make – just a chop fry and simmer job, and I will do the finishing off with milk at lunchtime today. I suspect that the addition of cayenne may make it slightly too spicy for Pink, but I have decided to give it a go. Hopefully, then this will feed us for lunch today and due to other activities this weekend will give us plenty for the week. Who knows, I might even get some this time!

G&T time - but not before I tell you about these chocolate muffins

I was mentally trying to review the day ahead over breakfast this morning with half an ear on the children’s conversation. They’re big on jokes at the moment and Blue in particular is trying to push the comedy boundaries

“What do you canaries eat for breakfast” “Tweetabix!”

“What do you get if you run a canary over with a lawnmower” “Shredded Tweet!”

“What do you get if you run a banana skin over with a lawnmower” “Slippery gears” then (rather despondent) “That’s not really funny is it mummy?” “Well, not really, love, but it’s a good try.”

It’s hard being 8.

“Mummy” “Yeeessss” “What if I really did have a lawnmower, and there really was a banana skin and I revved it up really hard – vvvrrrroooommmmmmm - and it went racing over the banana skin?”

cup of tea - necessary when listening to Blue's jokes
www.samanthabarnes.co.uk

Too early.

So where was I? Oh yes, reviewing the day. With a cup of tea.

I remembered that I’d had a vague arrangement to see a friend for coffee. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to be able to fit it in during school hours, but that I could invite her and her boys over for tea. Quick text, job done. Now, what are we going to eat?

Nigella’s fabulous marmite spaghetti was already on the menu for the kids – easy to double, no problem, slice up some carrots and cucumber, add a few cherry tomatoes (with lots of added food miles) -  but what for pudding? I still have some of Hugh’s pumpkin and raisin tea loaf left over (although I made the beetroot variation – I couldn’t resist the promised purple marbling, and it didn’t disappoint, although I’d say not so much purple marbling as pink flecking). Blue and Pink have been enjoying it in their lunch boxes all week (really, they have – Pink, who will often survive a day at school on half a slice of cucumber and a few crumbs of oatcake regardless of what delights I put in to tempt her, has eaten a whole slice every day – amazing when you consider (1) that normally she won’t touch beetroot with a bargepole and (2) how much giggling and whispering time eating a whole slice must take up). However, I’m not sure it’s the kind of thing I would offer up as pudding to guests. Especially discerning guests of the 7 & 5 yr old boy kind.

I had a quick flick through Kitchen, and then reached for Dan. Muffins had occurred to me, and when I saw this recipe, I couldn’t resist. It also appeared that I already had everything required in the cupboard apart from eggs which I was going to have to buy anyway. Excellent.

Having completed the daily beasting that is making sure the kids are dressed and ready for school, and having kissed Blue goodbye (he walks to school on his own – I bite my nails every morning) I had a few minutes (have to give him a head start) so decided to be super-organised and get everything lined up and ready to go so that I could whip up the muffins while I was making my coffee and before settling down to the day’s work . While doing this, I realised that we didn’t have enough cornflour, but given the recipe decided that custard powder would probably do in its place, and headed out the door, Pink and the dog in tow.

After a glorious walk  – bright blue skies, crisp frosty morning, dog basically behaved – I got home with my eggs and some vegetable oil, and set to. I’ve never made muffins this way before, basically making a chocolate custard then beating in eggs and sifting the flour on top and beating in – and I was worried that they might be quite dense, but after the requisite 25 minutes, they looked risen and cooked and smelled divine.

out of the oven and looking good!

treacle chocolate fudge frosting

I had to put off the frosting till after pick up this afternoon. But work, another dog walk and dealing with the fall out of a busy week at school on the 15 minute walk home, had at least given me the time to decide between meringue butter cream and treacle chocolate fudge. More custard (again custard powder instead of cornflour, this time with treacle) and not quite enough dark chocolate, plus some butter and vanilla extract, and bingo. Treacel chocolate fudge frosting. Divine doesn’t begin to describe it.

I have to say that I couldn’t wait – in the interests of deciding whether they were the best chocolate muffin I would ever eat, I had to try them. Reader, I was not disappointed. If I was going to make any adjustments, I might include some chocolate chips, rather than just melting the chocolate in to the custard when making the muffins, but they weren’t heavy, and the frosting went beautifully.

Did I mention that my friend and her boys couldn’t make it after all? All the more for us!

a better cup of tea - one with a muffin attached

It would be a good thing if being annoyed with a recipe used up all the calories that were in it...

I made another batch of the lovely Dan Lepard’s honey and multiseed bread (or is that Dan Lepard’s lovely honey and multiseed loaf) – double quantities based on the success of the first batch. It turned out just as yummy.

However, if anyone else is feeling inspired, I wanted to flag something very important – a health warning that no recipe book will ever carry, but really should in such cases. Here it is:

“This recipe will make you very, very sticky and very, very messy, and also a little bit wound up. You will doubt yourself and the person who wrote the recipe. You will want to add more flour. You may shout at your children when they try to help, and there may be language. But then the bread will be very delicious and you will forget all about it. Until the next time – because there will be a next time because the result was so delicious. And then you will remember all over again.”

That last bit is very important. That bit about forgetting. True, when I made this loaf the first time, I wasn’t really concentrating, mainly because I was hoping that I might get a beautifully risen loaf of wholemeal (I was doing 2 different recipes at the same time). I was also trying to make tea. As I re-read the recipe, alarm bells did vaguely ring – the bit that says ‘mix it all into a sticky dough’ (or something like that) – but clearly not loudly enough.

I had it all timed in my head – the various kneadings and restings, but frankly after the first knead the kitchen and I were covered in dough, and the dog had disappeared under the dining room table – usually a place he only frequents when the hoover is out. I think the wetness does improve the finished loaf, but it is a complete pain to work by hand, and I may well resort to the Kenwood next time.

Not quite in the same vein, but it’s another of my irritants which is recipes which seem to be a bit wrong. I think I’ve had a little rant before about recipes which promise that you’ll get so much out of them, only for me to be bitterly disappointed. Well, I discovered another one this evening – Dan, I’m waiting for an apology.

Oat and sour cherry cookies. Well, I didn’t have enough sour cherries, so they ended up being oat, sour cherry, a few dried cranberries and some chocolate chip cookies, but nevertheless, when a recipe promises 50 cookies (“makes 2 batches, each about 25 biscuits” is what it actually says), I’d expect to get at least 45. To be fair, I didn’t bake all of it – I put half the dough into the freezer for next week (ha ha – that is if I remember – more likely I’ll dig it out sometime next year and wonder what on earth it is because I didn’t label it very well), but the recipe definitely says to make the cookies using tablespoonfuls of the dough.

Now, I don’t know if Dan’s tablespoons are smaller than mine, but having scooped out 4 tablespoonfuls, it was quite clear that if I carried on I’d get about 12 cookies at most, so I moved on to dessert spoons. Much more satisfactory. I really must write him a letter and tell him about these little amendments he needs to make to his book, but Dan, if you did ever get to read this, I’ll admit that they are delicious!

A meat free Monday, thanks to Hugh - Roast Root Veg Fritatta

While we were enjoying our meatfree Sunday lunch at the weekend, Blue was clearly considering how to phrase a question that was bothering him. Blue is 8 and thinks almost constantly about where his next meal is coming from, interspersed every now and then with some quick Lego building. To be serious for a moment, it gives me huge pleasure to see him enjoying his food, and in particular good food that I have cooked for him. There was a time, when he was in the grip of steroids during treatment for leukaemia that he lived on a very limited diet. True that included such delights a Moroccan lamb meatballs, but more often than not, what he craved was 1. 53% pork cocktail sausages (any higher meat content and he refused them – I even tried to disguise Waitrose organic 98% pork ones in a Co-Op packet. He could tell the difference); 2. Mature Cheddar cheese; 3. Cherry tomatoes – summer or winter – kilos of them and 4. Shreddies. By the packet. And so now, to see him enjoying normal food, normally, is one of my favourite things.

As he was manfully tucking into his Three Root Boulangere, clearly trying hard not to think about where the chops were, I could see that something else was troubling him. “What’s for tea tomorrow?” He asked, trying to be nonchalant about it. “Roasted root frittata”. I said. I think he could sense an certain undertone, because it took him a few seconds to say “And the day after?”. Poor chap. I’m not trying to go vegetarian but actually I am quite liking this reduction in meat. For a start my shopping bill has greatly reduced. I promised him spaghetti bolognaise and African Chicken (a Nigella recipe, from Kitchen) as forthcoming attractions on the tea time bill of fayre, and he seemed to be satisfied.

So the roast root veg frittata. It is delicious, and beautiful to look at. And a doddle to make – a winner on all counts in my book. Shame the kids didn’t like it. I had thought Pink would go for it because she loves omelette, and I was hoping Blue would like the veg and overlook the egg element (he’s not a huge fan) but to be honest Blue’s a bit post-viral and Pink has a stinking cold and neither were taken. They did like the steamed leeks that I did with it though.
However, I will try it again in a few months time (well, let’s be honest, probably next autumn), and it’s always something the Husband and I can enjoy. I wonder if it would be nice upping the beetroot content and adding dill as the herb, with a sour-cream dressing. What do you reckon?

Good greens, shame about the yellow

It’s not been altogether successful day, but on one level at least, my quest to follow in Hugh’s footsteps and eat less meat (while not becoming a vegetarian), things are moving in the right direction, although the reviews have been mixed (as they say) depending on age and outlook.

Yesterday, I took a bold step and served a meat free (yes, MEAT FREE) main meal on Sunday. It’s a long story. I’d planned to have chicken, but I forgot to buy one, This was a fairly fatal error as my week’s menu relied on there being at least one left over chicken meal. I quickly re-wrote the meal planner mentally replacing chicken with some of Melvin’s pork (the pork is ours, I should hasten to add, we did acquire it lawfully, from Melvin, who raised the pig. Hence it is Melvin’s pork). However, when, as I often do come Sunday, I surveyed the food situation, it was clear that I had enough root veg to feed a small country, so the opportunity was there to take that leap. I didn’t have any cream or anything interesting like that hanging around, so the Three Root Boulangere in Veg Everyday was my best bet. A brief forage in the garden turned up some sprouts and sprout tops, and some cavolo nero with which to try the steamed greens with a hint of garlic. To be fair, my kids are pretty good with veg, but leafy stuff – kale type things – doesn’t do it for them. When I saw this (and I think Hugh might have cooked it in the series) I thought it was definitely one to try. Of course, no meat on Sunday meant no leftovers for Monday night, but never fear, Hugh is here – Roasted root frittata saves the day for Monday evening. “Excellent”, I thought to myself. “That was easy”.

 “What’s for tea?” asked Blue. “3 root Boulangere” I said. Quickly.  Too quickly,  fear – rats were smelt – and no, the dog hadn’t brought one into the kitchen - “Do I like it?” asked Pink “Of course you do” I breezed. And crossed my fingers.

The dishes are both dead easy. I made a minor error by miscalculating the length of time the boulangere would need, so the veg had steamed at the wrong time, and I forgot to remove it from the steamer so that it was rather overcooked, but very edible nevertheless.

The kids came steaming into the kitchen ready to eat. I waited for the wails of ‘where’s the meat’ but actually the comments was “MMM smells like garlic bread.” Oh dear. I could sense bitter disappointment just around the corner.

I am pleased to report that, in the main, the food was eaten. Pink in particular enjoyed the greens – she is my ‘veg eater’ (Blue prefers fruit) but she’s not been keen on leafy green stuff. However, chuck in some garlic oil and it seems kale is just delicious. She wasn’t so keen on the Boulangere, mainly because of the celeriac, but she had a good stab at it. The Husband enjoyed it, although I did catch him looking under his slices of potato and parsnip – possibly wondering if there was some bacon somewhere. Blue similarly, I think, was secretly hoping that somewhere there would be some meat somewhere, but he manned up. “It’s a bit yellow” was all he said. But he ate it too. He wasn’t so convinced about the greens – mainly because he had been cruelly conned into thinking there was garlic bread on offer.

On reflection, my intention has been to eat less meat, and had I planned it better, I would probably have chosen something slightly richer than the Boulangere. It was very nice, but felt a little austere, especially as I had overcooked the greens, and pudding was stewed apple cinnamon and raisin out of the freezer along with various yoghurts lurking in the fridge, rather than a delicious crumble. Hell, I hadn’t even made some custard to go with the apple. Fine for a week night, but not perhaps for a Sunday.  I shall plan better next time. Watch this space.

Didn't get my haggis after all

Burns’ night – we were promised haggis, whisky, barely comprehensible poetry and bagpipes. Rising to the occasion, I persuaded my father to lend the Husband his kilt, and then persuaded the Husband to wear it. Rather lovely he looked too. I had a Tartan Burberry skirt circa 1965 from Allotment Junkie ("Oh, real Burberry, not ‘chav Burberry’." as someone pointed out to me – what a relief!).

What a splendid evening. Whisky Macs made with ginger liqueur on arrival, to the background accompaniment of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers (check them out – Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’ bagpipe stylie  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGYh4g_ekiQ ). Great company,  much tartan in evidence. It’s amazing how many exiled Scots or semi-Scots there are this far South. Before we knew it the teenage minions were bringing out mugs of cock a leekie soup with baskets of pumpkin seed or sundried tomato bread. Mrs W – your bread was delicious. I had 4 slices. So was the soup.

I was eagerly awaiting the main course, though, I love haggis. In time, it was duly piped in (Youtube is a wonderful thing), addressed by our host in the traditional way and then stabbed to death with a kitchen knife. Mrs W had done great things – we were having a buffet and to accommodate the traditional fayre, there was mini- Yorkshire pudding stuffed with haggis, and venison casserole stuffed baked potato skins. Genius. I filled my plate and was just about to settle down when Mrs W approached with the telephone...

Poor Pink. By the time I’d got home she had calmed down but was pathetically pleased to see me. Normally, (smug mummy moment here) both Blue and Pink go to bed and go to sleep and I don’t hear from them till morning (one of my only successes as a parent I feel, although for those of you feeling annoyed about that, for ‘morning’ read no later than 6.30. No lie in for me). I had been slightly concerned earlier in the evening when I’d settled her off, fully calpol’d up, and she hadn’t gone immediately to sleep but had had to be comforted a couple of times due to the cough.  However, by the time my lovely friend had arrived to babysit, all was quiet, she was asleep and I was happy to go out. It’s always better to travel in hope than expectation, I feel.

I had almost forgotten that she was poorly (well I had had 2 whiskies by then) when the call came, but there we go. Eventually she settled back down to sleep but not before expressing in her cutest, most appealing 5yr old way (rather than the irritating and demanding way she can sometimes employ) that she would really rather I stay at home. How could I refuse? Typically, she then went to sleep and didn’t stir till 3, but while I am not too sure what time the Husband finally made it to bed, I feel I was probably better able to deal with her having taken myself to bed at 11 (cup of tea and a chat with my babysitting friend who was putting off some marking, followed by a quick and sneaky bit of quilting), than whenever it was that the party ended.

So I didn’t get my haggis. Perhaps I will just have to make my own. Maybe next year.

Soup of the week ...

It’s been a week of illness this week. Blue off school since Wednesday, and had to miss his school trip to the British Museum which he was gutted about, and Pink is full of cold. A friend who is a GP suggested at pick up on Tuesday afternoon that the spots on her (Pink’s) face which I had vaguely put down to a surge of hormones or something might actually be an indication that she had “hand, foot and mouth”. She advised me that if she was well in herself there was nothing else to be done, but I felt a surge of guilt that perhaps I should have realised something (not quite sure what) and kept her cosseted at home. I felt slightly less guilty having read Lucy Mangan in the Saturday Guardian this week in which she writes about her (Northern, calpol is for wimps) approach as compared with her partner’s. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/20/medicine-children-health-lucy-mangan?INTCMP=SRCH . It’s very funny and very true – I know where she’s coming from. Incidentally, Tim Dowling is also hilarious this week – for any cat/dog owners out there http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/20/tim-dowling-dogs . I’m not suggesting you change your own weekend newspaper habits, but what with Hugh and Dan writing as well, this is my current paper of choice, and these 2 particular articles really rang true for me this week.

Anyway, a much improved Blue has gone to Oxford with the Husband in pursuit of a suit, so Pink and  I have hung out, mainly at the library, where I managed to pick up 3 books about quilting (my latest mini-obsession) and Pink persuaded me to let her get The Sword and the Stone DVD. I have one of my internal dilemmas every time I go with the kids to our little library. In my heart, I want them to race to the books, eagerly perusing the shelves, quickly becoming utterly absorbed, but oh no. Every time, straight for the DVDs. “Can’t we have a DVD?” “Pleeeeaaasssse” “But why not?” and then, always “But it’s not FFFAAAAIIIIRRRRRR”. It gives me mild palpitations. To be fair I don’t know what my objection really is. The kids do watch TV but I try to restrict it to a certain extent – probably because that’s how it was for me – BBC One only, and definitely not Grange Hill, but getting DVDs out of the library just feels wrong.

Still, I crumbled fairly quickly this morning, because, going back to the sick household theme, I was up at 3.30 this morning not with one of the kids but with the dog, Fred, who had an upset stomach. I have to say that I wasn’t feeling much sympathy for him at 3.30 this morning as he strained his way   around the garden (did I mention his recent penchant for eating baby rats – the less said about that the better, for all concerned, but you get the picture), and even less when I got back in and found the sick that also had to be cleared up, but he really is feeling sorry for himself today. I crawled back into bed about 4 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so you can imagine that it didn’t take much for me to give in to the pressure to have a DVD.

To be honest, as I was making the soup of the week (HFW’s Mexican tomato and bean) after we got back from our little outing, I could hear her hacking away as if she’d been smoking Marlboro Reds all night, and I decided there were worse ways she could spend an hour or so than watching the adventures of the young Arthur as told in glorious Disney technicolour. It also meant that I could get on with swearing at the bread dough – which is a story for another day – and chopping up onions and tomatoes for the soup. Hugh bills it as a summer soup – a kind of salsa in soup form – using black eyed beans and chopped tomatoes. I’m sure it would taste even better using lovely, home-grown tomatoes in the summer months, and the food ethics of using hard, polytunnel (or worse) ripened fruit from Holland haven’t escaped me, but there we go. I left out the chillies just because as I’ve said before, the kids don’t go a bundle on heat just yet, and I used a teaspoon each of ground cumin and coriander, being spices that I use when making fajitas, and which have a familiar taste for them.

Anyway, it’s lunch time now so I’m going to see if I can pack some soupy goodness into Pink at least, and feel like I’m being slightly less negligent a parent! Fred won't be getting any. He's on a starvation diet for 24 hrs. Maybe that will teach him to leave the little ratties alone.