Celery Soup with Stilton and Bacon

Still waiting for the summer to appear, this week, I'm craving comfort food.  Whist thinking about this, I started to crave tinned soup, so off to the supermarket I trundled, in search of two specific types of tinned soup - Heinz Cream of Mushroom and also Celery soup.

When I was at school, my house was just round the corner from the school, so I never had to suffer the terrors of school dinners (until I was much older, anyway). Instead, I used to come home and eat lunch with my brother - often whilst listening to Star Wars on the radio (in the days before the films came out on VHS, it was the only way to get my regular fix of a galaxy far far away...)

Regular fixtures on the lunch menu were Campbells Meatballs and Deep fried fish balls* - evidently spherical food was a big thing in the early 80's - as well as Heinz soups, which is possibly where I got my love of soup from in the first place.  Indeed, my brother, always a fussy eater had to be persuaded that mushroom and celery soups were chocolate and seaweed respectively, which he found much more palatable.

Sloe Gin Jelly

Apparently today is Gin Day, and so I thought I would let you know a good idea I had a few weeks ago. Last year we found a large stand of Sloe bushes, and had our eye on them all through autumn, just waiting for the first frost. Unfortunately many other people (or perhaps birds) had the same idea, and when we got to the sloe bushes, there weren't many left. We persevered, and with a bit of jumping (to catch the high branches) and several scratches, we came home with enough sloes to make a bottle of sloe gin. I'll post the recipe when we make another batch this year, but you basically add sugar and gin to your sloes after pricking the skins, and leave them to soak for several months.

We'll be having some of this this evening to celebrate Gin Day (as though we need an excuse!).

 Our sloe gin was stewing away in the back of a cupboard, and a few weeks ago I decided it might be a good idea to filter and bottle it, ending up with a couple of lovely looking bottles of sloe gin (the little bit we sampled was gorgeous!), and a sieve full of sloes pickled in gin. I looked at these, and couldn't bring myself to throw them away, and that's when inspiration struck - I had a batch of cooking apples in for another batch of jelly, and thought why not use these lovely gin-infused fruit to make some jelly - worst case scenario was it would be a waste of an apple and some sugar, and best case I would have discovered something really special and different. Turns out it was a great idea, and the resulting jelly has a lovely delicate taste. If you're making sloe gin this year, I would recommend this as a way of getting the most out of your sloes.

Ingredients :
- drained leftover gin-soaked sloes
- cooking apple(s) chopped (don't bother peeling or coring them)
- sugar
- water
- sterilised jam jars

Put your leftover sloes into a pan, together with a couple of apples (I used about half as much apple as sloes). Cover with water, and bring to the boil. Simmer until the apples are soft and virtually disintegrating. Allow to cool a bit, then strain through a muslin cloth. Discard the fruit pulp that remains and measure the drained liquid. Add about 2/3 the volume of sugar (ie for 600ml of juice, add 400g sugar), and return to the heat. Bring to a rolling boil, and continue to boil until the jelly reaches setting point (test by dropping a few drops onto an ice-cold plate, or resting your spoon on an ice-block and seeing if the drops/liquid in the spoon solidify). Cool slightly and then pour into the sterilised jam jars.

Now you just have to decide whether to keep it all for yourself, or give some away to deserving friends!

Pork, Apple and Fennel Soup

Meeting up with friends and family at the weekend, and the subject of food and cooking came up, as it often does.  I was talking about making things like gnocchi and albondigas and everyone seemed impressed (once I had explained to them what these things were) and it occurred to me that most people stick to a few dishes that are tried and tested, and often passed down through the generations.

I'm not sure where and when I learned how to cook. Indeed, as a student I was often mocked for my terrible food, but somewhere between then and now I have started to experiment with ingredients and recipes, and also doing the blog has encouraged me to make new things every week, so even things that have worked really well and would be put on the short list for being made regularly, have only ever been made once, because of the drive to come up with new and exciting soups, cakes and other dishes.

Today's recipe isn't, however, one of those experimental and obscure recipe, but it is s delicious combination of summery vegetables and pork into a lovely soup.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Ingredients
1 Onion
1 Fennel Bulb
1 Stalk Celery
1 Apple
400g Pork
500ml Cider
700ml Stock
150ml Single Cream
2 Sprig of Rosmary
1tsp Wholegrain Mustard
Plain Flour
Flat Leaf Parsley

Method

1.  Finely chop the apple, fennel, celery and onion.  In a largem heavy pan, heat some oil and fry the vegetables over a low heat for 10 minutes, until they are sweated down but not too brown.  Remove them from the heat and put in a bowl for later.

2.  Cut the pork into cubes about 1cm across.  Toss them in the plain flour.  Heat some more oil in the pan and then brown the meat.  Once it is browned, add the stock and cider to the pan, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to bring the soup to a simmer.

3.  Add the vegetables back to the soup, along with the rosemary and mustard.  Put the lid back on the pan and contine to simmer for 30 minutes.

4.  Just before serving, stir in the single cream, and then pour into bowls, garnish with parsley and enjoy!

Herman the German

We've had a house guest the last couple of weeks - I was the lucky recipient of a portion of a work friend's Friendship cake. Apparently Herman is quite famous, and most of the baking world seems to have had him to stay at some point or other, growing him a bit, then dividing him into a portion to bake with, and giving the rest away to friends. At this rate, I would estimate that the world would be drowning (quite literally) in Herman beofre too long.

Obviously some people are not passing on their Herman as expected (evidenced by the continuing lack of a yeasty smelly tide swallowing Britain), but I found 3 lucky recipients, and baby Hermans were distributed round Leeds, and one even made it all the way to Hull, where apparently there is a waiting list for his offspring!

Having spent plenty of time growing all sorts of single celled organisms in the lab, I probably wasn't as intimidated by Herman as I know a few people have been. He is essentially a live yeast culture, and so I didn't stick too carefully to the care instructions - he was stirred every day, but feeding might have occurred at slightly less regular intervals than suggested, and when it came time to bake him, I made sure he was fed the day before, and then just used a cup of him as one of the ingredients in the cake mix. I've kept the remaining mix, and will have a go at freezing him and bringing him back to life - it should work - I'll update at a later point if it does. I'm also rather keen to see if Herman can be adapted into a bread culture - I'll be tring that over the next couple of weeks too and see if he's any good at using for sourdough bread. While Herman was apparently started with dry yeast, I am guessing he's been around for so long that he's more wild yeast (in a domesticated form) than commercially available stuff, and that's one of the things that makes sourdough so tasty. Again, I'll report back with the results, but for now, here is the result of my baking with Herman.

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1 cup Herman
1/2 cup brown sugar (I used brown cane sugar, but light muscovado would be good too)
1/4 cup oil
2Tbsp butter
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence

and then add whatever you like ... I used a baking apple, some dried dates (you could use some raisins), mixed spice and cinnamon.

I mixed all the base ingredients together, and then added the extra ingredients by feel/look - that's one of the good things about Herman - you can add as much or as little as you want. Next time I make a Herman I'll probably add a lot more spice and try an almost ginger loaf kind of cake.

Herman get put in a cake tin (whatever shape you fancy, though try not to have him too thin), and bake at 180ºC for about 45 minutes - check after half an hour using a toothpick/clean knife and test every 10 minutes until it comes out clean. I used a bit of butter and sugar as a glaze just by sprinking the sugar on top, and pouring some melted butter over about 15 minutes before the end of baking to make a crunchy topping. 
 

Weekly Bake Off : Apple and Almond Dessert Cake

This is a very late and rather short entry for this week's Bake-Off as Mr Soup and I have been away since Thursday in a cosy little cottage in North Yorkshire, celebrating my birthday.

As this recipe is more of a pudding than a tea accompaniment, I decided to make individual sized cakes, and jazz it up a little with toffee-coated apples in the middle. (Inspired by a lovely sticky toffee pudding eaten this weekend). To do this I melted equal quantities of sugar and butter in a frying pan until it went a nice golden colour, added the sliced apples, tossed them in the syrupy mix and cooked for a couple of minutes. I allowed the caramelised apples to cool, and then layered them as specified in the recipe. This meant that the middle of the spongey pudding had a gorgeous toffee-apple flavour.

I misjudged the depth of the sponge in the individual ramekins I used to bake them in, so had a few overflowing puddings, but a few turned out alright - just the thing for a Sunday evening treat!
That's Jack Ryan in the background - he wants cake! (and an end to the drug trafficking and high level corruption, but mostly cake.)

Celeriac and Stilton Soup

Just recently, someone  suggested that I should watch the Harry Potter films.  I said that I had seen the first one and hated it - reminded me too much of those twee children's shows that the BBC used to show on a Sunday evening - adaptations of Narnia books and the like with posh drama school kids over-pronouncing everything and slightly shoddy special effects.

However, because the person who told me I should give the rest of the films a go has great taste in films, and also because she agreed to watch Game of Thrones if I watched the Potter films (If you aren't watching Game of Thrones, then go buy DVDs right now.  Sean Bean is the best thing since sliced bread in it, and for so many other reasons) then I relented and watched the rest of the Harry Potter films.

And as readers of this blog will know, I am prone to wild and strange digressions, but a discussion of a series of fantasy films?  This links to cookery how?  The answer, my lovely readers, is Mandrake Root.

Today's soup has celeriac in it, which is possibly my favourite vegetable, aesthetically speaking, and it looks just like Mandrake Root from the Harry Potter films. Don't believe me?

How can something so weird, so strange and un-earthly looking have such a delicate taste?  Without further ado, I give you Butterbeer...er... Mandrake...Celeriac and Stilton Soup, perfecr for winter evenings when Potions is cancelled due to heavy Dragon showers or something.

Ingredients
1 Celeriac
2 Onions
1 Leek
1tsp Thyme
2l Vegetable Stock
2 Apples
150g Blue Stilton
70g Butter
2 Cloves of Garlic

Method
First off, you need to prepare the Celeriac, by cutting away all the tough roots and them the skin.  Treat it like you would a turnip, you will need to cut away about half a centimeter of the outer skin, and then cut the celeriac into centimeter cubes.

In a thick bottomed pan, heat the butter and then add the celeriac, chopped onions and leek, then sweat the vegetables until they go soft.  Once this is done (about 5 minutes), add the garlic, thyme, stock and apples - peeled, cored and cubed and then cook the soup for 30-40 minutes, before letting it cool.

I really hate thick blended soups that have the consistency of wallpaper paste, so when you blend the soup - I use a stick blender - you can always pass the soup through a sieve afterwards to give it a smoother consistency, and maybe add a bit more liquid.

Then return the soup to the heat, and crumble the Stilton into it, season to taste and then serve.  Enjoy!

Elderberry Scramble

So Team Tuesday (Team Soup doesn't sound quite as catchy, does it?) were out in the wilds of our local canal path, looking for berries and getting dirty looks from cyclists, and knowing looks form old ladies out for a Sunday Afternoon stroll (they know exactly what is edible, and also how to make the best pies and jams - ask one and see) and we found many, many Elderberry trees, with branches drooping under the weight of huge bunches of berries, all ripe and full of flavour.

In a flash, we had filled a plastic bag with bunches and headed home to prepare them.  As the main purpose of collecting Elderberries was to produce wine, the majority weren't too well cleaned and prepared - simply running a fork through the bunches to liberate the berries (and a few creepy-crawlies too) was enough for them, before they were put in a bucket with all manner of other things that start the alchemical processes involved in turning fruit into wine (a process I don't even begin to understand - I'll leave that to those members of Team Tuesday who have a PhD)

Having some berries left, I thought that I would whip up some sort of pudding, but I wanted to try something a bit different from the usual crumbles and pies, and then I found this interesting recipe which is a sort of a cross between a bread and butter pudding and a summer pudding.  It's a nice way to use up any left over fruit that you have lying around, and a nice way to celebrate the few remaining days of summer we have left before the nights draw in and I just want to hibernate (But at least I will have bottles of Elderberry wine to keep me company)

Ingredients
450g Elderberries
250g Pears
250g Plums
200g Bread (Crust Removed)
500ml Milk
50g Butter
3tbsp Plain Flour
2tsp Lemon Juice
Sugar
Cinnamon


Method
Make sure that the elderberries are clean and free of stalks, peel and slice the pears and pit the plums, quartering them.

In a large pan, heat the butter and then cook the fruit over a low heat for 5 minutes.  In a cup., mix the flour with some of the milk to make a paste, then add this to the fruit.

Next add the rest of the milk to the pan.  Cut the bread into small pieces and then add this to the pan as well, cooking until the plums are soft.

Season to taste with sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice, then serve and enjoy!

Parsnip and Apple Soup with Black Pudding

When it comes to love 'em or loath em foods, there are only a few that I can think of that divide opinion as much as Black Pudding (Marmite and various permutations of offal being the others - all of which I love, by the way.  Hmmm, I wonder what that says about me?)

In recent years, the humble black pudding ('Uurgh, you do know it's made from blood', I hear some of you say, and 'yes we know, but it's so very tasty' the rest chant) has been given something of a new lease of life due to various chefs and restaurants picking up on it and using it as an accompaniment to pork dishes, amongst other things.  Me, I never stopped loving it, ever since nattering my mum for some when I was young I have been a black pudding lover.  The wonderful savoury flavour goes well with a lot of things, and a fried breakfast isn't complete without a few slices of deep rich black pudding next to the bacon.

So I thought I would give you this soup recipe to show off black pudding, along with a couple of other textures / flavours that go well with it - apple and cream, and also dill, all of which combine to make a rather tasty and a bit unusual soup.

Incidentally, if anyone else has a massive craving for love / hate food, I'd love to hear about it - tell us all about it in the comments section.  Me, I'm planning a tripe soup recipe for some time soon, which I'm sure will be, ummm, interesting

Ingredients

For the Soup
400g Parsnips
200g Apples (Any kind will do, but the sharper the flavour the better)
1l Stock
1 Onion
20g Butter
2 Clove Garlic
1tsp Ground Corriander
75ml Single Cream


For the Meatballs
250g Black Pudding
1tbsp Dill
2 Shallots
40g Butter

Method
Finely chop the onion and garlic, then add to a large pan with the butter and sweat for about 5 minutes, until the onion starts to soften.  Roughly chop the parsnips, peel and core then chop the apples and add them to the pan, cooking over a low heat for a few more minutes, until they start to soften too, then add the corriander, letting it coat the other ingredients.

Next add the stock, then bring the soup to a simmer and cover, let cook for 30 minutes or so and then transfer to a food mixer and blend until smooth, and return to the pan

Next make the meatballs. Finely chop the shallots and fry them in a little butter for a few minute to soften them.  Remove the skin from the black pudding. In a bowl, use a fork to break the black pudding down, then mix with the dill and cooked shallots (It is easier to do this if the black pudding is at room temperature) 

Then form the mixture into balls - make them as big or small as you want, depending on how many people you are feeding, then fry them in the butter until cooked then keep warm.  The smaller the meatballs the better, as then there are more to go round, and they make a savoury counterpoint to the sweet soup (when I made it, everyone wanted more, so feel free to increase the amount you make!)

Add the cream to the soup and reheat gently, but don't let the soup boil. Season to taste

Warm some dishes and then place the meatballs in them, then pour the soup over the top and serve, garnished with dill fronds and enjoy!

Don't forget to let us know about the foods you love but everybody else hates!

Bramble and Elderberry Crumble

Yesterday we went out looking for berries again, and ended up bringing back our largest haul yet - over 2 kilograms of the biggest, sweetest brambles that we have so far picked.  The branches were just groaning under the weight of the fruit, so it took all of 30 minutes to complete picking our haul.  Plus, we had a lovely walk in the countryside, all without seeing another berry-picker, or even much evidence that anyone else was even vaguely interested in the delicious things.  I have to ask again, how come no-one seems to be picking brambles?  Ah well, more for us anyway.

As well as brambles, we picked more crab apples, to make jelly with (recipe coming soon) and elderberries and some more wild apples - a bit sweeter and larger than crab apples.

Rowan Berry Jam

Since moving from the middle of a city, where the only trees tended to be in parks surrounded by drunks, to the (almost) countryside where hills, fields and woodland are all but a short walk from my front door, I've been gripped with the urge to find out more about what is growing in the hedgerows and on the trees I walk past most days.  And more importantly - can I eat any of it?

After picking Bilberries and turning them into jams and crumbles, and seeing that the healthy crops of brambles won't be ready for another couple of weeks yet (although many plants are already laden with ripe fruits - I think we are in for a bumper harvest this year!) I turned my attention elsewhere.

Bilberry and Apple Jam

Following on from our foraging adventures, we decided to make some bilberry and apple jam.  Sadly the apples weren't home grown or picked wild, but hey, you can't have everything, can you?

500g of bilberries took two people about an hour to pick, and gave us a very pleasant afternoon out in the countryside.  Also, for those of you not familiar with these berries, there is a nice article about them here