Beef Ragout

'Make do and mend' seems to be the war-cry of the masses at the moment, or is that 'waste not, want not'?  Anyway, we are all looking after the pennies and generally a tightening of the belts is occurring everywhere, especially, although not limited to, Channel 4 cookery and lifestyle shows.

Oh and my kitchen. With this thought in mind, I wanted a nice and tasty way to use up some left over roast beef that had been hanging around in the freezer since a Sunday roast proved that I had eyes bigger than my belly (Today's recipe is brought to you by over-used homilies) so I found this nice Ragout.

Incidentally, the word ragout is a french term meaning 'to revive the flavour' and can be any slow cooked stew.  Mine uses left over roast beef but you could use just vegetables, lamb or add some pulses.  It's all good

Roasted Garlic Soup

I  love garlic - can't get enough of it!  Possibly because I was scared of vampires and brought up watching old Hammer Horror films.  Anyway, I was also feeling like I was coming down with a cold, and somebody told me that garlic soup was a good cure.  So here, without further ado, is the Garlic Soup recipe that I cooked up.

And it did cure the cold (possibly with the aid of paracetamol and plenty of sleep)  Oh, and the wild garlic really adds something to it, either as a garnish, or just thrown into the soup as it cooks.  Wild garlic grows all over the place from about March to June and its' leaves can be used raw in salads (and potato salad too) or as an ingredient in a lot of cooking.  It has a much more mild flavour than cloves of garlic, so shouldn't be overwhelmed by other ingredients.