Recipe: Quick Home-made Tomato Soup

Recently, I posted the chocolate mug cake recipe as I thought it might be useful for my son who is off to university-land later this year.  He's keen now to learn how to cook quick, cheap and nourishing meals, so here's one I got him to make for us a couple of days ago.

We are great lovers of tomato soup in this house, and think home-made is SO much better than the shop-bought tinned stuff.  Don't get me wrong, tinned soup is great because it's convenient (and I guess number one son will eat a lot of it during his time at uni!), but I always find it quite concentrated...  He was surprised how good this soup tasted when we sat down to eat it, and commented on how easy it was.  So, here's the simple, quick and cheap recipe, and I hope you like it.

Recipe: Quick Chocolate Mug Cake

2014 is a year of great change in our house, and the biggest change will hit in September when number one son goes off to University.  It’s going to be strange, and there’s going to be a hole in the household (which I’m hoping Skype can fill), but for him it’s all part of becoming an adult and I’ll just have to get used to it.  I thought it would be a great idea to start blogging some quick and simple recipes that he (and others out there) might find useful, so I’ve been looking for ideas in my recipe books and on the web.  I came across this recipe on YouTube for a Simple 5 Minute Mug Cake from the Simple Cooking Channel, which fits the bill, and it tastes great.  I’ve done my usual thing and cut down the sugar quantity, but you can stick to the original if you like.  I just prefer things not so sweet!  Here’s how to make it:

Recipe: Wing It Spicy Pasta

Like many cooks, I have a tendency to wing it and not really measure the ingredients when I'm cooking. I just let my instincts take over and I create dishes according to my taste buds. I've thought about sharing my recipes like this before, but I hesitated because I wasn't able to give precise measurements. However, I realized that it's okay if I don't have precise measurements because part of cooking is creativity and what's more creative than making up a dish as you go along  ;-)

So here's my recipe:

Ingredients (to your own taste):

• roughly a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning
• roughly a tablespoon of oregano
• 2 vegetable stock cubes
• roughly a half teaspoon of flat leaf parsley
• roughly a teaspoon of smoked paprika
• a splash of Worcestershire sauce
• a splash of balsamic vinegar
• 1 large onion (chopped)
• about 8 medium sized mushrooms (chopped)
• roughly 4 ounces of water
• teaspoon of olive oil
• half teaspoon of butter
• spaghetti (amount depending upon how many you're serving)

Cooking time: about 25 minutes

Prep time: Just enough time to chop your mushrooms and onions

 

Add your olive oil and butter to your frying pan, letting the butter melt down. Next add your chopped onions and let them cook down until they're close to being translucent and then add your chopped mushrooms. Let the onions and mushrooms mingle together for a bit.

Recipe: Best Banana and Chocolate Muffins

Oh, bananas!  A fruit that people either love or hate.  A bit like Marmite.  I buy them because I like them, just when the green goes over to light yellow, and before they turn ‘pappy’ and are dappled with brown spots.  I’d rather eat them when they’re on the green side, than the ripe, dark yellow.  But another family member likes them when they’re just starting to spot, and another has a one day window when he’ll eat them.  Bananas seem to tread a fine line, and if I don’t whizz them up as smoothies in the blender with some milk, oats and cinnamon, they end up in cakes.  Usually in banana and chocolate muffins!

This is a recipe a friend passed on to me, from another friend of hers.  Now, I’m not a lover of over-sweet things, and find shop-bought cakes and cookies are usually so sweet they burn my throat, so I usually make adjustments to recipes.  The first time I made these I followed the original recipe, which contained 250g sugar (over twice what I use) and 200g chocolate (again, double the amount I use...but sometimes I’m indulgent and do double the chocolate measure).  I found it was too sweet, bearing in mind there is so much naturally sweet banana already in the recipe.  The second time I made them, I cut the sugar and the chocolate right down without telling my family, and nobody noticed a lack of sweetness!  There was no effect on the rise or bake of the muffins, so I’ve stayed with this slightly healthier option, and everyone loves it.

Recipe: Mushroom and Bread Soup with Parsley

Today I'd like to share a recipe for a soup that I made recently. You know how it is when you've run out of things to make...you start searching for inspiration. Well it was a day such as this when I remembered that I had a cook book with nothing but soup recipes in it. Since we're in the depths of winter, a bowl of hot soup is always welcome. So I thumbed through and found one soup recipe in particular that didn't take too many ingredients. It looked simple enough so I gave it a go.

It's called mushroom and bread soup with parsley. It's thickened with bread and it's a rich mushroom soup that's very satisfying. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

75g /3oz /6 tablespoons of unsalted butter
900g/ 2 pounds of portobello mushrooms, sliced
2 onions, roughly chopped
600ml/ 1 pint/ 2 and a half cups milk
8 slices of white bread
60ml/ 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
300ml/ half pint/ 1 and a quarter cups double (heavy) cream
salt and black pepper

Recipe: Apple Sharlotka

                                                                                            

Last autumn, we had a bumper crop of apples in England.  I remember seeing the branches of the apple trees in the neighbouring gardens where my mum lives in London absolutely weighed down with masses of red fruit.  Even the pathetic specimen that lives on the boundary of my property looked pleased with itself for displaying a few somewhat sour apples.  This bounty must have had an effect on prices, because since the autumn, apples have been cheaper.  I was looking at them in the supermarket last week whilst wondering what I could bake for this week’s Labyrinthus recipe, and I picked up three bags of three different varieties, thinking, ‘I’ll make something with apples.  Everyone keeps saying it’s good to cook with things that are in season.’  So here I am, and after a little online research, I decided to make an ‘Apple Sharlotka’.  It’s a fatless Russian apple cake, and I sourced the recipe from Smitten Kitten.  Here’s what happened...

T. Bird's Ginger Cookies

You may or may not agree, but it seems to me that January is the gloomiest month of the year, and not just because of the weather. It may be cold or wet, and some days might be so dark it’s as if the sun hasn’t bothered to rise, but there’s also the come-down after the Christmas and New Year holidays, plus the fact that we’re all getting back into everyday work and facing those dreaded New Year Resolutions. Well, to counter the ‘gloom’ and the never-ending dampness from the constant rain we’ve had here in England, we decided to bake some warm, comforting ginger cookies and even managed to take some photos in a rare patch of sunshine. T. Bird’s Ginger Cookies are relished in our house, and, as a result, never last long in the biscuit tin!  Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

350g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon ground ginger
175g caster sugar
125g butter
85g golden syrup
1 egg, beaten




Method:


1. Line 3 large baking trays with baking parchment and preheat the oven to 150̊C/300̊F/Gas Mark 2.
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a mixing bowl.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Gradually mix in the golden syrup and the beaten egg.
4. Fold the dry ingredients into the butter/sugar/egg mix, and mix well.
5. Roll the dough into small 2cm balls and place them on the baking trays, roughly 10cm/4 inches apart. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
6. Cool the cookies on their baking sheets for a couple of minutes, and then transfer them onto a wire rack. When the cookies are completely cool, transfer them to a biscuit tin, and make sure you eat at least one before they all disappear!

Note: They probably won’t all make it to the biscuit tin anyway...


Result:

These ginger cookies taste as delicious as they look, and the family vote for these is always

ten out of ten. We think they should enter the recipe Hall of Fame, but why don’t you give

this recipe a try and let us know how yours turned out? I’m off to dunk mine in a hot cup of tea!

Food: Black-eyed Peas and Greens

Today is our food post day...we'll either share a recipe or some thoughts about a dish we like or what's known these days as food porn. Well today I'd like to share a dish that I like. Actually it's two things that I have together at least once a year.

I'm originally from Georgia, in the southeastern United States, and I come from a tradition where people have black-eyed peas and collard greens to eat on New Year's Day. The tradition is that eating the peas brings luck and the greens bring money in the fresh new year. It's just a tradition and I don't think that anyone thinks that these foods hold magic, but it's kind of one of those things where you say...it couldn't hurt to give it a go. And it's a nice tradition.

I was able to find black-eyed peas but I'm not able to find collard greens where I live here, so I usually get kale or spring greens which are cousins to collard greens anyway so it all works fine.

Here is a picture of the spring greens before I cooked them. It's a good idea to give a them a good rinse before you cook them.

And here's a picture of them after they're cooked. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and a splash each of balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Then I just let them cook down.

The black-eyed peas were very quick. I took the quick route and just microwaved them and added salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and onions. Usually I would cook them up on the stove top, but I was short on time, so I took the microwave short cut. Here's a picture of the finished dish.

I served these with a medallion steak and it was delicious. It was a delicious way to start off the brand new year!

I wish everyone lots of good fortune in 2014!

Recipe: Simply Wonderful Bread

I recently bought a book called Brilliant Bread, by James Morton, a finalist in the 2012 series of The Great British Bake Off.  Packed full of great baking advice and written accessibly in plain and simple language, I tried his recipe for Basic White Bread (page 27) a couple of times over the Christmas break.  The second attempt (photos below) was far superior to the first, partly because we felt, as consumers, that there was a little too much salt in the first one (10g, as per original recipe).  As a result, I cut the salt measurement in half to 5g, and, as a family, we agreed it tasted better.  The rise and shaping on the second loaf was much better too, as the first loaf was a little flat, and probably over-proved!  (Oh, the delights of first attempts!)

Ingredients:

500g strong white flour
5g salt
1 x 7g sachet instant yeast
350g tepid water

Method:

Place flour in a large bowl, with salt rubbed in on one side and yeast rubbed in on the other side, ensuring they don’t touch before you add the water, as salt can destroy the yeast.

Seasonal Recipe - Apple, Cranberry and Mincemeat Tarts

Ingredients:

1 large Bramley apple (peeled & cored, mine weighed aprox. 250g)
100g fresh, washed cranberries
100g soft brown sugar
1 large knob of butter
Cinnamon, to taste (I used about a quarter of a teaspoon)
1 pack ready rolled shortcrust pastry (I know, that’s cheating...)
Mincemeat (I used Robertson’s Classic)
Icing sugar to dust

 

Method:

Melt the butter over a gentle heat in a large frying pan, and turn off heat. Peel, core and chop the apple into chunks about twice the size of a cranberry, and place in the pan with the butter. Wash the cranberries, and drain and place them in the pan with the apple. Add the sugar and cinnamon and cook over a gentle heat until the apple and cranberries have softened.

Seasonal Recipe - Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients

2 cups vegetable oil  (1 cup = 8 fl. ounces)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder
2 ounces red food coloring
2 ¼ cups all purpose flour / plain flour
⅛ teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon   baking soda / bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon white vinegar

For  the frosting:
8 ounce package of cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick of butter, softened (1 stick = 4 ounces)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups confectioner's sugar / icing sugar
1 tablespoon of milk

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F / 180 Celsius

In a mixer, combine the vegetable oil, sugar and eggs until creamy. In a separate small bowl, combine the cocoa powder and the food coloring and stir. Once you have a thick paste, add it to the mixer.