S is for Soup

I love soup.

It's giving like giving your body a hug from the inside out.  

It's seasonal cooking at its best and is great at turning the odd parsnip, half a swede and few potatoes into a feast. 

I am even feeling happier just writing these first few sentences.

It is the perfect accompaniment to a blustery autumn day, and autumn has definitely started to make it's presence known. The days may still be warm but the mornings are chilly and the evenings are cold enough that it warranted a few minutes conversation with our cat on the back door step last night about whether he really wanted to stay outside, or come back in and snuggle up on the foot of our bed.

But I digress.

Soup is delicious, nutritious, and comes in so many flavours and guises.

Clear broth or thick and creamy. Chunky vegetable or smooth. With or without croutons (silly question that)

And it can be a super quick meal if you have some in a can...so it gets bonus points for that.

In fact, one of my most favourite soups is the legendary "Cream of Tomato" by Heinz, but since shopping at Lidl we have tried their version of it and guess what? You can barely tell the difference; pretty much the same taste and definitely the same orange/red colour. 

Now this particular flavour of canned soup has been a favourite since I was very very small and has stayed with me to this day. However when I was a teenager one of my friends revolutionised this soup for me and it changed me for life...although I don't think I ever told her this...I would like to share this story with you. 

As the story goes we were in our mid teens, and I cant remember if it was a weekend or holiday or if we were on study leave but we were at said friends house and got a bit peckish as teenagers do so set about making lunch. A can of soup was opened and put on the stove, bowls were taken out of the cupboard but then my friend opened the fridge and pulled out some cheese.   Needless to say I was baffled as I watched said friend cut up the cheese into tiny chunks and put them at the bottom of each bowl and then pour the hot soup (tomato...obviously) over the cheese.

I was astounded...as I ate my soup I would get the occasional mouthful of molten cheese and it was amazing and as long as I don't have a cheese sandwich to dip in my tomato soup (more on that in a moment) I always put cheese in my tomato soup now. So Hannah, if you are reading (*waves*) thank you very much for introducing cheese in tomato soup for me 

But what about soup not from a can? 

Thankfully my tastes and ability in the kitchen have come a long way since I was a teenager. I cannot resist a properly topped off French onion soup and a chicken noodle soup is the best medicine when you have the flu.

I am lucky that my boys are not fussy eaters and home made vegetable soup is a big hit in my house with the Two Monkeys as long as there is bread or a cheese sandwich to dip in it.  I often have those half baked baguettes in the cupboard or freezer and after 10 minutes in the oven they are ready to go and having smothered them in butter they are a great side to most soups. 

Just remember that anything goes when it comes to soup...made with fresh ingredients or left overs, it really doesn't matter.

I have had a few recent hits in the kitchen with some of my soups so wanted to share them with you - one is a time saver and the other a left over user upper.

So the time saver soup was made on a Sunday, as usual the boys were up at 6am (ish) and we go to church as a family at about 10.30am.  This does mean that I have a lot of time to get things done before we go but am often rushed to get lunch for my very hungry boys on our return. This particular sunday I knew I had a heap of root vegetables that needed using and a spare half hour in which to make something before we left the house. I got out my trusty cast iron pan (which also happens to be our most enduring wedding present) and fried up a large sliced onion, added in very roughly chopped carrots, white potatoes, sweet potatoes and two squashed garlic cloves. I maybe sautéed them for about two minutes before covering with freshly boiled water so everything was just covered. Add in a stock cube and put the lid on. I then put the whole thing in the oven at 120 and set the oven to turn off after 90 minutes. We returned home from church and the kitchen smelt lovely and all that was left for me to do was use our stick blender to purree the contents of the pan along with some fresh herbs from the garden and fry up some bacon to go on top. Now this last bit makes any soup a winner with my dear husband  as a meal isn't a meal unless it has meat so I always keep streaky bacon in the fridge just for this purpose...plus it adds some saltiness to the soup too.

Now of course this time saver can be made with all sorts of other vegetables and could be left in the oven once cooked for any amount of time until you are ready to eat it.

My left over user upper soup happened as quite a mistake...but a happy one.

I had made a lovely dish of sag aloo (that's an Indian dish made with potatoes, onions and spinach with spices) to go with a curry over the weekend and 5 days later I still had a large portion left in the fridge. Rather than relinquishing it to the food bin, I boiled up some carrots (yes they are a staple base of many of my soups) and blended them along with the potato dish.

The result was a lovely green curried soup which went brilliantly with a few sunflower seeds sprinkled on top...the Two Monkeys devoured it. Well OK, they both ate most of it but my Little Giant did end up with a good helping of it over his face and hands but nothing a quick wipe down couldn't solve. I was so surprised at how much I enjoyed it too that this will definitely feature again on our menu.

So with the weather supposedly on the turn this weekend for something a bit more wet and windy, why not find out a new soup recipe to try. I have already spotted a fabulous crab and noodle soup over at The Pie Patch today which I am looking forward to sampling.

M is for Macaroni Cheese

Now before the giant marrow invaded my kitchen and my blog, I had fully intended on writing about the wonderful comfort food that is macaroni cheese.

Now I am not talking about the stuff out of a can...that I find a bit sickly.

Nor am I talking about the rather orange (but still quite yummy) Kraft Dinner, although if you have never ventured across the Atlantic pond you are unlikely to have ever sampled this delicacy.

I am talking about the home-made kind.

The kind that as a grown-up, it transports me back to my childhood and gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. It comes second only to sausages, smiley face potatoes and spaghetti hoops in evoking such memories

The kind where the sauce is made with a mix of whatever cheeses are lurking in your fridge...the more the better in my opinion.

And The Two Monkeys love it, and whilst it may not be the best meal in terms of nutritional value it tastes good and in moderation...why not? Getting to cook it is always great as it means I get to taste it (obviously) which in turn helps me not scoff the whole lot before anyone gets a look in.  In fact my oldest friend loves this dish and is always delighted if there is any left in the pot once the boys have eaten.

Now I realise that everyone has their own recipe, but for me put the pasta (it doesn't HAVE to be macaroni either) into boiling water and whilst it cooks make up a basic white sauce of butter, flour and milk. I won't give you the weights as I don't measure it out...it's more a chuck it in and see method. Add to that the cheese or cheeses of your choice, a bit of salt, pepper and a pinch of ground nutmeg and....voilà, you have the perfect dinner for a rainy day. 

Well, at least I think so.

M is for Marrow

And this isn't just any old marrow, this is a whopper of vegetable that was gifted to me by my Mother who got it from who knows where. Unfortunately "Olivia and the Giant Marrow" doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "James and the Giant Peach" but there is still a story to tell none-the-less

My problem was, I hadn't a clue what to do with it. Now I don't mean in terms of I didn't know how to cook a marrow as I have vague memories of having baked marrow stuffed with spicy rice as a child and could probably replicate that to one degree or another. But at the same time the same memories also tell me that stuffed marrow gave me really bad gas and that is not at all attractive so that option was quickly crossed off the list.

So whilst I could have cooked it, it was more the sheer size and quantity of said vegetable that put me at a complete loss as to what to do, in fact, I found it quite intimidating having this cucurbita (fancy new word I found) sitting on my worktop glaring at me to use it each time I went in the kitchen.

So I reached out to friends on twitter for some help and the responses ranged from turning it into rum -not helpful, a cake - intriguing but not convincing, or jam - bingo!

So jam it was and after a quick search via Google I came across this simple recipe on the River Cottage website which matched up to the quantities of marrow I had. I wish I could say that I leaped into action there an then, after scribbling a quick shopping list (lemons, preserving sugar and root ginger) but it took another few days before I made it to the supermarket with The Two Monkeys in tow feeling über productive and positive because after a week of having this behemoth of a vegetable glaring at me I was finally going to use it.

On returning home, I got the boys settled The Two Monkeys down to eat their lunch (which I like to think gives me about 15 minutes to do something but in reality its about 5) and returned to the kitchen. Having donned my apron, grabbed my biggest pan and cleared some space I laid out my ingredients to do a "before" shot.

Looks good doesn't it. Very country kitchen. But that was when production came to a screaming halt...and why? Because I had no jam jars. None. Zilch. Because in my infinite wisdom I had the previous evening made tangy plum jam with some of the first fruit off the tree in our garden and used up all the empty jars I had. Talk about school girl error!

So I put my ingredients in the pan which sat on the stove not getting cooked Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I was reluctant to buy brand new jars so had scoured some of the charity shops on Monday but to no avail. Wednesday arrived and so did my Mother along with a hoard of empty jars, this is it, I thought...but no, I ran out of time during the day and I was not going to sacrifice watching Great British Bake Off for an overgrown courgette.

It was Thursday (yesterday) that I finally got to cut into the giant légume. I cut it into slices, scooped out the insides and (leaving the skin on) cooked with a little water but mostly letting it steam in its own juices in the pan.

 Now my thinking behind leaving the skin on was that it would be easier to separate the flesh from the harder skin and on that count at least I was right. The recipe that I referred to above also suggested squeezing the excess water from the marrow which I dutifully did as I removed the skin.

 This however, is where it started to go wrong.

Once I had plonked what remained of the marrow back into the pan it looked rather pitiful, I mean I had expected some reduction but not that much. I added the sugar, lemon zest and juice and the ginger as directed but chose to use fresh ginger over ground or crystallised ginger. I chopped and bruised it to release the oils and then added it to cook with everything else.

But it just didn't look right. Not only did the it just become really pulpy without the natural fluid from the marrow that I had squeezed out, there seemed to be nothing for the sugar to bind with in. It looked lumpy and not at all appetising for spreading on toast or having on a cracker with a really stinky cheese. So either I was meant to end up with more marrow in my pan than the recipe suggested or, and this is my thought, I should have ignored the squeezing instruction.

But what to do now? I am not a chemist and felt, not for the first time with this whole marrow debacle, at a loss.

I did what any normal, sane individual would do.

I added yellow plums.

Now you may be thinking "What?" but my logic went as follows; its similar in colour and these also had a fairly dryish flesh. I had lots of them. As some were still a little under ripe they may add a nice tang to pot which to be quite frank tasted like a zesty ginger stew, the marrow adding bulk but little flavour. And did I mention that I had lots of them?

Yup... please excuse me while I go off topic but I have to tell you about the plums. One of the joys of having a garden is that we now have a plum tree and whilst they are not the sweetest or most flavoursome, I am all about the free fruit and also my Little Giant loves them and will do everything he can to get at the windfalls. So far I had made a crumble, a first pick tangy jam, plum tarts, as well as de-stoning and freezing approximately 4kg and have given various neighbours 500g punnets of them. And there are still more to be picked.

So, back to the jam, why not add them? It couldn't hurt to try right?

Right! After 5 minutes boiling with the plums in the mix I could already see the difference in volume and the consistency looked a lot better too. I continued to cook it at a simmer for another 20 minutes stirring occasionally so the sugar wouldn't catch, but it still did a bit but that's OK because it added a nice bit of colour. I was so pleased to have rescued the jam as I hate waste and I was loath to throw it away.

But now all is said and done I have learnt my lesson, if I am ever offered a marrow in the future I will politely decline and change the subject :)

'D' is for "Doh!"

In the immortal words of Homer, who loves doughnuts more than any other (and my dear husband's favorite character)... 'D' is for "doh" as this post was orginally published, quite mistakely, in the wrong order but this has now been corrected.

But 'D' was meant to be about doughnuts...the glazed ring of deliciousness or a jam filled ball of delight.  Not that I have ever had a go at making these myself, I just like to eat them  :)

Now there are the super sticky ones covered in icing and sprinkles that The Two monkeys love to buy from the baker at the Monday Market we have discovered in our new town. Or there are the melt in your mouth smoothly glazed Krispy Kreme ones that are out of this world and are finished far too soon and if you have more than about 3 you'll be sick. And then there are the super fresh ones you find by the seaside.  I have vivid memories as a teenager of going to Brighton Pier and the smell of the hot dough would make your mouth water and it was futile to do anything but buy one...or two...or a bag.  For sharing of course!