Soup of the Evening, Beautiful Soup

I tend to agree with the Mock Turtle. Soup is one of the best things you can eat in winter. Phoebe has Scholarship maths at 7 on Monday night & Harriet is staying & has French until 8.30. Because I needed to serve meals at 3 different times, we have been having soup Mondays. The soup just sits on the stove in the dutch oven. It is so popular it may become a permanent fixture. We have some old standbys in our house. Basic pumpkin soup is a must. I roughly chop a whole pumpkin - allow plenty of time if you have forgotten what hard work this can be. Add to a large pot with several onions, several carrots, a large potato & I often add a swede - all roughly chopped. You can add bacon bones if you like. Just cover with water, bring to the boil & simmer until all the veg are cooked, especially the carrots. This is your base. I freeze most of it at this stage, in batches. When you're ready to use dress it up as you fancy. This year I've been making a paste with a little curry powder & adding to the base with a little cream. This is one of the few times when I use curry powder - we buy Empire Madras hot. The others are devilled eggs & kedgeree. Try grating in some nutmeg or chopped herbs, and thin with yoghurt or cream. Another favourite in our house is Digby Law's carrot soup which involves gently sweating chopped onions & carrots in thyme with fresh time until soft, then covering with chicken stock & adding 4 tbsp rice. Simmer until rice is cooked, puree in the blender & serve with cream. The rice is deliciously nutty. Or try simmering 4 chopped kumara in chicken stock until almost cooked. Add 1/2 head diced celery & cook a further 5 mins. Puree & serve with cream & a crushed garlic clove. Try a delicious cauliflower soup. Cauliflower can be deceptively smooth, almost velvety. Cook a thinly sliced leek until softened. Chop the cauliflower into small florets & saute most (reserve a cupful for garnish) & add to leek with some chopped garlic. When the cauliflower has softened slightly, add a litre of vegetable stock & simmer 20 mins until the cauliflower is very soft. Puree until very creamy & add more stock if it is too thick. Make croutons according to my method in previous post. Steam the reserved cauliflower until al dente then saute in a little oil with 3 tbsp capers, until golden. If you want a richer soup add a little cream. Serve with croutons & capers. What about a carrot & parsnip soup? In a large bowl mix 4 or five carrots & 2 parsnips, peeled & diced into 2 cm pieces, 1 onion thinly sliced, 2 roughly chopped tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic crushed & some olive oil. Tip onto a large roasting tray & roast at 180 about 40 mins. Turn occasionally. Process half the vegetables & 2 cups of chicken stock until smooth, then tip into a saucepan & add the remaining vegetables & another 2 cups of stock. Simmer for 10 minutes then stir in juice of 1/2 a lemon, 3tbsp cream & chopped parsley to serve. Finally I have saved the best for last. Finely chop in the food processor an onion, 2 carrots, a stick of celery and whatever else you like the look of in the fridge. I used a bit of fennel, some capsicum, 1/2 a red onion. I have taken to using the food processor to finely chop my vegetables for sofrito because I get improved consistency and, let's face it, it just saves a lot of time & effort. Just chop them into rough chunks first. Soften the vegetables in a large saucepan with a few chilli flakes. Add 4 cups boiling water & 3/4 cup pearl barley. I bought this to make a barley & meatball dish I haven't got around to, but this soup is now on my list of must repeats. Simmer about 1 1/2 hours until barley is tender. Stir in a tin of chopped tomatoes & a can of creamed sweet corn. Must be creamed. Simmer 20 minutes or so & serve with chopped parsley. Season to your taste. You can freeze the left overs. Watch this space for more soup Monday ideas. What are the favourites in your house?

Invalid cooking

Phoebe was recently very ill, as some of you know, and she didn't really want to eat. She lived on soup & smoothies for a week but as she recovered, her appetite improved. She lost about 4 kilos so needed fattening up. She was hungry but nothing tasted very nice so I had to be quite creative to provide meals that were appealing for an invalid. These days we tend not to have prolonged illness and don't often need to provide meals for convalescence.
One of the things Phoebe likes is tinned tomato soup but that didn't seem nourishing enough so I made a version using tinned tomatoes. I softened onion, celery & garlic before adding the tin of tomatoes & enough chicken stock to make a nice consistency. Simmer for 20 minutes or so then add milk and/or cream to serve. I made croutons - Phoebe always eats soup if you add croutons & cheese. To make croutons I cut some white bread into chunks. I use whatever I have lurking in the breadbin -Turkish, French, Italian, potato bread, which I toss in garlic infused oil & bake in the oven (about 180) until crisp (about 15 mins). Put the croutons in an ovenproof soup bowl, pour over the soup, grate over some cheese & grill until cheese melts. Now she chooses my soup over the tinned even without the croutons.
One morning she wanted pancakes for breakfast and I served them with lemon, a dish of mixed berries and both plain & cinnamon sugar as well as some maple syrup. My mother always maintained that presentation contributes to the appetite of the recently ill and I do think that had some effect on Phoebe.
The other meal she ate with enthusiasm was pasta which I cooked, then mixed with homemade tomato sauce (from the freezer) & very small sprigs of steamed broccoli. I topped with grated cheese mixed with panko crumbs & put under the grill until the cheese melted & the crumbs turned golden.
These ideas would also work for a child or any occasion where you need to produce a nutritious meal for one with minimum effort but don't want to resort to a packet.
I kept the fridge stocked with dishes of jelly and I made custard to serve with stewed apple or rhubarb. One day I got quite carried away & made something I remembered from my childhood called Pineapple Bavarian Cream. You will find this on p 138 in your (well, my edition of) Edmonds book - accept no substitute. Soften a packet of pineapple jelly (I couldn't get pineapple & used lemon, for the colour) in 1/2 cup cold water, make a custard with 2 tbsp custard powder & 3/4 cup milk and mix the 2 together. Cool then beat into 150ml whipped cream & fold in 230g tin crushed pineapple. Recipes on the internet just use pineapple, jelly & cream but the custard is essential. Set in individual dishes to serve to your invalid on demand. Phoebe liked this so much she has feigned a relapse on several occasions in the hope of it reappearing on the menu.

We dined on mince & slices of quince

The season is past now so it's a bit late I know, but this year I discovered the joy of quinces. I first bought a couple at Moore Wilson and I poached them in muscat & spices something like this. They were very rich but delicious & the colour was amazing. There was lots of poaching liquor left so I put it in the fridge & thought I'd get some more quinces. Then I noticed that the liquor had jellied in the fridge so we ate it on our toast. From there I just had to make quince jelly especially as we were disappointed by our crabapple trees and there was no jelly coming from that direction.
I found a great recipe for Quince Jelly from the blog I used to make the blueberry jam in summer. I had been led to believe that this would be a mission, but don't listen to the naysayers. It is so easy & the resulting jelly is so pretty & delicious that I will be doing this every year & trying some other jellies as well. I bought a proper jelly bag with stand from Moore Wilson. I was doing this after dinner & it got quite late so I let the pulp strain overnight (step 4) and I now think that is the best way to do it. You're not waiting impatiently for the fruit to strain so you're not tempted to rush. I did stage 2 in the morning before work - it was no effort & I was still out of the house by 8.00 a.m.
From there Membrillo (Spanish quince paste) was the obvious next step and by then I was feeling like an expert. I had some helpful hints from some of you & I ended up making 2 batches. I made this in the evening while we were playing board games at the dining table. That way I was present while the paste was thickening & I could keep an eye on it. We were playing Kingmaker and I used the paste checking times to review my strategy. I left it in the oven overnight for the last stage & I found that gave the best results. I have cut it all up into small squares & wrapped in cling film the stored in a flat plastic container in the freezer. Next year I will be trying other fruit as well but I suspect you can't go past the beautiful rich ruby red of the quince.
For my final turn with quinces I went back to Nigella and a preserve she tantalisingly calls Paradise Chutney. For this you also need fresh cranberries and the new season's cranberries arrived in the shops just as the quinces were coming to an end.
You will need:
500g of quinces peeled, cored & roughly chopped (save the peelings & cores)
500g cooking apples peeled, cored & chopped
a diced onion
250g fresh cranberries & 150g dried
500g white sugar
4 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tbsp mustard powder
Juice & zest of both an orange & lemon
350ml cider vinegar

First boil the quince peelings in 750ml water until you have about 350ml liquid remaining. Then put all the ingredients plus the strained peelings liquid into a preserving pan, let the sugar dissolve over a low heat then bring to the boil & simmer slowly about 1 hour. Everything will cook down & become slightly pulpy but the quince pieces will still be recognisable.
Ladle into sterilise jars. You'll have about 2 litres. This chutney is great as an accompaniment to cold meats & with potatoes.
All you need now is a runcible spoon.