I’ve been very slack in posting this recipe. Although is it a recipe if the measurements aren’t precise, or is it just a cross my fingers, shut my eyes (bit dangerous in the kitchen, that one, then again cooking with fingers crossed is probably a bit dangerous too) and hope for the best kind of thing? Anyway, this week’s soup was broccoli and potato. Nice.
Ingredients: Shallots
Garlic
Potatoes
Broccoli
Cabbage
1,500 ml stock
Black pepper
Nutritional yeast
Brown miso
Instructions: Cook the shallots and the garlic in some stock
While the shallots are cooking, chop the potatoes and vegetables
Bung it all in the pot with the shallots and garlic and the rest of the stock
Sprinkle in some nutritional yeast
After about 20 minutes or so when the potatoes are soft, whizz it up with a stick blender
Add a bit of brown miso
Put off blogging about it for five days
Hurrah, yesterday was Thursday and Thursday means organic vegetable delivery day. And I couldn’t blog yesterday because yesterday was also go to the pictures and see Slumdog Millionaire (how can they promote a film that is riddled with death, violence and heartbreak as a “feel good movie”?), then go to Prezzo with our cheapskate’s “two for one main meals” voucher and eat deep fried mozzarella, bruschetta and pizza and drink red wine day and I get home and my vegetable box from Riverford Organic Vegetables is waiting for me, hidden as usual (until the local E17 vegetable thieves read this) under my recycling box and this is what awaits me
and there’s bananas (hooray) and apples (boo) and mushrooms (yay yay yay yay yay yay yay) and sweet potatoes (just about scraped into the plural there, what with there only being a not very generous two of them) and broccoli (that’s next week’s soup sorted then) and cabbage (oh fuck, not another “what am I supposed to do with this then?” week) and I go to work and think hmm, what shall I have for dinner tonight and I remember I bought some potatoes from the shop in the week and so I put mushrooms and potatoes into the wonderful BBC Recipe Finder and it gives me eight recipes to choose from and I opt for the Creamy Mushroom Ragout with Nutmeg Mash and go to Tesco on the way home and buy some double cream as it’s the only ingredient I’m missing apart from the sherry but I buy some red wine to use instead and I think shall I make the amount for 4 and freeze some or quarter it to make the amount needed for the sad-spinster-of-the-parish-who-lives-alone-with-her-cat portion and I weigh the mushrooms on my shiny new scales and it says I only have 205g of mushrooms and the recipe calls for about 900g so I have to go for the lonely old woman portion and so I quarter everything else while I’m making it and so according to the recipe I need about 100g of cabbage but when I get to fry the cabbage, I decide there’s too much and only use about half of it and it all comes together nicely and it looks like this
and I sit down to eat it and oh my, it’s REALLY REALLY NICE. Yum.
Last night I decided to make some mince pies and to make them with my new shortcrust pastry mix that I bought, instead of the ready rolled stuff. (The Meat Eater said “you still have to roll it though, don’t you? “No”, said I. “There’s a clue in the name – ready rolled”. Sigh.)
So off I dutifully trotted to the kitchen to weigh out the pastry mix, as I’m told that flour and bread and general bakery stuff like cakes (mmm, cakes) have to be measured precisely and so I turned on my scales, but they didn’t respond. “Come on stupid scales, Eastenders is on soon and I haven’t got time for this”. But the scales were not to be coaxed into action. Waa. So I threw caution to the wind (i.e. I’d had a bottle of wine and couldn’t really be arsed about measuring precisely) and got out the measuring jug and sort of guessed how many grams (I think it was grams, the jug is presently in the dishwasher being pounded by jets of scalding hot water and bits of dishwasher tablet, so I can’t check) and added some water (three tablespoons to be precise, and I can be precise about that bit, three tablespoons is easy) and made my pastry which came out perfectly and made my mince pies (why I’m making mince pies is the subject of a future blog post) and thought “hurrah, I get to go shopping for kitchen gadgets tomorrow” and so I went to work and at lunchtime, braved the rain and the wind and the cold and the sleet and the snow and the hailstones and the tornadoes and the building site workers and went to that little bit of heaven called Robert Dyas (ok, it’s not very posh but I don’t work on Oxford Street any more. Damn, just as I was getting on first name terms with the staff in Selfridges too) and bought myself a shiny new electronic silver set of scales for the bargain price of £9.99 which is a lot better than the fifty English pounds my broken ones cost me. Maybe there’s something in this High Street shopping after all. Looky, new scales.
And while I’m in Robert Dyas, I’m very good and only buy a Trust Mini USB2 Hub and not the electric cheese grater or the bobble remover that I really really need too and I get home and make myself some veggie spaghetti bolognaise and I put the spaghetti in the pan and I think I won’t weigh it as, if it’s under 100g, I’ll only put some more in and I’m trying not to be such a glutton but then I think oooh, but I REALLY need to try out my new scales and so I weigh the spaghetti and it’s only 69g and I think aah, that’s not even an amount for a starter but I have an iron will and put the spaghetti back in the pan without getting more out of the packet. Hardcore.
This week’s soup of choice (is it really a choice when I use whatever comes in my weekly organic vegetable box delivery?) is Cauliflower and Red Pepper Soup. Although, strictly speaking, it should be called Cauliflower and Half-Red/Half-Green Pepper Soup, but apart from that being a less catchy title, it’s also a bit pedantic. And I’m not pedantic at all. Oh no. Not me. Honest.
Instructions
Chop up three shallots
Chop up the cauliflower
Chop the half-red/half-green pepper
Cook the shallots in 500ml of stock
Add the cauliflower and half-red/half-green pepper
Add 1,500ml more stock
Add whatever seasonings you like; in my case chili powder, nutritional yeast, brown miso and black pepper
After about 20 minutes, whizz it up with a hand blender
The end.
Contents of this week’s box
(mini fruit & veg)
Shallots
Cauliflower
Portabello mushrooms
Red peppers
Avena mandarins
Bananas