Cannelini bean minestrone

This is such a great, warming, thick soup for yet another wet winter day. I'd spent the morning trying to shore up the chickens pen, so they weren't sloshing about in stinking mud. Normally they free range but the fox has been visiting, and took my pair of Barnevelders on Monday so sadly the rest of the flock are confined to barracks for a bit. Anyway two hours squelching around in the wet, lugging sacks of damp chip bark about and I needed a quick, comforting soup.

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

Large spoonful of frozen tiny veg mix ( if you haven't discovered this, it's AMAZING. Finely chopped onion, celery and carrot in the freezer section of most supermarkets.)
2 crushed garlic bulbs
I can cannelini beans
Pancetta cubes, or finely chopped bacon
Tiny pasta shapes (optional)


Fry off the frozen veg, and the garlic, them add the can of beans, liquid and all. Add a little more boiling water and a chicken stock cube. Simmer for about ten minutes. Meanwhile grill/fry the pancetta or chopped bacon. If you want pasta in the soup cook it separately until al dente, then add to the soup. I cooked it in the soup which was a mistake as it took ages, and everything kept sticking. Blitz the soup with a blender THEN stir in most of the pasta and bacon, and serve, garnished with a bit of bacon, pasta, some parsley and swirl of cream. As you can see I forgot to reserve any for the garnish!

Re-energising soup.

Jan is always a time of trying to undo the excess of Christmas and NY, and I eat lots of different version of this soup, you can make it almost as quickly as making a sandwich and it's a million times better. 

The basic recipe for any variety is sliced spring onions, a pack of miso paste, tea spoon of marigold veg bouillon, then I chuck in a couple of types of veg, some protein, and some noodles. This version was particularly good though.

1 sliced spring onion, in the diagonal if you want to be fancy.

1 packet of miso paste (optional) 

1 tsp of marigold veg bouillon or a stock cube.

Small finely sliced carrot

Pak choi, sliced.

Some cubed ham

20g rice noodles

Handful coriander

Fry up the onions for a minute or so, chuck everything else except the pak choi in, then bubble away until noodles are tender, add the pak choi for a minute then serve with coriander on top.

Microwave ratatouille.

I love ratatouille but somehow can never be bothered to wait around cooking it, frying off all that veg and baking it. So this was an experiment to do a speedy version using my new SISTEMA microwave steamer. I've got large drawer of microwave "ware" but having recently become a bit of a devotee to this brand.

First choose your aubergine, ideally they look like the one on the left, as the right hand one seems to have been brawling on a Friday night.

2 medium aubergines
3 sticks celery
1 carrot
1 shallot
1 fennel
3 bulbs of garlic, you'll prob want less but I'm paranoid about getting a cold at the moment.
(Plus any other dodgy looking veg lurking in the salad drawer.)


Chop up your veg, not too small. Smash the garlic and chop it. Put everything into your steamer (any covered microwave dish will do.) Microwave on high for about 10 ,minutes, until anything you test is soft in texture. Stir in a bit of ready made tomato sauce (I use sainsburys pasta tomato & herb sauce, it tastes fab and is pretty cheap.) Gently stir in the cherry tomatoes, some salt and pepper then put the whole lot under a grill, or ideally an oven/grill combo until browned. Stir again and lavishly apply chopped parsley/basil. I forgot my carrot, but the mix of veg isn't that important, use what ever you like. Classic ratatouille consists of aubergine, tomato and carrot, celery onion and garlic, but feel free to experiment. I meant to put in some new potatoes to appease my husband and bulk it out a a bit. I also forgot those, so we had them on the side, steamed with butter and chives.

Colour, vitamin and 'C' salad

Carrot, coriander, chickpea and cumin salad.


New Year, always a time of resolutions, some easier to keep than others. Mine is to eat more colours in my food, and lavish a little more love and time on our meals. Last years resolution was lose a shed load of weight, which I achieved, so this years seems easy by comparison.

This is a dead easy salad, and can be made up in a matter of minutes. Unless you burn the cumin and sodding nuts three times in a row of course.


2 peeled and grated carrots
1 can chickpeas, drained.
Handful chopped coriander
Tblsp toasted cumin
Small handful toasted chopped nuts. Ideally ones that begin with a c, (Cashews!) but I used pistachios.

Toast the cumin, and nuts in a small frying pan on the hob. I find this is the method least likely to end up in a blackened crumble smoking out the kitchen. Toss together all the ingredients with a couple of tablespoons of your favorite dressing. This can be served warm (30 secs in a microwave) or cold.

Vegetable crisps - guilt free

Mixed Beetroot Crisps

These are so good. I made a batch intending to share them with husband when he got home. They didn't last untill evening I'm afraid.

 

 

I had been given a variety of coloured of beets by my mother in law, a dedicated gardener, that then sat in the bottom of my fridge getting wrinkly. Any root veg would work though; potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots. It makes great use of any odd spare veg.

 

I peeled them and sliced them thinly using my mandoline, managing not to lose any digits. Patted them dry, and sprinkled with salt, then laid them on a plate (NOT touching!) and microwaved for 3 mins full power, turn them over then a further 3 half power. Remove the crispy ones, and keep zapping for 30 sec intervals untill they're all done. Allow to cool, then either gobble them all up and deny their existence, or keep them to share.

 

Incidentally I first used some of that bake o glide as a liner, thinking myself v clever, but one of them actually caught fire. Bad idea.

 

 

 

 



Welcome to my blog.

I love cooking, and pre children would lavish time and love on intricate dishes. But then I had children, and a husband,  all of whom eat a lot, three times a day, every day. I started to hate cooking. Having to cook over twenty different meals a week for, occasionally, extremely ungrateful recipients,  was starting to feel like drudgery. I was beginning to go down the 'pasta with a different jar of sauce every night' route, when I looked upon that black box that took up so much counter space in my crappy little kitchen and wondered if indeed it could do more than reheat coffee and nuke frozen stuff.
I discovered it could, in fact it could quarter the time I spent in the kitchen, halve the amount of washing up, and also do away the syndrome of "cremated dinner" that seems to happen so often when you are distracted by small children. Nothing like a carefully made risotto burnt black in the pan to make you weep and reach for the baked beans. Again.

I also found that meals cooked in the microwave are much, much healthier. You can't really use fat in the microwave, so it is naturally lower fat, and because it cooks so much more quickly, preserves far more nutrients and colour in say, vegetables, than steaming for example.

I don't say that I exclusively use the microwave, that would be as ridiculous as only cooking with kettle, and some things are just better in the oven, cake for example, or grilled bacon. But it can, used to its potential,  make your life so so much easier! And reduce your bottom. Can't beat that really, can you?!