The slow cooker chef: Spicy Creole bean and summery vegetable soup recipe
Having been a bit sniffy about slow cookers for years I am now a convert. It has just been a week since I tottered into the cottage with our virgin slow cooker. Since then she has slaved away preparing wonderful food. Generally this is fat free and so tasty that I need to officiate towards the end of the cooking time. Otherwise Danny is tempted to visit this well of wonder several times a day. If I’m late back from work there is no longer a pinched face at the door. D might have polished off a litre of soup during the afternoon but he...
read moreSoup: Broccoli and Celeriac recipe
Years ago I met a lady who had married a famous Hungarian film director. They ran away together and rented a flat somewhere in Europe. Neither of them could cook. She had heard about one pot cooking. Apparently this magical pot stood constantly on the stove. Every day you threw in various tasty things. Cooked them slowly through and the leftovers were the base of the next day’s meal. After a week they gave up. The pot had become rancid and vile. In fact, from that day on they never cooked again for the rest of their lives. Sometimes I...
read moreSmart Wife’s leek and potato soup recipe (vichyssoise)
Even though the room was dark, the rustle from the bed indicated that Danny was awake. I shot in, spoon in hand. “I think that I’ve finally got the vichyssoise right! I just need you to taste it.” “But I’ve just cleaned my teeth.” Danny tasted it anyway, gave it the thumbs up and fell asleep. Years ago Smart Wife taught me how to make vichyssoise. I made gallons of the stuff and we would drink it throughout the long hot Chelsea summers. This was Smart Wife’s favourite soup and I must admit I never...
read moreLight Winter Celery soup with blue cheese recipe
Tiny hands clap with glee at the cottage when the winter celery season begins. This celery has been traditionally grown on the Fens since Victorian times. It is now grown in other parts of England too. It is the most celery tasting celery that you will ever find. Great with cheese, and superb for soup, stocks, stir fries and casseroles. The winter celery season runs from now up until Christmas. And it is top of the shopping list for the next few fleeting weeks. We make vast batches of winter celery soup and generally languish in a surfeit of...
read moreDr Quito’s Jewish Chicken Soup recipe. A cure all.
I’m always reading that someone somewhere has proved that Jewish Chicken soup is a natural cure for colds, flu, fevers and even the blues. A few years ago I decided that it had to be part of our repertoire. The best Jewish chicken soup recipes are often carefully guarded family secrets, handed down through generations. We refused to be knocked back by this. We tried a few recipes, identified what worked for us and started to experiment. Our goal was to create a soup that would appeal equally to an invalid and a super fit trapeze artist....
read moreWinter Celery soup recipe: oven baked
Nothing beats the intense flavour of Winter Celery. We lament the fact that the season is so short. Just six weeks, from mid November to New Years Day. Winter Celery is grown in the dark soil of East Anglian Fens, just a few miles from our cottage, so we can always find it at its freshest and best. When I spotted it in the shops on Saturday I was so pleased to find my old friend again. I returned home with a couple of heads and one purpose in mind: Winter Celery begs to be made into this superb winter soup. If you are feeling naughty reserve...
read moreCream of Pumpkin Soup recipe
This pumpkin has been languishing on the windowsill for the last week. Not waiting to be changed into a coach for one of our min pins but to be transformed into a vicious head to ward off the Halloween daemons. Halloween has become a vast industry in Britain. Party and toy shops bulge with decorations and the means to disguise the most innocent looking toddler into a vampire, witch or the sort of half eaten zombie that would not be welcome at your average convention of ghouls. The children in the house where I’m working have already...
read moreFiona’s Smoked Fish Chowder
We used smoked haddock as our fish of preference in this delicious chowder. It is a very forgiving dish and you can use most any fish. Either all smoked like this one or a mix of smoked and unsmoked if you want to achieve a balance that appeals to your taste. Many fish chowder recipes require fish stock. Most people do not have it to hand and we are no exception. We created an instant fishy, smoky stock by lightly poaching the haddock to create a base stock for this soup and adding marigold and a touch of picante pimenton. It took minutes and...
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