Tuesday 16 October 2012

No sweat soup

Most soup recipes will tell you of the importance of sweating your vegetables to develop a deep, rich taste. But - shh, don't tell the children - rules are made to be broken and you can save precious minutes of prep time by simply putting some roughly chopped raw veg in a pan, adding water and a stock cube or 2 and boiling until everything is soft. Then blend and add something fattening like cream, cheese, bits of bacon etc.

Old cauliflower
From sad...
I have just made soup this way, using an old cauliflower, two onions, a clove of garlic, a potato, two stock cubes, and 50g Stilton - added at the end.

Cauliflower soup in a bowl with Stilton crumbled on top
...to glad

This was eaten with yesterday's baguette.  To revive old bread (not sliced), run the loaf very quickly under cold water and put it in a hot oven for about 10 minutes.  Eat straight away.

Last night I spotted 4 pears in the fruit bowl that were 'on the turn'.  I peeled and sliced them, put them in an ovenproof dish, covered them with chocolate sponge mixture and baked for about 30 minutes at 170/ gas 4 until 'set' (see note below). Result - chocolate pear pudding, served hot with cream or cold in slices.  

Note: Don't wait for the middle bit to set or the sponge around the edges will be dry. The middle is therefore the best bit, kind of chocolate-saucy and rich.

Tin of Cadbury's Bournville cocoa powder
Chocolate sponge:
100g caster sugar
100g butter
2 eggs
75g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
25g cocoa powder

Cream the butter and sugar together and fold in the dry ingredients (you may need to sieve the cocoa powder).




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