Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

These are the savoury muffins I made for our Melbourne Cup Day picnic at the Canterbury Gardens. I personally don’t quite understand the races I am happy for any excuse for a day off. We ended up going to the Canterbury Gardens and feasted on these little muffins, garden salad, chicken and beetroot sandwiches, best-ever scones*, fresh strawberry ‘jam’ and my homemade lemonade. We even missed the drizzle and got all the sunshine hours. Bliss.

This recipe was based loosely on Stephanie Alexander’s American Muffin from the Cook’s Companion.

Muffins for the Race Day

(Makes 6 muffins or 12 mini muffins – this recipe uses standard Australian measurements.)

1. 220 g. self-raising flour
2. 3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
3. 1 egg
4. 3/4 cup vegetable oil (not strong-flavoured like extra virgin olive)
5. pinches of salt and pepper, to taste
6. 1/4 red capsicum, diced into very small pieces
7. 1/4 block of feta, diced into very small pieces
8. 2 rindless rashers of bacon

Note the capsicum, feta and bacon should come to about 100g all up.

Preheat oven to 180′c. Whisk together the wet ingredients (milk/buttermilk, egg and oil) together until combined. Add dry ingredients and mix together just until combined. Do not overmix as this will toughen the muffins. Bake in non-stick muffin tins for about 20-30 minutes. Leave to cool before attempting to remove the muffins from the tin otherwise they stick!

This recipe has also appeared on my new blog, With What We Have. It won’t be a food porn blog like this one but I hope you’ll find it interesting.

This time last year I made: A Most Excellent Rogan Josh and Saffron Rice

* Coming soon to Spatula, Spoon and Saturday. Soonish. Some time. Promise.

I am totally going through an asparagus phase at the moment. Every market I go to, they’re selling beautifully fresh, plump asparagus. Who am I to refuse these little beauties?

This soup was adapted from Skye Gyngell’s My Favourite Ingredients, which is really a beautiful cookbook. She writes cookbooks like she writes poetry. It’s great. As Skye said, this recipe is more like a wet, sloppy risotto rather than a soup. It is substantial for dinner.

Hearty Soup for 2:

1. 8 fat asparagus, tough parts peeled back and chopped into 3 cm pieces
2. 1.5 cups of risotto rice
3. 1 spanish onion, finely chopped
4. 3 slices of mild pancetta (about 80g), chopped
5. 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
6. 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
7. 5 fresh sage leaves, chopped
8. 2 slices of dried porcini or 2 dried shittake mushrooms
9. 750 ml of hot water + 1/2 cube of Massel vegetable stock + 1 tsp of Vegeta Gourmet stock*
10. a pinch of salt and pepper
11. parmesan, shaved to serve

Heat up 1 tbsp of olive oil and slowly fry off the onion, pancetta, sage and thyme for about 10 minutes on low heat until the onion turns clear and translucent. Add salt, rice and garlic and fry until the rice is too hot to touch. Add the stock and dried mushrooms and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add asparagus and bring back to boil for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Serve with freshly cracked pepper and shaved parmasan.

* Or use whatever light (vegetable/chicken) stock you have. I rarely do my own stock but I have started a freezer bag of off cut vegetables so once that’s full I might do up a batch of fresh stock.

The very first time I had rabbit was actually at Grossi Florentino and it was absolutely delicious. One Saturday I just decided that cooking a bunny was in order so I perused through all my food books and settled on something vaguely resembling Stephanie Alexander’s Country Rabbit in a Claypot.

I never cooked rabbit before so I figured surely one cannot screw up a casserole and went with that choice. Which turned out to be a rather good one (if I may say so myself). Our local butcher sold whole free-range rabbits, which  she kindly jointed for me (very loudly with a huge cleaver, might I add. Josh commented, ‘Bunny definitely dead now’).

Marinade

1. 1 farmed rabbit (about 800 g.)
2. 1 tbsp dijon mustard
3. 1 tbsp plain flour
4. 1 tsp soy sauce
5. 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked

Start by making a paste from the ingredients above (minus the rabbit of course) and then coat the rabbit pieces with it. Leave to marinade while you prepare other things.

(fryin, not boiling, the bunny)

Casserole

1. 1 onion, finely chopped
2. 1 carrot, finely diced (reserve peel)
3. 1 carrot, sliced into chunks (reserve peel)
4. 100 g. of smoked bacon (I used kaiser but try pancetta or any smoked bacon)
5. 8 pickling (small) onions
6. 12 small button mushrooms (leave whole, or halved)
7. 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
8. 1/2 cup of dry white wine
9. 3 sprigs of rosemary, leaves picked

Stock

1. 2 fresh (or dried) bay leaves
2. 1/2 litre of boiling water
3. carrot peel
4. pumpkin peel (from the pumpkin and sweet potato mash puree)
5. sweet potato peel
6. 2 tsp of Vegeta gourmet stock powder (or your favourite)
7. 4 pieces of dried porcini
8. rosemary stalks

(simmering the stock)

Start by heating up a bit of olive oil in a large frying pan and fry the rabbit pieces on all sides until browned. Be careful not to dislodge the marinade.  Set the meat aside in a casserole dish and deglaze the pan with the white wine. Pour the pan juice onto the rabbit pieces.

Meanwhile, heat up a knob of butter in a frying pan and slowly fry the chopped onion and diced carrot with some garlic and rosemary. Add the bacon and cook on medium heat until the bacon mixture slight lycoloured. Place the bacon and onion mixture on top of the rabbit pieces in the casserole dish. Preheat the oven to 160′C. Put the casserole dish in it to keep warm while making the stock.

Pour the stock ingredients onto the frying pan that was just used for the bacon and simmer the stock ingredients for 5 minutes. Pick out the bay leaf and add to the rabbit. Add the pickling onions. Strain the stock and pour it onto the casserole dish. Cover and cook for an hour.

After an hour, add the mushrooms, carrot slices and the rest of the rosemary leaves. Cook for another hour.

Serve with mashed pumpkin and sweet potato.

I declare my bunny experiment a success!

Hopefully everyone has realised by now that good food is all about love. The food is only as good as the love and care that has gone into it. It’s not about how exclusive and trendy the restaurant is, or how many types of purees there are on the food or how artful it is.

Why is this the best lasagna in the world? It’s because it’s made by one of the person who loves me the most in the world. And, that, is worth everything.

Josh first made this for me about three dates into our relationship. That was the day I distinctly remember as the day I totally fell in love with him. It was a lovely summer day, his plum trees were full of red plump fruits, the sky was bright blue, his roses were in full bloom and the bees were going crazy on the flowers, and I had the best comfort food in the world, lasagna, without the luxury of having an Italian mother.

This is the way Josh makes his lasagna:

He would heat up a tablespoon or so of olive oil, to which he would add half an onion that has been carefully diced. He then adds two chopped rindless bacon.  He would slowly cook it until the onion goes all soft and translucent and the bacon slightly coloured. Then, he would take about 300 g. of good minced beef (not the fatty horrible supermarket one) and two cloves of crushed garlic and add that to the mix.

He would stir until the mince browns and all the juice evaporates. He would add a can of diced tomatoes and two tablespoons of tomato paste (he usually buys those sachet ones that individually contain two tablespoons per serve).

He would then pick leaves from two or three sprigs of fresh oregano and add to the mince sauce.  Sometimes he would put other fresh herbs in. He likes to grow rosemary, sage and thyme together because the combination amuses him (greensleeves, geddit?) When we have some fresh parsley growing, usually in summer, or I bought a bunch from the market, he would chop a handful of parsley stalks in, reserving the leaves for later.

He would then turn the heat down to simmer and let it stew over for twenty minutes. This is where patience comes in. He doesn’t rush. There’s no rushing, no shortcuts to good food for him. He would give it a stir once in a while but mostly just let it sit there, bubbling.

After twenty minutes, he would chop up the reserved parsley leaves and add that to sauce and stir it through. He would get his old faithful glass baking dish and spoon the mince sauce onto the bottom of the baking dish and layer instant lasagna sheets on, ensuring every inch of the sauce is covered, breaking off bits of the sheet if he has to. He would repeat this until the baking dish fills up. There’s no bechamel sauce. No creme fraiche. No cheese in between the layers. Just the mince sauce that had been patiently stewed until it’s just right and the pasta sheets.

He would cut a few slices from a ball of good quality mozzarella cheese, not a fresh white ball, the normal pale cream diseccated one that you get from a deli (or a supermarket with good selection of cheese) and top off the last layer of the lasagna. He would grate a thing sprinkling of parmesan cheese as well. There’s no buying of pregrated icky supermarket cheese, of course.

He would then carefully cover it with a layer of foil, then off it goes into the oven at 180′ c for another good twenty minutes. He would then uncover the lasagna and turn the heat up to 220′c and bake for another ten minutes until the cheese is golden brown.

He would then cut up a good section and plonk a good portion of it for his hungry wife (who would usually be very hungry by now because he needs at least two hours to ‘make it properly’) Sometimes he would do up a nice green salad with various ingredients that take his fancy (I once discovered strawberries and pineapple in his ‘green’ salad, ‘it’s half way fruit salad, isn’t it awesome?’) to go alongside the lasagna.

There’s always leftovers to take to work the next day.

Last post on my Central Australia trip. Yay! Are you guys bored of reading about it yet?

(Bush food – an Aboriginal survival presentation at Alice Springs Desert Park)

We spent the last two nights in Alice Springs before travelling back to Melbourne. We drove from Alice Springs to Adelaide (yes in one day) before a stop over in Adelaide and then back to Melbourne the next day. I don’t think I can ever drive that much in one day again.

(Joshua’s kinda carbonara)

Just some quick pictures of a few meals that we cooked ourselves in Alice Springs as we were back to having a fully equipped kitchen. We did a round of fresh food shopping at Coles in Alice Springs, which was rather big and very stocked.

(the carbonara sauce, recipe here)

Josh made spaghetti carbonara, his usual way with mushrooms and capsicum. We had it for lunch back at the apartment one day.

I made stir-fried beef with onion, chilli and snow peas (recipe here, just add snow peas).

The snow peas were nice at the supermarket so I bought them instead of green beans. I served it with rice and omelet soup.

(omelet soup)

Omelet soup!?! Yep. Omelet soup. I might talk about it sometime later to include recipe but now is not the time.

Also made some more pasta sauce (with broccoli, zucchini, olives, bacon and capsicum) using the Leggo’s stir-through sauce for lunch on the road.

(rock wallaby)

And that concludes most of the foods that had been consumed during my time away from home! I shall leave you with some pictures of a cute rock wallaby at the Heavitree Gap resort in Alice Springs and Adelaide’s West Beach.

More Melbourne eating from now on!

(Ayer’s Rock Resort’s communal kitchen at around 9pm)

Wow I never thought I would ever do this. I figured I have already missed my boat on the whole backpacking/youth hostel thing. We were camping out at the camp ground at the Ayer’s Rock Campground near the Uluru-Kata Tjutu National Park because I planned the whole trip out in two days and I couldn’t get us reasonable accommodation that didn’t cost, like, $500 a night. So sleeping in a tent, it was.

(the choice of cooking implements were sadly lacking)

It seemed like, though, that everyone around us was well prepared and came with their own portable stove and cooking equipment. We only had some provisions, plates and cutleries and a billy can! I actually planned to just buy food there but the choice was so sadly lacking that when we by chance discovered the communal kitchen, I decided that I would hit the supermarket and make us some food. It was absolutely packed at first but once we made a trip to the supermarket and came back, the crowd had died down and the kitchen was nice and empty.

(I didn’t realise there was a water boiler there, I actually set a huge wok to boil some pasta)

To the certain extent I was prepared for everything to cost more, but I didn’t expect everything to nearly double in price! Amazingly, the only thing that wasn’t double in price was the steak. They loved their steak out there. That was the only thing in that entire Ayer’s Rock Resort IGA that didn’t cost much more than it would in Melbourne!

(pasta sauce with broccoli, zucchini and bacon)

So I ended up making us two meals there on both nights we camped there. The first night I made pasta with vegetables and bacon, having all the ingredients from the box. The second night, Mum insisted on some more meat and so I made green curry with beef and mushrooms and stir-fried lettuce with bacon.

(we had salad every night)

Things I already had in the provision box (some of which desperately needed to be used up):

1. 1 x 500g. fusili
2. 1 jar of Leggo’s Stir-Through pasta sauce
3. 2 slices of bacon
4. an iceberg lettuce
5. cooking oil
6. fish sauce
7. seasoning soy sauce
8. salt
9. green curry sauce (Mum bought this in Thailand so it really wasn’t so bad)
10. 2 tomatoes
11. 1/2 broccoli
12. 1/2 zucchini
13. 3 x mushrooms

(our pasta mean on the first night)

The rest I had to acquire at the supermarket, of course. I cut up some bacon, broccoli and zucchini. I stir-fried them in a bit of oil and added the Chilli, Tomato and Olive Stir-through pasta sauce in this mildly-filthy frying pan that I had to stir with a bent-up ladel. The shared equipment’s cleanliness had a lot to be desired I have to admit. Mum insisted on rewashing everything but some of the burnt on filth just wouldn’t come off. Ah well. The food they were selling there didn’t look much more appetising though! I’d rather have something I made!

(pasta dinner for three, cooked in a communal kitchen, served in provided bowls)

I ended using all of the pasta and sauce and we had some for lunch the next day (we needed to energy to climb the Uluru!)

(green curry with beef and mushroom, this is me breaking every Thai cooking rule here)

The second night saw us procuring some very nice and reasonably priced scotch fillets, which Mum promptly grilled up (in a wok I might add as it was the only thing we could lay our hands on because we went in during peak time on that day). I sliced the other one up and marinade it in 1 tbsp of fish sauce.  I brought the green curry sauce to boil and added the steak and mushrooms and simmer and cooked them quickly so that the beef stayed nice and tender.

Yes I know. There is no mushroom in any Thai curry, ever. But I needed to use up the mushrooms as we didn’t have a fridge and I would be damned to store anything in the communal fridge! Again, I made a lot of food hoping to have it for picnic lunch the next day. Not a great idea with the curry as the fat solidified, so we saved it (and thankfully it lasted) until we get to Alice Springs where we had a microwave!

(stir-fried lettuce with bacon)

I also stir-fried lettuce and bacon together quickly in very hot oil. I only used salt as a flavouring ingredient. Everyone thought it tasted great. But the wok was so filthy it really put me off that I just couldn’t enjoy it knowing it was cooked in such a filthy communal wok. I literally added a heap of salt into a heated wok to clean out all the burnt bits that were on there that couldn’t be removed by detergent and scouring. It was rather disgusting to see what came off it. Although I cleaned it rather well, the memory lingered! I know the lettuce probably wasn’t a traditional stir-fry veggie but everyone should try it. It’s rather good.

(Rice cooked in a billy)

I made some rice in a billy! The trick is to use a lot less water because the billy is much taller and narrower so there’s less room for water to evaporate. Still the same ten minutes, just as it takes on the stove.

I guess I wouldn’t mind cooking in a communal kitchen again. I loved the big space and industrial-sized stove. The cleanliness had a lot to be desired but I think I’ll be happy to do it again provided that I bring my own saucepan, wok, frying pan, etc!

I saw a few families cooking in the kitchen together and it seemed like a great family bonding experience. I think that’s what everyone should do at home. Cook with your family. Sit down and eat the meal you have all prepared together. It was an experience for me observing all the family dynamics that were going on. I found it very interesting.

My breakfast the next day after we left Adelaide:

Fried eggs, bacon and salad (who says fried breakfast can’t be healthy?) Pretty much the same ingredients from the night before. Josh had settled on banana on toast and Mum on the leftover fried rice.

I fried up the bacon first and ended up with a lot of bacon fat, which I fried the eggs in. Hmmm. Bacon fat. I then scrambled a few eggs together, add a touch of soy sauce and made omelet. I also threw in the leftover bacon – only the rindless part though. The streaky bits would have been wrong eaten cold!

After we left Adelaide (ridiculously early, might I add), we headed onto the Stuart Highway on our way to Coober Pedy and had lunch somewhere along the way at one of the rest stops. It was amazing how the trees just disappeared.

(That’s Josh. Not me.)

We had the leftover bacon fried rice, the uber spicy, a bit of the left over salad and some sandwiches. It was a bit of a smorgasbord really.

(Josh’s invention #1: lemon & pepper tuna, tomato and Colby cheese on rye bread)

(Josh’s invention #2: omelet and bacon sandwich)

The strawberries were gone by lunch time. But the lovely cherries were still there:

I found Siamese twin cherries! Hehe.

And then we drove on to the dusty little mining town called Coober Pedy.

<Start Non Food Babble>

We arrived at our accommodation in Adelaide at around 8pm after a day of leisurely driving through Victoria/South Australia. I booked us a cabin at the Adelaide Shores Caravan Park. The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car was how warm it was! The night was breezy and it was very mild compared to Melbourne. It was right on Adelaide’s West Beach and the air was just so much better. We fell in love with our little accommodation (came with fully equipped kitchen) and wished we could spend more time in Adelaide. I have only been to Adelaide twice but both times passing through! A holiday to Adelaide is definitely on the cards! I loved the place!

<End Non-Food Babble>

So we have this box of provisions that I packed. I threw in some pasta, pasta sauce, rice, oil, various seasonings and all sorts of other things. These include bits of vegetables that I had in the fridge (otherwise I would have had to throw them out) and some bacon. So fried rice with bacon it is!

I started off by making rice on the stove where I purposely added a little bit less water so I could fry the rice. Mum, like all Thais who own a rice cooker, was mightily impressed that I could make perfect rice in a saucepan. Once the rice was done, I spreaded it out in a baking dish to dry it out.

This is what I used:

1. 4 cups of cooked rice
2. 3 strips of middle bacon, chopped
3. 1/2 broccoli, chopped
4. 1 small carrot, chopped
5. 1/2 medium zucchini, chopped
6. 4 tbsp of seasoning soy sauce*
7. 2 eggs

(me setting off the smoke alarm)

Unfortunately, the kitchen only provided a tiny frying pan. So I had to fry the bacon and vegetables together first. I started by frying off the bacon in some oil (more oil unfortunately because it wasn’t a non-stick pan) until the bacon was browned. Boy was it smoky! I did tell Josh to open the door but he didn’t because there were two cats loitering outside our cabin and he was afraid that I would start to die (I am quite allergic to them) so the smoke alarm went off. That was good fun.

(the bacon and veggie mixture)

Anyway, I added the chopped veggies and fry those off with the bacon as well. Because the frying pan was so tiny, I set them aside and started frying the rice. I had to do it in two batches. I purposely made a lot so that we could the leftovers for a picnic lunch the next day because we would be back on the road on our way to Coober Pedy.

(frying the rice with egg)

I added a little more oil to the frying pan and added half the rice in. I turned the heat up as much as I could (I miss my Singapore stove, it really went!). I cracked in an egg and scrambled it into the rice. I fried the rice for a few minutes until the egg was cooked. I added 2 tbsp of the seasoning soy sauce and half of the fried bacon and veggie mixture. Another batch followed after we ate our dinner.

And this was what it looked like. A bit of a hatchet job really. But when you are starving, anything tastes good! Tip: I recommend starving your dinner guests so they think your cooking is the best ever

Josh made some salad from iceberg lettuce, tomato and grated cheese. I was supposed to take a long a bottle of my standard balsamic vinegar dressing but I forgot

Mum heated up some more of the uber spicy to be eaten with the fried rice. The uber spicy lasted us two days. I suspected the germs were too scared of how much chillis there were in it.

And dinner was served! All from my box from provisions that I hastily threw together the day before our trip.

* Seasoning soy sauce is a term used to described a type of soy sauce that has additional flavouring ingredients in it. The sauce is usually a little bit thicker and saltier. I can’t describe the flavour but it’s really good with eggs. I use the Maggi Seasoning Sauce which you can find at your local supermarket.

Haha! I made a roast! I am generally so impatient that roasts rarely get made in this household (if anyone doing the roasting, it’s usually Josh. He is the patient one). But I figured, hell, I’m unemployed anyway.

So for our little Saturday roast dinner for two, there are a few components: roast chicken, roast potatoes, parsnip and carrots, gravy and braised cabbage. These are based on Jamie Oliver’s* Perfect Roast Chicken,  Roast Potatoes, Parsnips and Carrots, A Consistently Good Gravy and Braised Bacon Cabbage from his Ministry of Food book but with my own twists and limitations, obviously.

Roast chicken: I send Josh off to do the neighbours a favour by pruning their way-overgrown rosemary bush. Meanwhile, I turn the oven on to 2oo c. (with fan on). I wash and pat the chicken dry**. I had to cough up and buy a lemon because the really nice lemons that Jim gave us are way too big for the chicken’s jacksie. I prick the lemon  few times*** and then nuke it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Good luck and timing have it, Josh came back with some rosemary sprigs. I put some rosemary leaves with the (hot) lemon up the chicken cavity. Dress the chicken with some olive oil, salt, pepper and some more rosemary. I also cut up an onion and a carrot into thick slices and place them on the roasting tray. I rest the chicken on the onion and carrot slices and pour a little bit of water on the roasting tray to prevemt the roasting tray drying out and cremate the veggies because I’ll need them for gravy later. The chicken (weighing about 1.5kg) goes in at 200′ c. for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Check the roast and baste the chicken when necessary. If the onion and carrots are drying out, add a little water to the tray. Not too much because you’ll end up steaming the chicken. Don’t forget to rest your chicken before serving for about 10 minutes.

(Before)

(After – yes I cremated them a little. Oops.)

Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips and Carrots: Because they only need about 30 minutes in the oven, you can do this while the chicken is roasting in the oven. Start by peeling the 4 small potatoes, halve them if they’re too big and cover with cold water. Bring to boil for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, peel two parnsips and two carrots (again halve them if they’re big). Add to the boiling potatoes for about 3 minutes. Turn the heat off. Put the carrots and parsnips aside while you shuffle the potatoes around in the pan so the outside of the potatoes are a bit mashed up. This is this bit that will get really crispy. Bang them all on the tray with some more crushed garlic, rosemary and olive oil, salt and pepper. Put this in the oven when you have about 30 minutes to go on the chicken on the top shelf.

Braised Cabbage: Slice 1/4 of a cabbage into thin strips (I usually just roll up the leaves and chop them). Pour a bit of olive oil and saute a finely chopped strip of bacon. Add a glug of white wine and a knob of butter and a table spoon of Worscestershire sauce. Add the cabbage, cover and turn the heat down to braise for about 6-7 minutes.

Real gravy: I love gravy! I drink it. I sometimes eat roasts with a spoon so I can get more gravy on it. When we go to Josh’s family for dinner, he usually says ‘don’t drink it all up’ when he passes me the gravy and I have to restrain myself from dumping the whole lot on my plate. Once you’re done with your roast, take out the tray and place the chicken aside to rest covered in foil. Your tray should now have mushy onion and carrots and roasting juicesand fat (some celery would be nice but there is none). Very important: skim off as fat much as possible otherwise your gravy ends up being too fatty.

Bung the roasting tray on the stove and add 2 cups of water and bring to boil. I also splash in a bit of white wine (hen’s night leftovers. I’m really not a wine person) and crumble in a vegetable stock cube. Try to mash into the carrots and onions to get as much flavour out of it as possible. Add 2 tablespoons of plain flour and stir until the gravy thickens and the flour is cooked (about 2 minutes). Turn off the heat and sieve off all the veggies and any lump of flour. That’s it. Best gravy ever.

Plate them all up. Bon Appétit.

* Jamie Oliver is god. I worship him. End of public announcement.
** It’s probably better to take the chicken out of the fridge and leave it outside to bring it up to the room temperature before you cook it. In Melbourne weather, this is about 1/2 hour. In Singapore, this is about 10 minutes. Don’t do leave it out too long if you live in a really warm place (but then you’ll probably not be making roasts if you live somewhere really warm anyway). Do not refreeze/refridgerate this chicken. You must cook it.
*** I learn that you prick the lemon too much, the chicken ends up with a lot of lemon juice inside it and steamed rather than roasted.

PS: We did the following with the leftover roast chicken:

1. Chicken, cheese  and salad sandwich – cold chicken, Colby cheese slice, tomato, rocket, lettuce, raddichio on Turkish bread roll.
2. Chicken roll – hot chicken, hot gravy in warm Turkish bread roll.
3. Tossed into Leftover Curry Briyani (story for another day).

Edit: who noticed the sad potato?

How does one make potato and cauliflower soup look sexy? I can’t. But it tastes really good!

Chop an onion and two strips of bacon finely and slowly fry that off with a little bit of butter and olive oil. If you have some fresh sage leaves, now it’s the time to throw them in. But of course I don’t. Meanwhile, chop up about a cup of cauliflower florets and cut two really huge potatoes (or five normal-sized potatoes) into small 2cm cubes. Put them on a steamer for about 15 minutes until the cauliflower starts to fall apart.

Add the steamed cauliflower and potatoes into the bacon and onion mixture. Add two dried bay leaves and two pinches of ground nutmeg. Add a cup of water and a cup of milk. Add a vegetable stock cube.

Let the soup simmer for about 20 minutes, keep stirring constantly. I usually just mash the cauliflower and potatoes and I stir it. Don’t add too much water, you want a nice creamy texture at the end. Imagine a really watery mashed potato. That’s what we’re aiming for.

We got a Sunbeam Stickmaster as a wedding present from Kenny and Kirin. I tell you, it’s the most useful thing ever! Once the soup is ready, I blend it up a bit with the Stickmaster. I do like to leave some texture in the soup so I don’t really blend the hell out of it. I think it’s up to you. You don’t even have to blend it at all.

Swirl in two tablespoons of sour cream.

Serve with nice, fresh bread and butter. Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper.

Meanwhile, I got a new batch of freshly picked figs from Lyn. I love her.