Ultimate Vegetable Soup

With both Gary and I both having been struck down somewhat in the prime of life recently (90's F.R.I.E.N.D.S reference there) this weekend was all about the sofa, the duvet, and great big bowlfuls of this soup, whilst we tried to nurse ourselves back to health. This is the way my Mum used to make soup, packed full of veggies, thick enough to stand your spoon up in, and seasoned to perfection. It is my ultimate vegetable soup, easy to make, and with nothing but goodness in every spoonful. The recipe is loose, feel free to substitute some of the vegetables to suit, or use vegetable stock instead of chicken. To paraphrase Captain Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean films...

Ingredients 

(makes enough for approx 6 portions)

2 litres Chicken Stock

2 small onions

3 cloves garlic

5 sprigs fresh rosemary

4 medium potatoes

1/2 butternut squash

1/2 medium swede

3 carrots

1 small broccoli head

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Peel and roughly chop all the vegetables...

Place in a large pan with the chicken stock, and simmer for around 1 hour, until all the vegetables are soft...

Using a handheld blender, whizz the vegetables until smooth (make sure there are no chunks of veg hiding at the bottom...

Season with plenty of salt and pepper to taste - don't be stingy with the seasoning. Then serve in big bowls, with plenty of bread and butter for dunking. Perfect!

As a healthy, inexpensive, and definitely tasty meal, I am linking this into this month's Feel Good Food...

Croissants: A Beginner's Guide

Croissants were always going to be my entry for this month's Breakfast Club challenge - hence the 'Continental' theme choice. I have always wanted to try and make them, but the lengthy process I have read about does nothing for the part of me that always wants instant gratification from my baking efforts. None-the-less, hosting the Breakfast Club this month gave me the kick I needed (albeit I cut it a little fine by waiting until this weekend) and I hereby present the efforts of my first ever attempt at making croissants... 

I researched several recipes before I set out on this challenge, and tweaked a few things to come up with this version. I actually found that the method for making croissants is relatively simple; knead dough, rest, roll and fold, rest, repeat, then shape and bake. It's the resting periods between each section that make it a time-consuming process. They are however needed to make sure that the pastry remains laminated (layered with butter) as if you work the dough to quickly or too much, the butter will melt into the pastry dough and you will lose the structural integrity of the croissant. Figuring out the timing was something of a pain, so I've tried to do the hard work for you (assuming you would like your croissants sometime around breakfast time!)

Ingredients (makes 8 large croissants)

300 grams strong bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon fast action yeast
35 grams golden caster sugar
100 ml water
250 grams salted butter, cold
1 egg

Method

Day One

5 hours before bedtime: Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, yeast and salt. Stirring with a wooden spoon, add the water gradually until the mixture comes together as a dough. You may not need all of the water. Turn the dough out and knead for around 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. Return the kneaded dough to the bowl, cover with clingfilm, and place in the fridge for 1 hour.

4 hours before bedtime: Take the risen dough, and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out into a rectangular shape, and set to one side. Take the cold butter from the fridge and remove the packaging. Place the butter block on a sheet of clingfilm, and fold the clingfilm over the top. Using a rolling pin, bash the butter to flatten it, then roll it to around a third of the size of the rolled dough. Unwrapped the flattened butter, and place it in the centre of the rolled dough.

Fold the two halves of the dough over the butter to create a parcel. Wrap the parcel in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.

3 hours before bedtime: Roll out the dough into a long rectangle shape. Fold one third into the centre, then the opposite third over the top. Wrap in clingfilm and return to the fridge to prove

2 hours before bedtime: Repeat roll out and fold. Wrap in clingfilm and return to fridge to prove

1 hour before bedtime: Repeat roll out and fold. Wrap in clingfilm and return to fridge to prove overnight (around 8 hours)

Day Two

Take the rested dough from the fridge, remove the clingfilm and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out the dough to around 3-4 mm thick, aiming for a squarish shape.

Cut the rolled dough into 4 even squares, then cut each square diagonally to make 8 triangles.

Taking each triangle, and stretch one point towards you. Roll from the short edge towards you, to create a fatter middle section.

Twist the ends of the rolled croissant in towards each other to create the classic crescent shape.

Place the rolled croissants on a baking tray, with plenty of space between as they will double in size. Cover with a clean tea towel, and set aside to prove for 90 minutes (1 1/2 hours).

Finally, your croissants are ready to bake. Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Beat the egg, and brush the tops of each croissant with the egg wash. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden brown, then transfer to a cooling rack. Serve warm, and enjoy the freshest, tastiest croissants you have ever experienced!

This is my entry for Breakfast Club, which I am hosting this month, but is run and maintained by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours.

I am also linking up to Made with Love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior.

Quick and Easy Chinese-Style BBQ Sauce

I feel as though I haven't blogged in an absolute age, although it's really only been 10 days or so. I have been merrily cooking and baking away, and have a stack of recipes and pictures to share with you all, but for some reason I have been struggling to put fingers to keyboard. Perhaps it's this gorgeous weather distracting me and drawing me out into the garden, or perhaps, as is more likely, life is just getting in the way. 

If you are suffering from a similar heat/life induced lethargy, this recipe is perfect, as it takes neither time nor effort to make. I think it's perfect for those impromptu BBQ's, or just getting in from a busy day at work, the sauce is simply whacking all the ingredients in a bowl and whisking for a minute, and then you can cook straight away, or marinade meat in it for a couple of hours before slapping it on the barbie...

Ingredients

4 tablespoons Teriyaki Sauce (I used the Kikkoman blend)
2 tablespoons Maple Syrup
1/2 teaspoon Chinese Five Spice
1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1 teaspoon Crushed Garlic
1 tablespoon Tomato Purée

Method

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl until well combined. Marinade your chosen meat in the mixture and refrigerate until needed.

I used this mixture and marinated a couple of pork steaks for two hours when I got home from work last night, then transferred the lot to a griddle pan, cooked the pork steaks on both sides for five minutes, then added 100ml water and left to reduce down to make a sticky sauce to serve with the pork and some whole wheat rice.

The marinade would work equally well with chicken, duck or even as a sauce for a vegetable stir-fry!

Because this recipe contains Maple Syrup, I am linking it up to the Feel Good Food challenge this month. Feel Good Food is all about creating recipes that contain ingredients with especially high nutritional contents or health benefits.

Sweet and Sour King Prawns

Recently my blog seems to have been concentrating on cakes, bread and general baking, which is pretty reflective of my current obsessions and determination to have a go at making literally everything. However, I don't want to lose sight of the reason that I started writing about my recipes, which was to show that great home cooked food doesn't have to be difficult, and doesn't require fancy ingredients in order to taste amazing. 

A few weeks ago, I had a group of girlfriends over for a homemade Chinese feast, and I have been slowly posting up the recipes I used ever since. I have developed these recipes so that they have an easy to find list of ingredients, and are as simple as possible to make. Every one of these dishes was well received, and tasted so much fresher than if we had ordered it in (plus it was much cheaper!) 

A selection of Chinese dishes served... 

I have already shared with you all Chicken Satay Skewers, Chinese BBQ Ribs, Chicken with Cashew Nuts, Pineapple Sorbet and Coconut Ice Cream, and homemade Fortune Cookies. This is my quick and easy recipe for Sweet and Sour King Prawns, although you can easily swap the king prawns for chicken, beef or any other meat you wish to have with the sauce. 

Ingredients;

- 150g King Prawns (or other preferred meat)

- 1 small red pepper, diced

- 1 small green pepper, diced

- 100g fresh pineapple, diced (or tinned is fresh is not available)

- 125g caster sugar

- 50ml balsamic vinegar

- 200ml water

- 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup

- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

- pinch of salt

- 1 tablespoon cornflour

To make the sauce, mix together the sugar, vinegar, water, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and the salt in a saucepan. Heat the sauce until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil. Mix the cornflour with a little water to form a smooth paste, then add to the sauce, stirring until it starts to thicken. Take off the heat and set aside.

Heat a little oil in a wok or a large frying pan, and add the prawns, fry for one minute, then add the peppers and pineapple. (If you have substituted a different meat, it will need to be cooked for longer before adding the veg) Cook for a further two - three minutes, then add the prepared sauce. Stir through, then serve! And there you are, fresh, easy and very tasty Sweet and Sour in minutes! 

I am entering this recipe into this week's Made With Love Monday hosted by Javelin Warrior, as it made completely from scratch, with fresh ingredients, and because everyone should try making their Chinese Takeaway at home! 

Chicken with Cashew Nuts

As promised, here is another recipe from the Girl's Night feast of a few weeks ago. I know that these posts are a little bit of a deviation from my usual cakes and bakes, however I really wanted to share how easy and delicious homemade Chinese food really can be, and give you a selection of recipes that do not need a cupboard full of exotic, hard to find ingredients.

Of the main courses served last Saturday, this Chicken and Cashew dish is one of my absolute favourites, and the one that was eaten up the quickest. This is a really quick and easy dish, and on it's own would make a really good mid-week meal served with fluffy rice. (You'll have to forgive some of the photography on these posts, people were already eating before I had chance to get the camera out!)

Here's how I made it...

Ingredients:

- 2 tablespoons Cornflour

- 500 ml Chicken Stock

- 3 tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce

- 1 teaspoon crushed Ginger, or 1/2 an inch grated

- 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce (or similar hot chilli sauce)

- 2 large Chicken Breasts, diced

- 1/2 an Onion, diced

- 1 large Green Pepper, chopped

- 150 grams Cashew Nuts

- 100 grams Water Chestnuts (optional)

Step One: Make the Sauce

In a saucepan, heat the chicken stock. Add the cornflour, and mix well making sure that all the cornflour has been absorbed by the stock, and there are no lumps. Add the soy sauce, ginger, and tabasco sauce, and set aside. Tip: you can even make the sauce element ahead of time, leave it to cool, and put in a sealed container in the fridge, then it is ready to add to the chicken and vegetables whenever you need it! I found this useful for the feast night, as I made three main dishes at the same time, so having the sauces pre-made made the whole process much easier.

Step Two: Cook the Meat

In a wok, or a large frying pan, heat a little cooking oil, then fry the diced chicken breasts until slightly golden on the outside, and cooked all the way through. Remove the meat from the pan and set aside.

Step Three: Assemble the Dish

Add the onion and pepper to the wok, and lightly fry for 2-3 minutes until they start to colour. Add the cashew nuts and the water chestnuts (optional) and cook for a further minute. Finally, add the chicken and the sauce, and stir well. Cook for a minute longer, or until the sauce has warmed through if you have pre-made it, then serve.

Nigella's Easy Almond Cake

With Mother's Day upon us, I wanted to do something nice for the Mum's, and in my world at least, you can't get much nicer than cake! My 'brief' for Gary's Mum was 'Almonds', so I set about searching the world wide web for some ideas and inspirations. In the end, Nigella's 'Easy Almond Cake' caught my eye, not necessarily for the 'easy' part, but because the recipe calls for 250 grams of marzipan beaten into the cake batter - I was very intrigued to see how that even worked, let alone how the cake would taste... 

This recipe was, as it says in the title, very easy. Nigella's method is basically to add the ingredients one at a time into a food processor. As I am not yet lucky enough to own one (quick plea here to the Gods of Kitchen Aid...) I have adapted the method here to make this cake without the use of a processor. This recipe make a rich, moist cake, which is very buttery at first taste, and then the almond-y marzipan taste kicks in a few seconds later, and takes over your taste-buds. 

The cake would be completely delicious served straight up as it comes, with just a sprinkle of icing sugar on top, and a handful of fresh raspberries, however, as this was a Mother's Day cake, I wanted more of a statement. To complete the cake, I made some homemade almond praline, which I used to make an almond praline buttercream filling, and the cake was decorated with pale green buttercream roses, and colourful butterflies. The finished cake was definitely an almond lover's dream!

Almond Cake with Almond Praline Buttercream

Ingredients

For the cake;

• 250 grams marzipan
• 250 grams butter
• 150 grams caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon almond essence
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 eggs
• 150 grams self-raising flour

For the almond praline;

• 100 grams blanched whole almonds
• 100 grams caster sugar

For the almond praline buttercream

• 150 grams icing sugar
• 150 grams softened un-salted butter
• 4 heaped teaspoons ground almond praline

For the pale green buttercream roses;

• 250 grams icing sugar
• 250 grams softened un-salted butter
• Sugarflair food coloring gel in Gooseberry

Method

Forgive me here - I haven't taken as many photos of the process as I normally do as I had a hundred plates spinning! And remember, this is my method from not owning a food processor, if you are lucky enough to possess one, check out the link above for Nigella's all-in method. 

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees, and grease an 8 inch round cake tin. 

Chop the marzipan into small cubes, and then blitz in a food processor to a fine crumb consistency. As I don't own one, I used my little mini food chopper I bought for £5 from Tesco to break down the marzipan. 

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the broken down marzipan, and beat well with an electric whisk until well combined with the butter and sugar. 

Add the vanilla and almond extracts, and beat well again. 

Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking the mixture well between each egg. 

Finally, add the flour, and fold into the mixture with a spatula until fully combined, then transfer the mixture into the prepared tin, and place in the bottom shelf of the oven. 

Bake for 45 - 50 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out cleanish. Because the cake is so moist, the skewer will come out quite wet, but as long as there are no clumps of uncooked batter on it it will be cooked. As the cake is quite a long bake, I turned my oven down to 150 degrees part way through to prevent the top and sides from burning. 

For the Praline Buttercream and Decoration

To make the praline, place the whole almonds and sugar into a heavy bottomed saucepan or frying pan, and place over a low heat until the sugar starts to melt. Keep stirring with a metal spoon, so that the almonds get well coated with the caramelising sugar. Once the sugar is melted, turn the heat up slightly, and cook until the mixture turns a deep chestnut brown colour. Tip the mixture out onto a lightly greased sheet of baking parchment, and set aside to cool and set. 

Once the praline is set, break off some pieces, and put them into a processor or blender. Blitz until they are ground into a fine powder. 

To make up the praline buttercream, chop the softened butter into small cubes and put into a large bowl. Add the icing sugar in two stages, mixing well each time. Add four heaped teaspoons full of the ground almond praline (or more or less to suit tastes) and mix it through the buttercream until evenly distributed. 

To make up the pale green buttercream, chop the softened butter into small cubes and put into a large bowl. Add the icing sugar in two stages, mixing well each time. Add a small amount of the Gooseberry food colouring using a cocktail stick, and beat through until you achieve an even colour. 

To Assemble

Take the cooled cake, and with a serrated bread knife levelled off the top of the cake. Then cut the cake horizontally to make two layers. The best way to do this is to place the cake on a turntable, and make a small incision into the cake all the way around, to make sure that the cut is level throughout, then go back and cut right through to the centre of the cake. 

Dollop a small amount of buttercream onto a cakeboard or plate (to prevent the cake from sliding) and then place the bottom layer onto the board. 

Add the praline buttercream, and spread evenly across the cake.

Place the top layer on the cake. (Mine looks a little burnt here, but this photo was taken at 1am and it was a bit dark in my kitchen!)

Take a large piping bag, and use a large open star nozzle. Fill the bag with the pale green buttercream. Starting from the centre of the cake, pipe roses by applying an even pressure to the piping bag, and spiralling outwards from the centre. Make the roses all different sizes, and make sure that all of the surface of the cake has been covered. 

Allow the buttercream to set and harden, preferably overnight, then add the butterfly decorations (or you could use little blossoms, or anything you fancy really). Leaving the buttercream to set should prevent the moisture in the cream from softening your decorations, but you might need a little royal icing to fix them into place. 

And voila! A beautiful springtime cake, perfect for Mother's Day or any other spring occasion, and a real easy to make, but deceptively detailed showstopper of a cake! 

What cakes and bakes are you all making for your Mums this Mother's Day? Would love to hear/ see what you have made... V x

I am entering this post into this month's Forever Nigella, hosted this month by Jen over at Blue Kitchen Bakes, and coordinated by Sarah at Maison Cupcake. The theme for Forever Nigella #24 is 'Easter' and as this cake has a pretty springtime decoration, and the almond and marzipan flavouring is so similar to a traditional Easter Simnel Cake I think it fits perfectly.

The Only Muffin Recipe You Will Ever Need

It's been a little while since I posted a recipe up here, as I have been concentrating on my cake decorating and the projects I had promised friends. Tonight I wanted to share with you the easiest, most versatile muffin recipe you could wish for. I'm writing it tonight as I have sat here working most of the evening craving something sweet, and had nothing in the house to eat. I glanced upon a packet of chocolate chips in the back of the cupboard, and before I was really aware of what I was doing I found myself mixing flour and butter in a bowl...

I had a phase last year where I made muffins every week to take in the car for breakfast, and experimented with so many recipes and variations, breakfast muffins, oat muffins, chocolate, raspberry, blueberry, wholemeal, you name it! I adapted from a range of recipes, and this is the method that I settled on, it's quick, easy, and so so adaptable.

So, the ingredients list is;

380g self raising flour (or 355g and 25g cocoa powder if you want chocolate muffins)
100g butter
200g caster sugar (I always prefer golden caster sugar as it has a slightly more caramel flavour)
300ml milk
1 egg
...Plus 100 - 200g of whatever you want your feature ingredient to be - chocolate chips, blueberries, chopped dried apricots, cherries - the possibilities are endless!

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees, and line a bun tin with 12 muffin cases.

Start by sifting the flour into a mixing bowl, and adding the butter chopped into small cubes. With your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until you create a breadcrumb like texture. This usually only takes a minute or two.

Add the caster sugar to the flour, and stir until combined.

Beat the egg, and add to the milk. You may wish to add a teaspoon of vanilla extract at this point if it compliments the flavours in your muffins. Slowly poor the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, and combine well until all the flour has been incorporated. Add your additional ingredients (fruit etc) to the mixture, stir through, and then divide into the 12 muffin cases.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the muffins are a golden colour, and firm to touch. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack.

And then dig in! These are delicious still warm from the oven with a cup of tea in the evening, as an easy breakfast on the go, or as a treat in packed lunches. Once they have cooled, 2 minutes in a warm oven will perk them up nicely.

The muffins I made tonight in the photo above are triple chocolate - with cocoa powder, and dark and white chocolate chunks mixed in. You really can go to town on mixing this recipe up however, here are some variations I have made in the past...

1. 150g fresh blueberries and a teaspoon of cinnamon
2. 100g fresh raspberries and 50g white chocolate chips
3. 50g chopped crystallised ginger and 50g chopped dried apricots
4. For a healthier breakfast option, try using a wholemeal self raising flour, and adding dried fruit and nuts
5. Replace the butter at the start of the recipe with mashed banana for a high fibre, low fat option, and add 100g chopped walnuts

I would love to hear any other ideas out there for new flavours for these muffins, please post below if you have any to share...

Vx