I love a good soup recipe – this one is from Nigella again and is using one of my favourite ingredients – Pesto! This is a good way to use leftover pesto if you’ve made a pasta, just put the leftover pesto in the freezer and use when you’re ready for the soup.

Ingredients

750ml water

375g frozen peas

2 spring onions, trimmed but whole

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1/2 teaspoon lime juice

4x15ml tablespoons fresh pesto

The quickest way to proceed is to fill a kettle first and put it on to boil. Put the water you need into a saucepan and add the frozen peas, spring onions, salt and lime juice and let everything bubble together for 7 minutes.

Discard the spring onions and blitz the peas and their liquid with the pesto in a blender.

Pour the soup into a thermos for a nice picnic or into bowls to eat straight away.

This recipe was so ridiculously easy to make and tasted beautiful!

I am so incredibly behind in the Cookbook Challenge, but I’m determined to finish it even if it’s really late! So…week 37 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Hearty. For me there is nothing more hearty than a good, thick soup, so I cooked a nice Pumpkin Soup from one of my soup cookbooks.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon sunflower oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, sliced
675g pumpkin, peeled and cut into large chunks
450g potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
good pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon
2 1/2 cups milk
1-2 teaspoons lemon juice
salt and ground black pepper

Heat the oil and butter in a heavy pan, add the onion and cook for 4-5 minutes over a gentle heat until soft but not browned, stirring frequently.

Add the pumpkin and sliced potatoes, stir well, then cover and sweat over low heat for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are almost tender, stirring occasionally to stop them sticking to the pan.

Stir in the vegetable stock, grated nutmeg and tarragon and season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are completely tender.

Leave the soup to cool slightly, then pour into a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Pour back into a clean pan and add the milk. Heat gently and then taste, adding lemon juice to taste and extra seasoning, if necessary.

Yum!

Week 36 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Comfort – what can be better comfort food than chocolate? And when you do anything with chocolate you may as well be decadent and go all out, and who better to learn from than Nigella. This recipe is from my Nigella Express book.

Ingredients:

225g dark chocolate
225g butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
200g caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
150g ground almonds
100g chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. Melt the chocolate and butter gently over a low heat in a heavy based saucepan.

Take the pan off the heat, mix in the vanilla and sugar, and let it cool a little.

Beat the eggs into the pan along with the ground almonds and chopped walnuts. Turn into a 24cm square baking tin.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, by which time the top will have set but the mixture will still be gooey. Once cooler, cut carefully, four down, four across, into 16 squares.

This recipe was really easy to make and with minimal ingredients it’s something you can whip together when you need a bit of a chocolate fix. Plus it tasted great, nice and moist, and keeps well in an air tight container. Yum!

Week 35 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Spanish. I thought I’d give my Movida Rustica cookbook another go, despite my last recipe attempt, Nougat, being a disaster!

This time I went for a soup recipe, surely you can’t get a soup recipe wrong!

Ingredients:

50ml extra virgin olive oil

1 red onion, rougly chopped

1 large red capsicum, seeded and membranes removed, roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1kg ripe tomatoes, peeled and rougly chopped (I cheated here and just used diced tomatoes from a can)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds, roasted and ground (again I cheated and got ground cumin)

2 teaspoons caster sugar

2 teaspoons sweet paprika

2 teaspoons sea salt

6 eggs

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook for 5 minutes, or until soft and translucent. Add the capsicum and garlic and reduce the heat to low-medium. Cover and cook, stirring occassionally, for 40 minutes, or until the mixture has a jam-like consistency. (Now at this point I was really confused, if I left just onion, garlic and capsicum in the pan for 40 minutes I would have burnt the house down, so I added about a cup of water so it didn’t burn).

Stir in the tomatoes and 700ml water and simmer for 25 minutes, or until the mixture has a soupy consistency. Add the cumin, sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the paprika and the sea salt and combine well.

Crack the eggs, one at a time, into a cup, then gently slide them into the soup around the edges. Cover and simmer gently for 3 minutes for soft eggs, or 5-6 minutes for well-done eggs.

Gently divide the cooked eggs and soup among warm bowls. Sprinkle with the remaining paprika and serve with toasted bread.

In the end this turned out nicely – the soup was beautiful and rich with a hint of spice. The eggs were interesting – it made the soup quite filling so this can easily be a full meal.

Week 34 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Spice. This recipe, Spiced Carrot Soup, only uses 1 spice, Cumin, but is beautifully flavoured and tastes like it has a really complex list of ingredients – actually it’s so simple to make.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 tablespoons butter

1 red onion, diced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

3 tablespoons red lentils

500g carrots, peeled and finely chopped

1.5 litres vegetable stock

ground cumin, extra, or thick double cream, to serve

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, then add the onion and cumin. Cook until the onion is soft and transparent, then add the lentils and carrot. Stir for a minute before pouring in the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a slow simmer. Continue to cook for 40 minutes, or until the carrot is soft and beginning to fall apart.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Transfer the mixture to a blender, a few ladlefuls at a time, and blend to a smooth puree. Return to a clean saucepan and heat over low heat when ready to serve. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve with a sprinkle of ground cumin or a dollop of cream.

I was so impressed by this soup – it was so easy to make and with only a handfull of ingredients, was incredibly flavoursome for such a simple dish. I will definetly add this to my regular repetoire now!

Week 33 of the Cookbook Challenge with the theme of Seafood. I decided to try my first oven baked fish, which I have been wanting to try for a while now, foil wrapped and all.

I recently gave into new cookbook temptation and bought my second Nigella Lawson cookbook, Nigella Express – this recipe is from this book.

Ingredients:

2 sea bass, approx 900g each, gutted and prepared (I couldn’t find sea bass so got some snapper instead)

4 spring onions

6 tablespoons of Sake – Note: Sake is a Japanese liquor made by fermenting rice – most traditional sake is gluten free however there are different varieties that may use barley or other grains, so double check before you use.

2 tablespoons of soy sauce (make sure it’s a gluten free soy sauce)

1 teaspoon grated ginger

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Lay each fish on a large piece of foil, and bring up the sides ready to make a parcel.

Slice the spring onions in half lengthways and place 4 pieces into the cavity of each fish.

Into each parcel, sprinkle 3 tablespoons of sake, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and about 1/2 teaspoon of the grated ginger.

Wrap the parcels loosely but seal them firmly, and cook on a baking sheet in the oven for about 25 minutes.

Open the cooked fish parcels, peel away the skin from the top of each fish and fillet the top layer of fish.

Turn the fish over, and repeat the same process again, and then spoon over any juices from the parcel onto the fish and serve with wilted greens.

To make the wilted greens just sautee your choice of chopped vegetables in a wok for a few minutes with some oil.

I decided to keep the fish whole to eat, although I did have to cover up the head, don’t like that eye looking at me! I also threw some potatoes in the oven to have on the side of this dish.

I was really excited about how this fish would taste, but I ended up being a bit disappointed – the flavour was not intense as I was expecting. It still tasted nice though, and was really easy to do.

In an effort to catch up on late posts, I’m combining my recipe for weeks 30, 31 and 32 of the Cookbook Challenge, with themes Baked, French and Potatoes. So I’ve made a Baked French Potatoes recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Peel and finely slice 800g of potatoes. Peel, halve and finely slice 400g of medium onions and 3 cloves of garlic. Pick the leaves from a small handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley and finely chop. Pour a couple of lugs of olive oil into a large, hot pan with the onions, garlic and parsley. Slowly fry for 10 minutes, until the onions are soft and lightly golden. Add a good pinch of salt and pepper. Mix 1 chicken or vegetable stock cube in 850ml of boiling water. In a large baking dish place a layer of potatoes, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and a layer of onions. Continue, repeating until you’ve used up everything, but try to finish with a layer of potatoes on top. Rub some foil with olive oil, place it, oil-side down, over the dish and seal tight. Place in the oven for 45 minutes, then remove the foil, push the potatoes down and return to the oven for 20-40 minutes until golden and crisp.

This was a really easy recipe to make and makes for an interesting twist on the normal baked potatoes when you want a bit of variety. I loved the onion flavour and the crispiness of the potato. This dish is good the next day as leftovers too!

Week 29 of the Cookbook Challenge, the theme is Blue. I went with a blueberry recipe, the only other “blue” food I could find recipes for were fish recipes (blue cod, etc) and I will always choose a dessert over a main! My recipe from week 25, Lemon and Vanilla Panna Cotta in Blueberry Soup would have been perfect for this week’s challenge too!

I used one of my favourite dessert books, Donna Hay’s Modern Classics 2

Ingredients

220g fresh or frozen blueberries
1/4 cup caster sugar

Base:

85g shortbread biscuits
1/2 cup almond meal
45g butter, melted

Filling:

600g cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the base I used Freedom Food’s gluten free Crunchy Coconut cookies – they are pretty crumbly to eat as biscuits but work really well for a cake base.

Process the blueberries in a food processor and press through a sieve (you should have 1/2 cup of puree). Place the puree and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar is disolved. Rapidly simmer for 8 minutes or until thick. Set aside to cool.

To make the base, process the biscuits in a food processor until crushed. Add the almond meal and butter and process until combined. Grease a 22cm springform tin and line the base with non stick baking paper. Press the crumb mixture over the base and refrigerate.

Preheat the oven to 140 degrees. To make the filling, process the cream cheese in a food processor until smooth. Add the sour cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla and process until combined and smooth. Pour the cream cheese mixture over the base. Drizzle the blueberry mixture over and swirl lightly with a butter knife.

Bake for 1 hour or until set. Refrigerate and serve cold.

My tip: keep an eye on the blueberry when it’s simmering – I let mine simmer for too long and it ended up too thick, so the swirling process at the end didn’t work and all the blueberry just dropped down to the bottom of the cake. Still tasted nice in the end, just doesn’t look as pretty as the picture in the cookbook!

Week 28 of the Cookbook Challenge, the theme is Breakfast. I recently bought my second Nigella cookbook so picked a breakfast from it – Spanish Omlette.

I actually had this for dinner not breakfast – I often have omlettes for dinner when I need to whip up something and don’t have a lot of ingredients. My most common ‘dire straights’ omlette dinner when I am scraping what is left in the fridge and pantry before having to go to the supermarket is eggs with canned tuna, whatever fresh veggies I have (usually zuccini and mushrooms), a dash of paprika, salt, pepper – throw everything into a fry pan and voila you have dinner in 5 minutes.

Nigella’s omlette recipe was a bit more structured than my usual ‘throw bits together’ omlette.

Ingredients:

225g baby new potatoes, halved
4 eggs
75g chopped caramelised or flame roasted peppers from a jar
3 spring onions finely sliced
75g grated Manchego or Cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon butter
drop of oil
salt and pepper to taste

Turn on the grill and let it heat up while you start off the omlette.

Cook the potatoes in boiling water for 15 minutes, until cooked through, then drain.

Whisk the eggs in a bowl, add the peppers, spring onions and cheese, and season with salt and pepper, then add the cooked, drained potatoes.

Heat the butter and oil in a small, heavy-based frying pan, and, when hot, pour in the omlette mix and cook gently for 5 minutes.

By this time, the bottom of the omlette should be set and, rather than turn it, simply sit the pan under the grill for a few minutes to set the top.

Turn the omlette upside down onto a plate to let cool. Don’t worry if it feels a little wibbly-wobbly in the middle, as it will carry on cooking as it cools.

Once cool, slice into 4 large or 8 smaller wedges.

I made a smaller version with not as many potatoes and eggs so it spread out a bit on the pan and didn’t quite end up looking like the picture, but it tasted great anyway and was very quick and easy to make.

Week 27 of the Cookbook Challenge, gosh I’m so behind in posting all my recipes! For this challenge the theme was Insect. Now I’m not really keen on using actual insects in my cooking, I’m not that adventurous, so decided to go with the “insects of the sea” – prawns.

I used my good old reliable curry cookbook, the aptly named “Best Ever Curry Cookbook”.

Ingredients:

675g raw tiger prawns (as you can see from my picture I cheated a bit and got cooked prawns)
4 dried red chillies
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 bay leaves
1 inch piece of fresh root ginger, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon ground corriander
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 tomatoes, finely chopped
plain boiled rice, to serve

Peel the prawns and remove the thin black intestinal vein. Put the dried chillies, coconut, mustard seeds and onion in a wok and dry-fry over a medium heat for 5-6 minutes or until the mixture begins to brown. Stir continuously to ensure even browning and to avoid burning the coconut. Put into a food processor or blender and process to a coarse paste.

Heat the vegetable oil in the pan and fry the bay leaves for 1 minute. Add the chopped ginger and the garlic, and fry for 2-3 minutes.

Add the ground corriander, chilli powder, salt and the paste and fry for about 5 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes and about 175ml (3/4 cup) water and simmer for 5-6 minutes or until thickened.

Add the prawns and cook for about 4-5 minutes, or until they turn pink.

Serve the curry on plain boiled rice.

I loved this curry, it was quite simple to make, very aromatic and it was interesting using desiccated coconut instead of coconut milk – it gave it a sweeter and lighter taste and is a bit healthier than using the milk so you don’t feel so bad having seconds