Soup!
One of the advantages of being at home is that I have more time and inclination to cook. However, since I'm snowed in, there's some creativity going in to the recipes, especially since I'm doing the classic New Year thing of addressing my weight, which is well above where I like it to be.
Soup has some advantages, it's ridiculously easy to make and can contribute to keeping satisfied - especially vegetable soups. And looking in my current store cupboard, I had some great ingredients for different types of soup. The first one was made yesterday and was carrot and cumin. Quite literally, I peeled and chopped the carrots (about 500g), put them in a saucepan, covered them with half a litre of vegetable stock, made using Sainsbury's Basic range stock cubes (2), added a pinch of cumin and one of nutmeg and then simmered until the carrots went mushy. I then mashed the carrots until it was a nice smooth consistency. One portion to eat and one to save.
Today's effort was onion. I peeled and chopped 500g of onions (co-incidentally blessing my v-slice mandolin, as I didn't get any eye irritation at all), put a couple of tablespoons of vegetable/olive oil blend in a saucepan, with a generous pinch of ginger, about two teaspoons of mixed herbs and a little salt and then stirred in the onions. It was gently heated on the lowest setting of gas and occasionally stirred for 30 minutes, after which, I added half a litre of beef stock, again made with stock cubes. I simmered it for a further ten minutes and then stirred to break the onion a little further. Again, half to eat and half to save. I crumbled a small chunk (maybe 20g?) of wensleydale cheese left over from Christmas into the top. And it was so delicious that I'm now fighting the urge to eat the second portion right now.
Left in the store cupboard are leeks, broccoli and potatoes,as well as more carrots and onions. These are probably going to end up as soup too!
Soup has some advantages, it's ridiculously easy to make and can contribute to keeping satisfied - especially vegetable soups. And looking in my current store cupboard, I had some great ingredients for different types of soup. The first one was made yesterday and was carrot and cumin. Quite literally, I peeled and chopped the carrots (about 500g), put them in a saucepan, covered them with half a litre of vegetable stock, made using Sainsbury's Basic range stock cubes (2), added a pinch of cumin and one of nutmeg and then simmered until the carrots went mushy. I then mashed the carrots until it was a nice smooth consistency. One portion to eat and one to save.
Today's effort was onion. I peeled and chopped 500g of onions (co-incidentally blessing my v-slice mandolin, as I didn't get any eye irritation at all), put a couple of tablespoons of vegetable/olive oil blend in a saucepan, with a generous pinch of ginger, about two teaspoons of mixed herbs and a little salt and then stirred in the onions. It was gently heated on the lowest setting of gas and occasionally stirred for 30 minutes, after which, I added half a litre of beef stock, again made with stock cubes. I simmered it for a further ten minutes and then stirred to break the onion a little further. Again, half to eat and half to save. I crumbled a small chunk (maybe 20g?) of wensleydale cheese left over from Christmas into the top. And it was so delicious that I'm now fighting the urge to eat the second portion right now.
Left in the store cupboard are leeks, broccoli and potatoes,as well as more carrots and onions. These are probably going to end up as soup too!