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Sunday was a good day for cooking - and using up leftovers. I'm rather pleased with how I transformed the contents of my refrigerator into two meals plus dessert.
Lunch was a tomato & roasted onion soup with pork meatballs and cornmeal dumplings. The dumplings were a bit of a disappointment in that they didn't hold their shape well because I didn't make the batter thick enough, but overall it was still quite tasty and I managed to use up the quart of tomato juice drained from canned tomatoes, some red wine and all of the leftover roasted onions from earlier in the week. The diced onions were simmered in the tomato juice & red wine for about 45 minutes. Meanwhile I mixed half a pound of ground pork with 1 egg, a good amount of panko & some salt, formed into balls, and pan-fried until brown all over. Then these were placed into the soup to finish cooking, and I dropped the dumpling batter in to cook for another 15 minutes (and the dumplings counteracted the sweetness & acidity of the onions & the tomato/winey broth). It was a delicious, hearty meal. No photo, unfortunately.
Stuffed Cabbage Soup
To make this stuffed cabbage soup, I minced the light green & white parts of a leek, about an inch of fresh ginger & a couple handfuls of washed fresh cilantro and mixed this into about 6-10 fresh medium shrimp ground into a paste (in the mini-chop) & half a pound of ground pork seasoned with salt and pepper. I simmered whole cabbage leaves in water until soft and partially-cooked, removed and drained them. I placed a couple tablespoons of the pork-shrimp mixture into each leaf, folded the bottom up and rolled. These were gently placed into about six cups of simmering chicken broth, and cooked for about ten minutes, or until cooked through. I generously sprinkled fresh sliced scallions into each bowl of stuffed cabbage and broth before serving.
Victoria Sponge
This is the simplest of cakes, really easy to make - I used Nigella Lawson's recipe which uses corn starch. I don't have the recipe in front of me, but I'm pretty sure it should be: 1 1/2 cup of flour (I think she may have actually called for self-rising flour originally, but my Americanized recipe says 'all-purpose flour'), 2 teaspoons of baking powder (not baking soda, of course), 1/4 cup of corn starch, 4 eggs, 1 cup of very soft butter, 1 cup or so of sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (I used two) & 2 tablespoons of milk. Nigella says to throw everything in a food processor or mixer, but I did it the old-fashioned way - I creamed the butter and sugar with a handheld electric mixer, added one egg at a time, added the milk & vanilla, and then added the dry ingredients in three batches. Spread the batter into 2 greased (8 or 9 inch - I think mine were 9 inch)cake pans and baked at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick came out clean. Let the cakes stand for a minute in their pans and then turn them out onto wire racks to cool. While they were still a little warm, I sandwiched the layers with strawberry preserves in the middle and spread a little more very thinly on top. This sponge can be layered with whipped cream or custard, or any other kind of fruit you'd like, and it can also be sprinkled with powdered sugar, granulated sugar or whatever you want. It's not a fancy cake, but it's homey and delicious.