Winter soup

It has been a while, but I am still cooking, and still running around after kids. I have been trying a cash budget for the last several weeks, and I think it is very definitely saving us money as I tend to try to make do a bit more rather than just going out and buying more food when there is really plenty in the house. 


We have also been trying to have a vegetarian meals at least once a week. 
Tonight we had a winter vegetable and barley soup from the latest Dish magazine. I didn't have spinach, but there was some very green curly kale in the vege garden, so that worked really well.  On a tangent, curly kale tossed with a little oil and salt and pepper and then baked makes really good chips.


So, the soup....topped with basil pesto and shaved parmesan and served with toasted homemade grainy bread....

Apologies for the bad photo quality - it was taken on the ipad.  I would have posted this from the ipad too, but alas, it appears that I am technologically challenged as I couldn't work out how to attach the image on the ipad.


As for the verdict?  Braden and Kyla both had seconds so it appears that it was a success.  Will have it again I am sure.

Sourdough Success!

I am so pleased!

I made a loaf of sourdough on Friday, and it worked really well. It took ages to rise (which apparently is quite normal) and it spread too much in the oven, but it did taste great - a nice sour flavour but not too sour as to be unpleasant.

So, I tried again yesterday, and this time baked it in a preheated cast iron pot with the lid on for the first half hour, and then the lid off to let it crisp up for the last 20 minutes or so.

I think Daryl is finding it quite funny how pleased I am with this, but I am just amazed that I can manage to make it work, with no commercial yeast at all!

We are having this for dinner tonight in the form of steak sandwiches with caramelised onions and tomato chilli jam (Sonia's recipe that Kyla is currently making).

Yum!

I have now taken part of my starter and added some rye flour to it to see how that works - so far it is looking good. It is 30% rye for anyone remotely interested (probably no one).

Soggy Doggy, Cute Cat

Soggy Doggy

Cute Cat

Sourdough

It has been a while since I wrote anything about food…. and given that this blog is supposed to be about life and food, and that we do still eat, it is about time for me to write about food again.

My latest project involving food is the growing of a sourdough starter.

I have thought about, and read about this many times, and finally decided to take the plunge and actually try it.

So, last Friday was Day 1 of the Sourdough Saga.

I chose to use the River Cottage Recipe, which I had recently seen on a River Cottage episode on TV. It seemed fairly straightforward on TV, so I thought it would be worth a try.

The only ingredients in the starter are flour and water… a mixture of wholemeal and white to start with.

Day 1 (Friday) was fairly boring… mix the flours and water together in a container, cover loosely and leave on the bench. Nothing to see really.

Day 2 (Saturday), looks fairly similar, a few bubbles… discard half the mix, add more flour and water, leave.

Day 3 (Sunday)… what is that terrible smell? It smells like vomit! Discard half, add more flour and water again, hope it will stop smelling so bad.

Day 4 (Monday)… hmmm, maybe something has gone wrong - vomitous smell still there. Discard, feed, Google "sourdough starter smells like vomit" and discover that around day 3-4 this is a fairly common occurrence, just keep going seems to be the advice offered on numerous websites.

Day 5 (Tuesday)…tentative sniff…maybe not so bad. Discard, feed.

Day 6 (Wednesday)… sniff… very different smell, not like vomit this time - more like an alcohol smell perhaps? Discard, feed, observe….. few hours later - we are on the right track I feel. The starter has lots of bu

bbles, and has doubled in size in the container. Phew.

So, now I continue the discard and feed routine until we get to Day 7, when I can try using the starter and see if it has matured enough. If not, then continue the discard and feed routine till Day 10 and try again.

Watch this space.

Happy new year

Another Christmas has been and gone, and we are into the second month of the year already!

Today Braden and Lauren have gone back to school, and tomorrow Kyla returns for a half day before starting fully next Tuesday.

Then, the usual busyness of the year really kicks in with the restart of all the after school and evening activities. I am not looking forward to that as I have really enjoyed the relaxed evenings of the holidays.

Just a small comment from Braden to share with you…

As a family we spend time with Paul, T and Nate, and we know several families with preschoolers.

The amount of work involved in children of this age has apparently not escaped his attention. We had been looking at a photo album of Kyla, Braden and Lauren as young children/babies and his astute observation was

"Wow, Mummy, you must have been very busy!"