Soup

Today I made the first home made soup of the season.  It felt right after such a blowy night.  It's a very casual recipe.

Bung some onion and celery, chopped, in a pan.  Add the main ingredient (mine was carrot and lentil).  Add some water, some herbs and some stock.  Add seasoning (go easy with the salt).  Boil it all up, covered.  Check veg is cooked.  Zizz until smooth.  Check seasonings and adjust if necessary.  Add more water if it's too thick.

Heat until piping hot and enjoy with crusty bread or some croutons.

(or bung it all in Thermione, cook for 20 mins at 100, speed 2, then blend at speed 10 for around 30 seconds until it's all smooth)

Dead easy naan bread

A whike agoI made a lovely curry (with the help of a Spice Tailor kit!) so today I had the left-overs from the freezer.  Instead of rice, I rather fancied some naan bread

I searched via a cook's best friend (i.e. Google) and found that there are endless recipes out there.  Posh ones, slummy ones, ones that use yeast, ones that use baking powder, ones that use SR flour, flavoured ones, plain ones, dry fried ones, baked ones . . .

I reckoned that any home made one, fresh and still warm, is going to taste good, however it is made.  I'm no expert and my palate is not that 'refined'.  So this is what I did.

For the dough I used SR flour (please don't shudder, it was fine) and natural yogurt - 100g flour and about 50g natural yogurt (probably a bit more than that but I didn't really measure.  I seasoned with salt and pepper.

I 'cheated' and used Thermione but it would be simple by hand, just taking a bit longer.  Mix together the flour, yogurt and seasonings and knead, aiming for a dough that is just on the dry side of being sticky.  If it's too sticky, add more flour; if it's too dry, add more yogurt.

That's it really.  Wrap the dough and pop it in the fridge for about an hour.  Then take it out, break off portions, shape and roll out.  I went for sort of circles after trying to shape the first one (in the photo below) which ended up more like a square with rounded corners! because that's easiest

There are differing opinions about the cooking.  I just dry fried  and kept the first one warm, covered with a clean cloth, until the second one was made and so on.  They puff up quite a lot, as you can see, before going down again.

They were 'basic', I know, but very tasty with the chicken curry!  I suppose one could brush them over with garlic butter and that would be nice too but I didn't, not this time.

That's it.  I made four, far too much really, but I ate the lot because there was a lot of gravy.  That's my excuse

Very delicious!

Apple curd

A friend gave me some cooking apples from her tree, beautiful, sound cooking apples, a pleasure to look at and handle.  Kilos of them too which was so generous.

I've been looking for some recipes I haven't tried before and I found this one which is a River Cottage recipe (which are always good for a try) on the Guardian site.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2008/jul/21/foodanddrink.recipe
I converted it to a Thermomix recipe because I know Thermione does lemon curd beautifully and with a lot less hassle.

It's a dream - totally, deliciously wonderful and I'm so going to make it again!

OK, so the recipe itself can be found via the link above.  Here's the thermo way.

Put five spotlessly clean, medium sized jars into a cool oven to warm up.  Wash and dry the lids.

Crack 4 or 5 eggs into the bowl and zizz until smooth and 'light.  You need about 200 mls beaten egg.  Tip into a container and wash out the bowl.

450g bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped, added straight away to 100ml water and the finely grated zest of two lemons (I only had one and it's still nice) in the bowl.

Cook at 95C, speed 2 for about 10 mins or until the apple is soft.  If the mix hasn't gone light, fluffy and pureed, give it a zizz for luck!

Add 125g butter (it says unsalted, I only had salted), 450g granulated sugar and 100mls strained lemon juice (the juice from the lemon made up to 100mls with lemon juice from a bottle)
Mix on 2 for around two minutes until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted.  You get a lovely, light mixture.

Make sure the mixture is below 50C (check the temp dial).  It should be but do check because if it's too hot, the curd might split when you add it.

Take off the measuring cup, start mixing at about 2 and pour the beaten eggs into the mixture.  Continue mixing until it is all incorporated.

Cook at speed 2, 95C for around ten minutes.  If it thickens before then, it doesn't matter as it won't boil and scramble.  That's the delight of a Thermomix!

Pour into the jars immediately and put on the lids.  Scrape out the bowl and enjoy!  Label the jars when they are cold.

Keep in fridge once opened and use within 4 weeks.  I don't think there is any danger whatsoever of it lasting that long.  It is gorgeous!