Roasted Tomato, Garlic and Barley Soup

I know it's been ages, but let's just lightly skim over that, shall we, and move straight to this soup? Now, I'd kinda promised myself that I wouldn't blog until I could take a decent photo of my food, but since that has yet to happen (and believe it, I have tried... you should look at the memory on my husbands camera), that hasn't happened yet. So while I've been cooking away like a mad lady, I've not been sharing, and that is starting to feel mean!

Source: flickr creative commons

So I thought I'd atone for this mean non-sharing streak with this soup. With the colder weather creeping in, and even warm days turning into chilly evenings, my thoughts turn more and more to soup. I've been buying veg at the Earth Fair Market in St Georges Mall on Thursdays, and when I spied some lovely bags of tomatoes for cheap, I bought 2 and planned on this soup. Days passed, and we had some 30 degree days... Not ideal for soup, no, and I planned on a gazpacho instead. But thank heaven, the weather turned back, and autumn crept up on us again. This hearty, tangy, tomatoey soup is full of wonderful antioxidants and vitamins from the soup, and contains almost no fat! There's no cream, the blended barley provides all of the thickening, so as long as you use a good quality, low salt stock, and good quality olive oil, you can eat buckets of this heart-warming soup!

Tomatoes are roasted with garlic until soft and fragrant, then blended with cooked barley, and fresh basil for a hearty but fresh taste. The garlic goes all soft and nutty when it's roasted, and the tomatoes come out sweet and wonderful. Since the soup uses no cream or meat (if you use veg stock), this can be both vegan and vegetarian friendly!

Roasted Tomato, Garlic and Barley Soup

Ingredients:
7-10 tomatoes (I used a mix of ordinary and plum tomatoes)
3-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and quartered
A mix of herbs for sprinkling (origanum, italian herbs, greek herbs, or other preferred herb)
olive oil for roasting
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
115g (1 tin) tomato paste
1.5 litres chicken stock
250 (1 cup) dry pearl barley
2-4 tbsp ketchup (optional, but increases the tomatoey flavour)
salt and pepper to taste
Handful of fresh basil, removed from stalks.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven t0 180 degrees C.
2. Pop the barley into a pot, and cook in the hot chicken stock for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Halve the tomatoes, and cut out the stalk. Place skin side down in a roasting dish. Place the quartered garlic in among the tomato halves in the roasting dish.
4. Sprinkle with herbs of your choice - feel free to add chilli, if you'd like that zing now, or add to the soup later, and sprinkle with olive oil.
5. Pop into the heated oven, and roast for about 30 minutes, or until soft, turning about half way through. Tomatoes are done when they are soft, and the garlic should be too. Blackened bits are nice, but don't let them burn.
6. When it goes into the oven, slice an onion, and dice a carrot, and fry in a big pot on the stove. Fry on a medium heat until the onion is translucent, and soft, and the carrot is mostly cooked.
7. When the tomatoes are finished, empty the whole roasting dish, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and everything into the pot with the onions, and squash with a spoon. Add the tomato paste, and stir through.
8. Once the barley is cooked, drain off some of the liquid into a jug, in case you need to add it back to the soup, and add the barley to the soup, and heat through, ensuring everything is mixed well, then add the basil.
9. Remove from the heat, and blend using a stick blender, or transfer to a blender, but be careful of the hot soup spraying out. I blend to a rough consistency
10. Return to the pot and heat, and heat through. Taste for seasoning, and add the ketchup if necessary, and salt and pepper to taste. Add some chilli if it makes you happy, or any other spices and herbs you like with tomato. If the soup is too thick, or you've added too much spice, use the reserved barley stock to thin it out, or dilute the heat a bit. Barley is very thickening, especially once it's blended!

Serve with hot, crunchy toast, and shavings of Parmesan or crumbled feta on top, delish!

Spring Baked Mushroom Risotto

Hello!

{Image source: placid casual}

So, it's on my 30 before 30 list. It's been something I've been wanting to do for a while now. And I finally did it! I've been planning to make risotto for an age now (no seriously, I've literally been telling the hubs every night for 2 weeks). I mean, I've have at least a dozen conversations about it over the last two weeks, and Claudz, Marisa, Ally, Matt and Nina have all made it since then, we even had a Twitter Risotto Off planned, that I started. And yet I hadn't made it. That's wrong, right? So I gritted my teeth, and eventually the weather turned a little cooler, and last night was the night. The Night I Made Risotto. Deserves capitalisation, in my book! And I had this package, that I bought at the Good Food and Wine Show a few months ago, a kit with the arborio rice, dried mushrooms, seasonings and one or two other things. I used that, so I think this was a cheat, and I'll be doing it again.

I did, however, peel and shell a whole pack of broad beans for the little fava beans inside, and serve the risotto (I have my in-laws down, it was hard enough getting into the kitchen, without suggesting a purely vegetarian meal!) with pork sausages and sauteed asparagus. And let me tell you, that this was a crowd pleaser! I think I impressed the inlaws.. maybe I'll be allowed in the kitchen more often now.. Oh. And I just realised I bought the wrong cheese - how's that for a foodie fail? Ah well, alls well that ends well, right? And it was still delicious, if not perfect. Just means I'll have to keep at it until it comes out right, hey?

{Image source: elana's pantry}

Spring Baked Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients:
1 package of Cook me! Mushroom Risotto mix (500g)
1/2 an onion, diced
125ml (1/2 cup) dry white wine
750ml (2 1/2 cups) good quality stock - I used veggie stock
1 packet broad beans (here's a good how to for broad/fava beans)
1 bunch of asparagus (half for the risotto, half for serving)
250ml (1 cup) grated parmesan cheese (I used pecorino - foodie fail)
Glug of olive oil and a knob of butter

{Image source: beautiful cataya}

Fresh, unshelled fava beans

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Heat a heavy based pan, and put a knob of butter and some olive oil in.
3. Fry the onion for a bit, until soft and translucent.
4. Pour the rice mixture in, and turn up the heat. Stir to coat the rice in oil, and heat until it pops a little - you really want to toast them a bit.
5. Pour the wine in, and stir until the rice has absorbed the liquid. At this point, you can carry on on the stove top, stirring and incorporating the stock, ladle by ladle, but I had a couple of over things I still wanted to make, that needed my hands. So I decided to bake it.
6. Transfer the rice mixture to an ovenproof dish, and pour in the stock, stirring it gently to make sure the stock is mixed in, and pop the whole thing into the oven for 20 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, steam your fava beans for a few minutes, until the skins wrinkle up and they go a dull, grey colour.
8. Allow to cool, and peel them, revealing a bright green, nutty bean. Reserve, and stir into the risotto when you take it out.
9. After 20 minutes, remove the risotto from the oven, and check that it's wet enough. Add some more stock if it looks dry - the oven is always hotter than the stove top (and mine doesn't seem to have a thermostat), so you'll probably need more liquid to keep it creamy. You'll see that the rice has swelled up a lot, and it'll swell up more and get creamier. Don't add the fava beans now, add them at the end.
10. Put back into the oven for another 20 minutes, and start with the asparagus. 
11. Snap the woody ends of your asparagus, and snap in half. The stalks are woodier than the tips, and need a little more cooking. So in the pot that you steamed the fava beans in, steam the broccoli stems for a few minutes, then add the tips for another. Say 3 minutes for the stems, and 2 for the tips, which brings it to 5 in total for the stems. Remove from the heat, and run under cold water to refresh.
12. Chop the stems a bit smaller, and set aside with the shelled fava beans.
13. When 20 minutes are up, take out the risotto out, stir some more liquid in if it's a bit dry, then stir in the chopped asparagus stems and the fava beans.
14. Then stir in the cheese, handful by handful, getting it all worked in.
15. Quickly stirfry the asparagus tips in some butter, garlic and lemon, and serve all hot.

This is a bit long winded, but you get the picture. The baked risotto is slightly less creamy, but I hear adding a cup of liquid right at the end helps with creaminess. It also means you're free to do other things, whether that's frying up some sausages, or hanging the laundry, which all helps in the end, right?

I still plan to try the stovetop risotto, when it's just the two of us. My boy can take a vegetarian meal, but the in-laws are rys, vleis en aartappels mense (rice, meat and potatoes people). They enjoyed this, I served it with some pork sausages, which they eat rarely, and I think it made a nice change for them. I would've liked it a bit creamier,but that gives me a great excuse to make it again, right?

Enjoy!

Creamy Spring Tagliatelle

Morning!

{Image source}

Spring is in the air here in the Southern hemisphere, and although we may not always think so, summer is on its way! With the changing seasons, I start to want more fresh veggies and less of the warm, yummy comfort foods I craved over winter. However, spring isn't without its ups and downs, so while we may have fresh spring veggies around, it sometimes feels decidedly colder than it should! Last night it was freezing, and I wanted something warm, but with a spring feel to it, to get me in the mood. Add to that my new amazing veggie box from The Ethical Co-op, and we were away!

{Image source}

This pasta was born from my ignorance in how to prepare asparagus. I've just started buying a weekly organic veggie box from The Ethical Co-op and in it I got a bunch of things I've never used before. You'll have noticed that I tend to stick to the same foods, although I prepare them differently. This is partly habit, and partly just what's available at my local shop. With the veggie box, I pay a flat fee, and get a mixed box of seasonal, organic veggies. I don't choose what goes in, so I'm forced to find a way to use what comes in the box. This last week, I got asparagus, Swiss chard and mangetout, along with some others, and I've never cooked with in my life! So google to the rescue, and I figured things out.. And boy, am I glad I did! This was fresh, tasty, creamy and delicious! I hope you like it..

Creamy Spring Tagliatelle
Serves 3

Ingredients:
1 bunch of fine, early spring asparagus (about as much as you can hold in your hand, while your fingers can touch your thumb
1/2 a pack of mangetout (say, about 10)
4-6 leaves of Swiss chard, depending on size
1 onion, chopped finely
1 handful of cherry tomatoes
2 tsp minced garlic
Half a pack of tagliatelle
100-150ml cream (I use reduced fat, and it was fine)
Blue cheese (I cut 2 sides off a wedge)
Grated Parmesan (to taste)
Reserved pasta water
Salt and black pepper to taste

{Image source}

Method:

1. If you have dried pasta, put that on to cook so long, as it'll be the thing that takes the longest.
2. Prepare your asparagus and mangetout, but breaking off the woody/stalky ends, and breaking into pieces. This early season asparagus wasn't very woody at all, so I just broke off a centimeter or so, and the mangetout, I just broke off the stalk.
3. Separate the tips of the asparagus, as they will not need as much cooking as the stalks.
4. Slice the chard into more manageable pieces, and set all the greens aside.
5. Slice the onion, and fry in a little oil on a medium pan, until the onion is soft, but not very coloured.
6. Add the garlic, and stir, then add the cherry tomatoes. Fry for another couple of minutes.
7. Add the cream, and allow to heat through, letting the cream thicken, and reduce a little. Add the blue cheese and Parmesan, and stir to melt.
8. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, reserving as much of the cooking liquid as possible.
9. Put the asparagus stalks, chard and mangetout into a strainer or steamer and lower into the cooking water. 
10. Cook for a minute, then add the asparagus tips, and cook for a further minute. Remove from the water, but don't throw the water away yet.
11. Add the cooked greens to the onion and cream mixture, and stir to mix.
12. Add the tagliatelle to the same pot, and stir, mixing it into the cream and veggies. If there is not enough liquid, spoon some over from the pasta pot. The starch from the cooked pasta will help make a lovely, silky, creamy sauce for the pasta.

Serve in a bowl, with plenty of cracked, black pepper and Parmesan cheese!

Guest Post: The Creative Pot with Buttermilk Corn Soup

Hi!

As I have mentioned, while I'm away on holiday, some of my lovely blog and twitter friends have offered to guest post for me! Blown away by this amazing offer, I've given them pretty much free reign to write what they like, and just LOOK at what they've come up with!

Here's Marisa from The Creative Pot with something amazing, just for you. Take it away!

When my fellow schemer, darling Twitter buddy Sigrid shared her distress with me regarding her long absence from her blog and her fear that you, her loyal readers, would run for the hills I knew I had to step up to the plate. Hell, the girl knows where I live. Plus, I had to keep our relationship in good stead, as she still has a large bottle of wine with my name on it squirreled away at her house. Clearly, a lot was at stake here. And after all, I had done one guest post before, so I figured it would be a piece of cake to do another. But I hadn't factored my indecisiveness in. What to make? I wanted to put my best foot forward, whilst also keeping an eye on that bottle of wine and adhering to the spirit of things around here, i.e. quick, easy, accessible-for-every-cook meals.

Hmmmm... Of course there was also a tiny part of me that wanted to keep all the good stuff to myself. There, I've said it. Political correctness is vastly overrated don't you think? I briefly considered cupcakes, in keeping with the name of the blog and her long-running cake-rocks joke. But when I made this soup, I knew I had to surrender the recipe. After all, it was the perfect candidate - easy, yet impressive looking. So I pinned my greedy blogger alter ego to the floor and wrestled this recipe away from my own post queue and plonked it into this one. 'Cause I'm a good friend like that. You hear that? Bottle of wine!

Um... right, so where was I? Oh yes, the soup. Looks easy right? You boil some potatoes, steam a couple of ears of corn, then bang everything together in a food processor with a good glug of buttermilk and off you go! Of course then you can get all fancy-schmancy and tart it up a bit for the all important presentation. Your dinner guests will love you. Especially if you serve it with a still-warm-from the oven bread.

Top tip: If you buy bread ready-made and gently re-heat it in the oven, no-one will be the wiser. I slathered my bread in mashed avocado which I then proceeded to dip with wild abandon in the soup. Yeah, I don't get out much. But I promise the curse doesn't get transferred through computer screens, so you should be safe.

Enjoy!

Buttermilk Corn Soup
Inspired by a recipe from 101 Cookbooks
Serves 4 - 6

Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
1 onion
1tsp garlic
1 tbsp cajun spice
2 sweet potatoes, peeled & roughly chopped
4 cups water
4 ears of corn
500 ml buttermilk
salt to taste
chopped green bellpepper, to serve (optional)
chopped red chillies (or peppadews), to serve (optional)

Method:
1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium to high heat. Add onion, garlic and cajun spice and fry for 5 - 7 minutes or until softened. Don't worry if the onion burns a little bit, I find it adds to the smoky flavour in this particular dish.
2. Add sweet potato chunks to the pot, stir to coat in the spices, then add 1 1/2 cups water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover with a lid and allow to cook until soft.
3. Meanwhile, steam corn in their husks until cooked through. I normally just pop them in the microwave for a few minutes - it works a treat. Remove and allow to cool enough to handle them. Remove husks, then, using a knife, slice the kernels off.
4. Add corn kernels to the cooked sweet potatoes, then transfer everything to a food processor and blend to a smooth puree. If necessary add some more water to ease the process.
5. Pour back into the pot, add the rest of the water, as well as buttermilk and salt to taste, then gently re-heat until piping hot before serving.

PS: Happy happy honeymoon dearest Sigrid (and hubby)! Looking forward to have you back in this neck of the woods.

PPS: If you enjoyed this post, why not come and say hi over at my blog, The Creative Pot? Or drop me a witty one liner on Twitter. I promise to be on my best behaviour.

**All images are Marisa's own (and what lovely ones they are!!)

Couscous a la me!

Hi!
So, I've been meaning to share this one with you, since I rediscovered couscous a few weeks ago. This is very much like the Healthy Pasta I shared with you last week, it uses many of the same ingredients, but it tastes quite different. Now, I mentioned my eating plan before, and you may have noticed that I don't stick to it religiously (that would bore me, and you, to death), but I like to use the recommended items where possible. So here's what I had for dinner last night! Oh, and I'll be adding pictures to my posts, as soon as I can beg, buy, borrow or steal a decentish camera from someone!! (Any offers?!)

{Image source: shadphotos, flickr}

Couscous with veggies galore! Serves 4
Prep time: 20-25 minutes  
 
Ingredients:
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 onion
4 yellow patty pans
1-3 baby marrows
20 cherry tomatoes
20cm of cucumber handful of frozen peas

half a can of whole kernel corn (or one fresh corn cob, boiled, with all the kernels scraped off) half a can of chopped tomatoes OR some Ina Paarman's tomato pasta sauce OR some tomato pesto 250g couscous, prepared to packet instructions (serves 3-4.

You can really use anything in this dish, but everything should be cut up quite small, I try to make everything pea sized, since I'm not keen on dicing peas, and I think everything should be more or less uniform. But the size is up to you.

Method:

1. Dice all the veggies, after washing and top and tailing where necessary. Like I said, size is up to you, but I try make them all about pea sized for uniformity. 
2. I do the onions first, because they take the longest to soften, then the marrows, patty pans, peppers and everything else, except the corn, cucumber and peas. 
3. Fry it all up, in a little oil, on a medium heat, enough that it sizzles, but not high enough to burn, and keep it moving. If it starts to look a little dry, drop in some water, but not a lot, just enough to prevent it sticking to the bottom, and to help soften the marrows. 
4. Throw in some herbs, or some curry powder, for extra flavour. I have some Zanzibar curry powder left from my holiday last year, which I threw in. Its not insanely hot, it just gives the food a good flavour.  
5. Now, this works well as a dish on its own, but I made it with pork sausages, you can grill some chicken, make frikkadels (my recipe for which I will soon share), or anything you like really. Even steak! 
6. Since it contains so many veggies, it fulfills nearly, if not all, of your 5-a-day quota, and the couscous is the starch, so you're pretty much good to go.  
7. Now, while the veggies cook, make the couscous according to packet instructions. If it looks a little dry when the water has all soaked in, I add some more, and it's great, so feel free to be a little creative with the instructions. Or if, like my sister, you can't make anything without instructions, follow them to the letter!!  
8. When the veggies are soft, season to taste and add in the chopped tomato or tomato pasta sauce, or whatever. Don't use tons, just enough to lubricate. I used a tiny bit of leftover pasta sauce, and half a can of chopped tomatoes. 
9. Add in the frozen peas (either parboiled, or frozen, they melt really quickly) and the corn, which should already be cooked. 
10. Once the peas are melted and warm, and the corn is warm, you can mix the prepared couscous and the veggie mix together.  
11. Once it's all mixed, if its a bit dry throw in some more chopped tomato, but you should be good to go! Lastly, throw in the cucumber, so it provides a nice, crisp contrast to the warm couscous.

Even with all the chopping, this only took 25 minutes, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a dinner worth making! It got the thumbs up from my sister, and makes a fantastic standalone dish, or as an accompaniment to sausages, steak, chicken, whatever! My next goal is to learn to make tagine, so I can make this with it, how nice does that sound!? We all have to have goals! Enjoy!

Foolproof Potato and Leek Soup - perfect for winter!

OK, so to be honest, and I always try to be, this isn't my recipe, but I did make it, and it was amazing. So I'm going to share it with you. The original recipe came from What Do I Want To Cook Today (that link goes straight to the recipe on her blog, in case you'd like it from the horses mouth, so to speak).

{Image source: Kara Reuter, flickr}

So, moving on. I did it slightly differently to the original last night, and ended up with a green, but no less delicious soup. I like the oniony ends of the leek, the green parts, so I remove all the icky bits and chuck them, retaining and using as much of the leek as possible. I also wanted leftovers for work, so I expanded on the recipe slightly.

Here's my version of this amazing soup:
 

{Image source: FotoosVanRobin, flickr}

Foolproof Potato and Leek Soup Serves 4, with leftovers

Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: 20-30 minutes

Ingredients: 

4-5 medium to large potatoes, peeled, washed and diced
4 leeks, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 onion, diced
1-2 tsp cooking oil or butter (whichever you prefer to fry with)
750ml chicken stock
250-300ml full fat milk (depending how creamy you like it)
salt and pepper to season  

Method:

1. Chop and wash the leek, until all sand is washed off. There will be a lot, leeks are sandy creatures. 
2. Melt the butter, or heat the oil in a large saucepan. When hot, throw in the onions, leeks and potatoes. 
3. Saute lightly on a medium to high heat, for a few minutes, until all veggies have been added.
4. Turn down to a medium to low heat, and fry until almost soft, but not coloured, stirring regularly, for 10-15 minutes. (Note, I used the green parts of the leek, but if you want a pure white soup, only use the white parts of the leek, obviously. I didn't mind the green tinge, I thought it made it more interesting, and made it more healthy (we all know green is good for you!)
5. Having made the stock, add it and the milk (just 250ml for now). 
6. Simmer on a medium heat, and try not to let it boil, as it changes the milk. 
7. When the potatoes are cooked through, (the smaller you chop 'em, the quicker this will be!), which shoul take about 10-15 minutes, take it off the heat, and let it cool for a bit. 
8. Using a stick blender, blend it to the desired consistency. I like my soups quite thick and tasty, but if it's too thick (potato is a natural thickener), just add come more milk, stock or just water to loosen it up a bit. 
9. If it's gotten really cold by now, heat through again, being careful not to boil. 
10. Serve with crusty buttered bread or toast, with chopped chives on top. 

* Note from future self: I'm just going through my old posts, and came across this one! It's winter again in Cape Town, and I was wondering which soup to make next - this looks like a winner to me! Make this, and enjoy!