I’ve had the most awful of colds this week. Normally, I get on with things, but this week I have largely felt like the world was ending and intent on taking me with it. As luck would have it – note the sarcasm – we were also in a hotel at the seaside, and I barely left the room. I’m actually happy to be back home and the first thing I did was make a chicken soup and some dumplings.
If preplanned, I would add ginger (I don’t have any) and possibly noodles for the not unwell members of the family, but I grabbed frozen chicken out of the freezer, and used what I had available to make this sickness comfort food in as little time and with as little effort as possible.
I’ve done this as a Thermomix recipe, but I’m pretty sure a mildly confident cook would be able to to convert it to a stove top and steamer recipe.
Also, if you don’t have buttermilk on hand – I did left over from butter making before we went away – you can use a buttermilk substitute. (Just short of a cup of milk, and a tablespoon of lemon juice [bringing it up to the 1 cup mark]. Leave it for five minutes and use as buttermilk).
I took my children apple picking a few weeks ago, and we came home with masses of apples – way more than we needed really, but it was so much fun picking, that we just kept going. Since then we’ve been making a lot of apple dishes, and these apple muffins have come out as a real favourite. My girls request them. Since they only take two apples we decided to freeze some in packs of two for use over the winter months too.
I remember making this Carrot and Clementine soup almost five years ago, with ordinary carrots and I remember that it was lovely. I found it a few days ago in the bottom of my drafts folder, and decided to make it again soon. As it happens our organic vegetable box arrived this week with purple carrots – the original carrots, apparently – and I thought these would make an eerie, spooky, fun addition to your Halloween festivities.
Of course, you can make it with normal carrots too, and it will be delicious, but not purple.
Also, I like creamy soups, so I add cream before serving. You can add cashew cream instead to make it vegan, or you can make it without any cream at all, if that’s your preference.
Serve with Cardamom Braid or Soda Bread – both are just as delicious.
Carrot and Clementine Soup Recipe:
Carrot And Clementine Soup
Recipe Type: Soup, Winter
Author: Luschka
Serves: 6
Ingredients
600g (+- 5 large) carrots finely diced
1 large onion, peeled and finely diced
750 ml (3 cups) vegetable stock
1 teaspoon (5ml) crushed coriander seeds
1 teaspoon (5ml) ground cumin
1 teaspoon (5ml) grated ginger
2 tbsp (30ml) corn flour or ground rice
6 clementines/mandarins/nartjies or other sweet citrus, liquidised
salt and pepper, to taste
cream to serve
Instructions
Sweat the finely diced carrots and onion in large saucepan with the butter – keep the lid on and keep stirring them until soft, for about 10 minutes.
Add the crushed coriander and heat through for about 2 minutes to release the fragrance, and then add the hot stock, ground cumin and fresh ginger. (If you are using ground coriander add with the other spices and the stock.).
Add the thickening agent (rice or corn flour) and liquidised citrus– stirring well, and continue to simmer for 30 minutes.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, then liquidise in a food processor or with an immersion blender.
Return the soup to the pan and reheat for 5 minutes or until piping hot, remove from the heat and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Drizzle with a little cream, and top with dehydrated carrot or twists of citrus zest, and serve with bread.
Thermomix Instructions
Chop the carrot and onion finely, speed 4/ 5 seconds
Sweat for 3 minutes/100C/Speed 1.
Add the rest of the ingredients, except the salt, pepper and optional cream.
Cook for 15 minutes on Veroma/Speed 1.
If you like it smooth, pulse on Turbo a few times, otherwise leave it as is.
Drizzle with cream and season to taste. (optional)
Notes
Any left overs can be frozen, and reheated when required.
Autumn bounty includes Damsons in the UK, and the trees are laden with them. People can’t get rid of them fast enough. The problem with damsons is that unlike, say, blackberries, you can’t eat them raw, so they often go unappreciated till they fall to the ground.
My daughter came home from a walk in the forest with her pockets bulging with damsons, so I decided to turn it into jam, something I’ve never done before.
Damson Jam / Damson Jelly Recipe
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 200ml
Use equal parts of fruit to jam sugar, boil and store. Easy peasy Damson Jam. You can of course buy your Damsons, but half the fun is in the foraging!
Ingredients
200g Damsons
250g (9oz) Sugar
1 orange, washed
Instructions
Wash damsons and drop them into your pot.
Squeeze the juice of the orange out over it.
Cook on medium heat for 20 minutes till the fruit is soft. (20 mins/100C/speed 2).
After 20 minutes, remove from the heat. It’s useful at this point to remove all the pips. If you keep the orange in at this point, you’ll have a slight marmalade undertone to the damson jam. I’m not a fan of marmalade, so I prefer to remove the orange before adding the jam sugar.
Boil for another 20 minutes at 100C/212F.
Remove from the heat and tip the pot slightly. If the jam looks like it is creating a wrinkle, remove from heat and pour into steriised jars to keep for later, or into a jam jar to start using straight away.
If it doesn’t seem to be wrinkly yet, cook for a further five minutes before dispensing into jars. Remember that damsons have a lot of pectin in them and will set as it cools.
It’s easy to reach for comfort foods at this time of year, as the seasons change and we start going a little more insular, but there’s no reason your blackberry crumble has to be unhealthy – if fact, if you have a raw blackberry crumble, it’s fresh, good for you, and what’s more, you can make these ahead and take them out as you fancy.
I found the walnuts I used in this quite bitter, so will try different walnuts next time, or perhaps hazelnuts or something else. It’s a lovely snack to have in the freezer for when you just want something nice. These were especially good, because my daughters and I went foraging, picking the berries ourselves earlier in the day.
Take these from the freezer about half an hour before you eat them, and enjoy!
Raw Blackberry Crumble Recipe
Author: Luschka
Ingredients
[u]Crumble
[/u]
1 cup walnuts/pecan nuts or cashew nuts
1/4 cup shredded coconut
2 pitted dats
1/4 tsp vanilla extract or essence
Pinch Himalayan or rock salt
[u]Filling[/u]
1 cup fresh blackberries
2 dates pitted dates
1 Tbsp honey, local preferable
Instructions
I use my Thermomix, but any food processor that can handle nuts will do.
To make the crumble, add the nuts, coconut, salt, dates and vanilla to the bowl and process – (10 seconds, speed 6). You want it to be a crumble, not a paste.
Take 3/4 of the mix and press into a pan, or silicone cupcake pans. Put the rest of the crumble aside.
To make the filling, add half the blackberries into the food processor, along with dates and honey. Process until well blended. Add the remaining blackberries and mix lightly so there are still whole blackberry chunks.
Pour the blackberry filling over the crust in the cake pan, or scoop into muffin cases and top with the remaining crumble.
Gently press the crumble, and freeze. When it’s a frozen, remove from muffin trays and place in airtight container.
To serve, remove from freezer about half an hour before.
Around this time of year, the apple trees are laden with juicy, lovely fruit, just waiting to be picked. A few years ago we lived in a house with a huge apple tree in the centre of the yard, and I learned to make apple-everything! I’ve missed this beautiful apple chutney since then, but where we live now the apple trees line a public walk way, free for anyone with a long enough arm to help themselves.
I’ve made a few batches of this apple chutney this year – with apples from a friend’s garden, actually – and it gets rave reviews every time. I core the apples too, but don’t peel them. If you do, however, sprinkle the skins with cinnamon and pop them in the dehydrator over night or a low oven for two hours for a lovely apple crispy snack.
Great with cheese and crackers, or mixed in with mince or other cooked meats, this is my favourite home made apple chutney.
Awesome Autumn Apple Chutney
Recipe Type: Chutney, Condiment
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 500ml
Ingredients
5 green apples, cored
3 large tomatoes, quartered
2 large onions
5g fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves
80g raisins
30g orange juice
20g lemon juice
225g soft brown sugar
200g apple cider vinegar
Instructions
Chop the ingredients finely. (Chop lightly in a food processor if you can)
Add the liquids and sugar into a pot and stir till the sugar has dissolved.
Add the rest of the ingredients.
Simmer on low heat for 2 hours.
Pour into warm sterilised jars and keep for up to a year.
In the thermomix
Add the apples, tomatoes and onions to the Thermomix and chop 10 seconds/speed 4
Remove to a large container.
Add the ginger and garlic to the Thermomix and chop, 5 seconds/speed 8
Add the raisins, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar and cook for 3 minutes/speed 3/ 90C
Add the apple mix back to the Thermomix with the apple cider vinegar
Cook at Varoma temperature for 40 mins/REVERSE speed 2 without MC.
If it’s still too runny, do the same for another 20 minutes. Just keep an eye on it.
When it’s finished and looks like chutney, pour into sterilised jars.
I’m quite fond of courgette (zucchini), lightly fried with anchovy and pine nut, or steamed, or frittered, but it took getting a 3.5kg (7lb7oz) courgette from a friend of mine recently to get me to try courgette soup, and it is without doubt my favourite soup ever, hands down.
It is so simple to make too, that it can actually be whizzed up in no time. If you need a quick and delicious dinner, and don’t know what to do with that end of season marrow, zucchini or courgette surplus, look no further. If you don’t love it, I’ll … well, I’ll eat it!
Personally, I adore this with some cream, but if you’re trying to keep the calories down, I find it quite fresh and thoroughly enjoyable with some salt and pepper.
This also freezes very well,
Courgette Soup/ Zucchini Soup
Recipe Type: Soup, Main, Side, Starter
Cuisine: Autumn Food
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 5
I can not stop talking about this soup. I’m not a huge soup fan, and eat it largely out of ease or need, but this soup? Well, it can move in, quite frankly! I love it. Serve with fresh home made bread (or not) and top with dehydrated courgette strips, or perhaps crispy bacon.
Ingredients
700g courgette / zucchini /marrow
1 onion
1 garlic clove
1 tsp stock or a stock cube and 2 cups water (or 2 cups liquid stock, I prefer chicken but veggie works too)
1 cup cream (250ml or a 240ml pot will be fine) = 240g (optional)
Instructions
Regular Instructions
Roughly chop the marrow and onion, and pop in a food processor. If you like chunky chewy soups, lightly blend leaving chunks, if you like a smooth drinkable soup, keep it going for a while.
Add the stock and water, and bring to the boil.
Simmer for 15 minutes
Stir in cream, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and either dehydrated courgette, crispy bacon or croutons, or eat as is, with our without thick chunks of bread and butter.
Thermomix Instructions
Add the onion and garlic and mix speed 10, 10 seconds
Slice the courgette and place in the Thermomix.
Add the stock and water and cook speed 2/Varoma/15 mins
Check the texture. If you like chunky chewy soups, lightly blend leaving chunks, if you like a smooth drinkable soup, keep it going 60 seconds, speed 5.
Stir in cream, if using, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and either dehydrated courgette, crispy bacon or croutons, or eat as is, with or without thick chunks of bread and butter.
It’s been a beautiful summer, and I’ve focused largely on my children, and very little on anything else, including these pages. I’ve often taken a photo of things, thinking I’d publish them when I have a moment, and that moment has just never come, and here we are, just in time for autumn.
Nature is a beautiful thing though, and knowing full well that the barren months of winter are coming, Autumn blesses us with a bountiful harvest of apples, blackberries, rosehips, damsons and more. My children and I have spent time foraging in our local area, trying to take advantage of the free fruit as much as we can. Over the next few days, I’ll share some of the results of our foraged free food with you.
Today’s recipe is a bit of a cheat: Blackberry Jam. It’s a cheat because I used Jam Sugar with added pectin rather than making my own. We were lucky, I think and got the berries at just the right time, as they were sweet, full of juice and just delicious.
I use a jam strainerto catch all the seeds and skins, leaving me with a beautiful clear jam.
Blackberry Jam
Recipe Type: Condiments
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 250ml
The flavour of this jam depends a lot on the blackberries you use. We picked plump, juicy, ripe blackberries to make a sweet, delicious jam for toast, home made doughnuts and more.
Ingredients
250g (9oz)fresh blackberries
250g (9oz) jam sugar
2tbs lemon juice (if from a bottle)/ juice from 1/2 lemon if using fresh lemon
Instructions
(If you’re using a stove to make jam, you’ll need a sugar thermometer to check when your mixture is at 100C/212F. If you’re using a breadmachine with a jam function, follow manufacturer instructions. For a Thermomix, cook at 100 degrees at speed 2. )
Place all ingredients in bowl and cook for 40 minutes at 100C or 212F.
To check whether your jam has set, tilt the bowl slightly, being careful not to spill boiled sugar! Check to see whether a slight gel forms on top. If not, return to heat for five minute intervals. Your external temperature will affect how long your jam has to boil.
It shouldn’t take over 50 minutes, but if it does, turn the heat up as high as possible (watching it doesn’t burn) for 3 minutes.
Pour jam into sterilised jars and leave overnight to cool.
Apart from my two pregnancies, I’ve always been a meat eater, but after almost ten years of supermarket meat in the UK my husband and I decided that we would rather reduce the number of times a week that we eat meat, and buy organic meat to eat less often. This has worked exceptionally well and the meat we’ve been eating in the last two months has been amazing. In the balance, however, has been more vegetarian meals.
Once upon a time I assumed a veggie meal meant salad with a side of cucumber. Not my favourite. But while it’s taken a few years, I’ve finally grown to understand how good vegetarian food can be.
I was recently invited to be part of the Parragon Books book club, and one of the first books I’ve received to review was the Love Food Vegetarian Step-By-Step cookbook*.
I am loving this book.
It really is ideal for beginner cooks, whether they’re five or 35, as each recipe uses basic, relatively simple ingredients, and a really good step by step guide to the directions.
The book is beautifully illustrated, with all the ingredients laid out in the first picture, what it all looks like in the preparation, and finally, the end result.
Another thing that is absolutely fabulous about this book is the fact that bits and pieces of recipes can be used together or apart. For example I used only the Cheese Pastry sticks bit of the Celeriac Soup With Cheese Pastry Sticks recipe. It’s nicely set out that you can, even as a beginner, choose the bits you want.
I own many cook books, most of which I know I’ll only ever make four or five recipes out of, but in this book, there are no recipes that I can say no, I’ll definitely never make that. It’s set to become a favourite, for sure.
A lovely vegetarian dish, ideal on it’s own or served as a side to something else. Easily adaptable too, if you don’t have the same vegetables feel free to use others. Don’t skip the pine nuts though – they totally make the dish. The instructions differ a little from the original, but work out perfectly.
Ingredients
2 peppers, deseeded and cut into chunky pieces
1 large courgette, cut into chunks
1 small fennel bulb, cut into slim wedges
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
100g/3.5 oz quinoa
350ml/12 fl oz vegetable stock
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tbsp flat leaf parsley
40g 1.5 oz pine nuts, toasted
salt and pepper
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.
Lightly toast the pine nuts in a hot pan and set aside to cool.
Chop vegetables and put in a bowl.
Drizzle over olive oil and mix so that it covers all the vegetables.
Arrange the chopped vegetables in a single layer in a roasting tin.
Roast for 25 – 30 minutes.
Place the quinoa, stock and garlic in a saucepan (or in the Thermomix), bring to the boil and cover to simmer for 12 – 15 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender and most of the stock has been absorbed.
Mix the quinoa in with the vegetables and top with the toasted pine nuts and flat leaf parsley, and serve immediately.
3.2.2029
*affiliate link. It won’t cost you any extra to buy through this link, but Amazon will give me 5% of the sale price, which goes towards helping paying for this blog. Thanks for supporting us!
I’ve put loads of effort into my gardenthis year, and to be honest, thus far, it hasn’t really paid off! I’m hoping now that summer’s finally arrived, we may have better luck. It certainly can’t get much worse.
That said, the one thing in my garden that’s been glorious, and a steady producer, has been the Kale plant.
I do like Kale, but planted this specially for Kale chips, and maybe some smoothies. I find Kale generally rubbery and tough, and eat it because it’s good for me. Unfortunately I don’t know what variety of Kale I planted, but the leaves are smaller than the ones in the shop, and much more tender, making a delicious raw salad.
{Festival Of Food} Kale & Parmesan Summer Salad
Recipe Type: Side Dish, Salad
Cuisine: Healthy, Salad, Summer
Author: Luschka
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves: 3
A lovely, light, spring time salad, perfect with baby kale, soft, tender and juicy. There’s no science to the quantities here – just use what you have. Three cups of kale pretty much loosely fills the TM31 bowl.
Ingredients
(60g) 5 Tablespoons Olive Oil, Divided
(15g) 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
3 cups (750ml) Stemmed And Sliced Kale
(60g) ⅓ cup (80ml) Grated Parmesan Cheese
Instructions
Whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil until well blended.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
In a large bowl, toss together the kale, dressing, and Parmesan cheese.
Enjoy!
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Please take a moment to visit the blogs of our other Festival of Food participants. The links in this list will be live by the end of the day, as participants are all in different time zones.
Amy at Anktangle details two different methods of preserving hearty summer greens (such as kale and chard) so you can enjoy the variety—and nutritional benefits!—year-round. You can also follow Amy on Facebook.
Stay connected! Be sure to “Like” the Festival of Food Carnival Facebook page.
This recipe features in A Very Thermie Christmas, where you can find it and 50 other recipes perfect for a Thermomix assisted Christmas. Read more about it here.
