New cookbooks!

How frustrating must it be to be me!  Even in my desire to clear out my cookbooks and have only enough to fit my purpose built bookcase in our kitchen, I still cannot resist interesting new cookbooks. Especially when they were a fantastic deal at WH Smith!  I imagine these deals are meant to help people buying Christmas gifts. And that was the first reason I picked them up, but how could I possibly give these away?  Two of my favourite things - cake and soup!



I made my decision and purchased the "A Soup for Every Day"365 of our favourite recipes - from the New Covent Garden Food Company, and "Cake Days"  Recipes to make every day special, from The Hummingbird Bakery.  Although the cakes were very tempting, I was much more interested in new soups and how fun it would be to have a soup a day.  (Not that I would make a soup a day, but it will fun to try to work through it in the next few years!)

My first choice was easy, it was November 8 and I looked at that date.....Swede, Turnip & Parsnip Soup!  Sounded interesting so off I went to buy what I needed.

The funny thing is, I never heard of Swede before moving over here and my husband is convinced Swede and Turnip are the same things!  And where I come from, we have rutabaga - which is a swede according to the dictionary!  At a local vegetable shop yesterday looking for another turnip to make this soup again, all I could find was "swede" but it was labelled "turnip"!  So the confusion will always be with us!  Good luck finding exactly what you might need for this soup. But I think any mixture of these or similar root vegetables would work.

According to my local grocery store - in the upper left hand corner is the swede, and in the middle of the plate with the purple top is the turnip!

In the list of ingredients is "double cream".  In the UK, we have single cream, double cream and whipping cream.  When I first moved here, I had to figure out what these really were in terms of my own reference. The nearest thing I could come up with was single cream is similar to what we get in the US called Half and Half (half milk, half cream), double cream seems to me to be just what it says - cream.  I have no idea why there is a separate type of cream labelled whipping cream, since double cream can also be whipped!  But there it is! 

In an attempt to make this a bit more healthy and less fattening, I used another product of which I have no idea of a substitute in the US - Elmlea Double Light.  On the label it claims to have "50% less fat than double cream", and of course, every little bit helps! 

In addition to new cookbooks, I am also a sucker for new kitchen gadgets and bought myself a wonderful treat a few weeks ago.  This was the first time I really benefited from it - a Teefal Fresh Express chopper. 

Although it might chop vegetables a bit less than "roughly", since the soup is going to be liquidized anyway, what does that matter?  And the time saved is wonderful.  (In both chopping and cooking!)






I have copied the recipe at the bottom without photos for ease of using.

And apologies, again, it seems like my life is just one big hurry, so I did not convert measurements.

Swede, Turnip & Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

25g Butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 medium carrots, roughly chopped 

(with soup what does exact measurements matter?  I had 3 carrots left, so I used all of them)

225g swede, peeled and roughly chopped

175g turnips, peeled and roughly chopped

(same with the turnip, why throw a bit away? Just use the whole thing if it is small enough anyway!)

150g parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped

725 ml (3 cups) vegetable stock

nutmeg, freshly grated

100 ml double cream 

 

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion, carrot, swede, turnip and parsnip, then cover and cook gently for 10 minutes, without browning.

 

Add the vegetable stock and nutmeg, then season to taste.

 

Cover, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

 

Blend until smooth, then add the cream.

 not much cream anyway, but using the healthier version made me happy ;-) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Season to taste, reheat gently, then serve.

 

Delicious!

 

"To stay youthful, stay useful."  Amish Proverb

 

Swede, Turnip & Parsnip Soup

Ingredients

25g Butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
225g swede, peeled and roughly chopped
175g turnips, peeled and roughly chopped
150g parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped
725 ml (3 cups) vegetable stock
nutmeg, freshly grated
100 ml double cream 

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion, carrot, swede, turnip and parsnip, then cover and cook gently for 10 minutes, without browning.

Add the vegetable stock and nutmeg, then season to taste.

Cover, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Blend until smooth, then add the cream.

Season to taste, reheat gently, then serve.

Apple and Oat Crumble

While visiting our friends in Jedburgh, I had the pleasure of picking apples from a tree for the first time in my life!  It isn't that I had never seen an apple tree, in fact, we had one in our backyard for awhile. But I just never thought of going out there and even finding out if my apples were edible! 

A gorgeous part of Scotland we had never visited before!

 

But on this particular weekend, Isabel offered to send some apples home with me and out we went to get them!  And I got way more than I thought we could handle.  I was advised how to wrap them in newspaper and store them in a cold room.  Easier said than done right now in our house.....things are all every which way right now as we try to come to grips with whatever it is we want to do with this house!  And at this point, I could not even get to the door of the garage. So I searched and discovered the coldest room in our house is my new office. This was once my Mom's bedroom and she always said it was cold.......she was right! 

With our son now being home from London, it seemed the perfect excuse to bake something. So I decided to see how those apples I put in the room in September were doing 5 weeks later. And they were perfect.  (I have used some of the apples before this, but they had been kept in the kitchen)

I am also trying to get rid of some of my cookbooks, so I am testing which ones I like most.  I decided to try "Bake" by Rachel Allen.  And the recipe was a huge success!  So that is one book I will probably keep!

And I apologize, I forgot to measure into cups after the flour.  I just enjoyed putting it all together and didn't remember to make that adjustment. 

APPLE AND OAT CRUMBLE

Serves 6   (very cleverly done, it is suggested you use 6 ramekins, so of course it serves 6. No danger of a huge serving and then it only serves 4! Unless of course you are a member of this family.  In reality, this served 4 - one of us ate 2 ramekins at a time!  In their defense - 4 of the ramekins were small......

3-4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into big chunks  ( I took this too far and should have cut smaller "big" chunks!)

1`tbsp water

2 - 3 tbsp. caster sugar

Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream  ( I used 0% fat Vanilla Greek Yogurt)

For the crumble:

150g (5oz, or 3/4 cup) plain flour
1tsp ground cinnamon ( recipe says optional, but cinnamon goes so well with apples!)
75g (3oz butter) chilled and cubed 
25 g (1oz) porridge oats  (oatmeal)
75g (2oz) light brown sugar

1 litre (1 3/4 pint) pie dish or six ramekins

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F or Gas mark 4.

2.  Place the apples, water and sugar into a saucepan set over a gentle heat and cook, stirring every minute or so to prevent it sticking, for approximately 10 or so until the apples become a soft pulp.  (Mine took longer than 10 minutes, possibly from being cut in too large of chunks, or else my heat was too gentle!)  Taste and add more sugar if necessary (I didn't think it was).  Transfer to the pie dish or the six ramekins and allow to cool slightly.




3. 

Next, make the crumble.  Place the flour and cinnamon (if using) in a large bowl, add the butter and, using your fingertips, rub it in until the mixture resembles very coarse breadcrumbs.  (Don't rub in too much or the crumble will not be crunchy.)  Add the oats and sugar and mix to combine. 




4. 

Sprinkle this crumble mixture over the slightly cooled apples and bake for 15 minutes for the small crumbles or 30 - 45 minutes for a large one until cooled and golden.  Serve warm with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or vanilla yogurt (in a feeble attempt to make this sound healthy!)





                                                                                                /before going into the oven

                                                 
                                                                the finished product

Here is the recipe without the pictures.


APPLE AND OAT CRUMBLE

Serves 6   (very cleverly done, it is suggested you use 6 ramekins, so of course it serves 6. No danger of a huge serving and then it only serves 4!)

3-4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into big chunks  ( I took this too far and should have cut smaller "big" chunks!)

1`tbsp water

2 - 3 tbsp. caster sugar

Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream  ( I used 0% fat Vanilla Greek Yogurt)

For the crumble:

150g (5oz, or 3/4 cup) plain flour
1tsp ground cinnamon ( recipe says optional, but cinnamon goes so well with apples!)
75g (3oz butter) chilled and cubed 
25 g (1oz) porridge oats  (oatmeal)
75g (2oz) light brown sugar

1 litre (1 3/4 pint) pie dish or six ramekins

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F or Gas mark 4.
2.  Place the apples, water and sugar into a saucepan set over a gentle heat and cook, stirring every minute or so to prevent it sticking, for approximately 10 or so until the apples become a soft pulp.  (Mine took longer than 10 minutes, possibly from being cut in too large of chunks, or else my heat was too gentle!)  Taste and add more sugar if necessary (I didn't think it was).  Transfer to the pie dish or the six ramekins and allow to cool slightly.
3.  Next, make the crumble.  Place the flour and cinnamon (if using) in a large bowl, add the butter and, using your fingertips, rub it in until the mixture resembles very coarse breadcrumbs.  (Don't rub in too much or the crumble will not be crunchy.)  Add the oats and sugar and mix to combine. 
4.  Sprinkle this crumble mixture over the slightly cooled apples and bake for 15 minutes for the small crumbles or 30 - 45 minutes for a large one until cooled and golden.  Serve warm with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or vanilla yogurt (in a feeble attempt to make this sound healthy!)

"The most important things in your home are people." Amish Proverb