Fresh Tomato Soup with Cheddar Soldiers

This was so simple to throw together, I think total it took me about 30 minutes start to finish. It was very hearty and I'd choose this over canned soup anytime!

Throw a carrot peeled and quartered, garlic, fresh basil, and some soft almost over ripe tomatoes into a food processor (or in my case my Ninja.  I love that it's called a Ninja! Makes me feel all tough... I'll show these tomatoes who's boss!) and give it a go until it's liquidized as much as possible.

Pour into a large sauce pan and let it bubble away on medium low for about 20 minutes.  Give it a heavy pinch of salt and pepper.

In the meantime, slice some crusty bread into rectangular strips.  Drizzle with olive oil, worcestershire, some bruised fresh thyme and give it a toss.  Grate some cheddar over top and throw that into a 350 degrees fahrenheit oven for 10-15 minutes or until the bread is beautifully crispy and sort of crouton-ish.  I never would have thought to put worcestershire on bread but oh man was this good!

After the soup has been bubbling for 20 minutes add a few tablespoons of cream (I just used half and half), a good splash of white wine vinegar and taste it to make sure the seasoning is spot on.  I put it back in the Ninja just to make it that much smoother and it made a huge difference!

Garnish with a few small basil leaves and a little drizzle of cream and olive oil.  Dunk those little babies in this soup and it's so delicious!  I made it this morning thinking I would freeze a lot of it but we wound up having it for breakfast!

To Matt tomatoes are the devil manifested in vegetable form but he wolfed this down very quickly, and so did I!

Creamed Mushroom Soup with Doorstep Toast

Oh my stars was this good!

Slice a whole slew of mushrooms quite thin (you can use all different kinds but portobello shrooms were on sale this week so that's what I used).

Note to self: Use the slicing blade on the food processor next time.

That was so much chopping!!

Throw all the mushrooms and a couple chopped garlic cloves in a pan with a knob of butter and a glug of olive oil and stir fry on high for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, dice up half a large red onion (the recipe called for a whole red onion but the ones at the store were enormous!!), and a couple stalks of celery.

Set 1/3 of the mushrooms aside in a smaller pan to be reheated later.

Add the diced veg to the pan with a couple of bay leaves.  Heat over medium until the onions start to become tender.

And here's the brandy I bought.  It never occurred to me to buy one of the little tiny bottles.... duh!  I took a shot of this and surprisingly liked the flavor a lot... very spicy!  It did very weird things to my tongue however.  It almost tickled!  Man did adding a shot (or two, haha) to the pan make those mushrooms smell heavenly!

Add some chicken stock and some white rice to the pan and simmer for 20 minutes.

While that's bubbling away, mix together a large dollop of sour cream, the zest of half a lemon and give the lemon a good squeeze into the bowl.  Season, stir and set aside. I've come to the conclusion that I need a microplane. I used my box grater for zesting the lemon... never again.

After 20 minutes, take the bay leaves out and put the mixture in a food processor (or in my case I used my large Ninja... love that thing!) to liquidize.  Flip on the pan with the reserved mushrooms in it.  Cut a couple slices of crusty bread, drizzle with olive oil and pop in the toaster.  Cut a clove of garlic in half and rub it on the hot toast (still not sure why this is considered "doorstep toast"... any ideas?).  Put a small dollop of the lemon sour cream in the bowl and drizzle with olive oil.  

Bring on the soup!!

When I asked Matt if he liked it all he said was, "shhhh" as he put more in his mouth! Haha, sometimes I think that man loves mushrooms more than me.

Mission: Groceries & Soup!!

I decided to sort of skip around in the book to keep things exciting and also so I don't get burned out with one particular type of food.  So tonight I have to venture out to the dreaded grocery store... urg!  I'm not sure why I loathe grocery shopping so much.  Maybe it's because of how expensive things are these days!  Although, Meijer is having a really great 10/$10 sale in the produce section this week so I'll definitely have to hit that up.

Two soups on the menu this week: Fresh Tomato Soup with Cheddar Soldiers (sounds like Cadbury gone terribly wrong doesn't it?) and Creamed Mushroom Soup with Doorstep Toast.  The mushroom soup surprisingly calls for a shot of brandy so that will be a first in my grocery cart.  When I think brandy, I picture men by a fire place smoking cigars, drinking brandy and reassuring themselves that they are masters of their domain.  (No offense to anyone who drinks brandy of course, I'm just used to hard liquor drinks with an umbrella in them!) But in soup?  We'll see...  I'm also making Turkey & Sweet Leek Pie this week.  It's not from this book but if you saw the Jamie Cooks Christmas episode this past year you know what I'm talking about!  Can't wait to try this: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/turkey-recipes/turkey-sweet-leek-pie

I've got my list ready so everyone say a prayer that I don't get run over by a crazy lady in one of those scooter carts!  Totally almost got taken out last week!

Bubble & Squeak

I was a little skeptical when I read the ingredients for this recipe, but it turned out really good.  I used parsnip, rutabaga, carrot, brussels sprouts, kale, petite yellow potatoes, fresh thyme and sage.

Honestly, I've never had rutabaga or parsnip before so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  As I sliced into the parsnip I was really surprised at the great smell!

Dice everything, boil until tender and flatten into a frying pan with a knob of butter.   Wait until you start to get a crust on the bottom, fold in the crispy bits and start all over.  Do this about 5 times.

Finally leave it in the pan to form a crust, flip and create another crust.  Slide it out of the pan and voila...  Bubble & Squeak!  Wicked easy and very tasty!

Did you like my Jamie-isms?

One-Pan Breakfast

I wound up tracking down blood sausage and HP Sauce so I made this for supper tonight.  It was seriously amazing.  Matt said he wants this everyday of his life, haha.

Fry up some bacon, whatever kind of pork sausage you like, blood sausage, tomato and mushroom.

Crack a couple of eggs in the pan and throw under the broiler until the eggs are done they way you like them.

(I was breaking the yokes with my spatula when Matt took the pic)

And HP?  Where have you been all my life?  I will never go back to ketchup again.  This was so good that Matt even ate the tomatoes, I was stunned!  Usually I refer to bacon as "fat on a stick" and I was slightly terrified of the blood sausage, but.... yay for bacon and blood sausage!

Black pudding anyone??

As I'm preparing to write down my grocery list for the first recipe I am realizing that a little bit of research is going to be needed for a lot of these.  HP sauce? Black pudding? Two rashers of streaky bacon?  What the crap is a rasher??  And of course everything is in metric because us Americans refuse to go along with the rest of the world when it comes to measurements.  So here's what I found:

HP Sauce: HP stands for Houses of Parliament which is the silhouette on the label.  It is the UK's #1 "brown sauce" and I've read that it's used in place of ketchup or "red sauce".  Traditionally it's used on the side with a fried breakfast or any sausage dish.  Vinegary ketchup is how it's described online.  Wonder where I can find that around here?

Black Pudding: oh boy.  I don't know about this... already, haha.  Here's what Wikipedia has to say: Black pudding, blood pudding or blood sausage is a type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled.
I'm assuming that was my mom who commented on my first post... how did you know about blood pudding?  I think black pudding sounds a little easier to stomach!  I swore I would at least try everything.  So this coming week, black pudding here we come!

Rashers of streaky bacon:  Apparently I'm not the only one baffled by this.  I googled "what is a rasher of streaky bacon?" and an American gal asked the same question.  At least I'm not the only clueless one!  Turns out a rasher is a strip of bacon and "streaky bacon" just refers to the type of cut meaning it has more fat running through it.  Mystery solved...

I've added the ingredients to my grocery list so I'll be good to go on Monday when I head to the store.  Hopefully I can find HP sauce or I may have to order it online.  Wish me luck!

The Challenge

Of course January rolls around and we are all taking stock of what we did (and didn't do) in 2011 and making resolutions for 2012.  I actually hate making New Year's resolutions, so instead I've created a goal: cook my way through Jamie's Great Britain, cover to cover doing at least one recipe per week.  Yes, I've seen "Julie & Julia" and loved it, so why not take on a challenge of my own?  I love Jamie's philosophy for "real food" and this will definitely be an adventure in cooking/eating but I think it will be a really fun project.  I've always loved to cook and within the last few years my husband Matt and I have really come to like and appreciate all things British so this cookbook is really quite fitting.  I'm not sure Matt knew what he was signing up for when he got me this book for Christmas!

Here is the breakdown of recipes:

Breakfast - 11

Soups - 10 

Salads - 16

Pub Grub - 10

New British Classics- 6

Afternoon Tea - 15

Seaside - 12

Pies & Puddings - 6

Sunday Lunch - 9

Wild Food - 8

Vegetables - 16

Puddings - 15

Condiments - 28

Starting next week I will be starting this challenge beginning with Breakfasts and working my way through.  I'm very excited and Matt has promised to at least TRY everything!  Who else can I rope into TRYING everything?  Any takers??