Introducing…. Bob!

We have a new addition to the household!

Born on the 27th February 2014 we would like to introduce you to …. Bob!

Birth of Bob 2

Bob is a sourdough bread starter, or will be providing I can keep him alive for long enough!

I’ve made bread starters before but I’ve never kept them after they’ve made their first batch of bread. Bob however I intend to feed and nurture and see how long I can keep him going.

I have to say I’m not feeling confident. You see it’s all a bit scientific. Flour to water ratios, temperature, how much flour to feed, blah blah blah. I can’t be doing with all that so I’ll be truthful and say… I’m winging it!

For those of you who fancy having a go at ‘winging it’ too you will need some flour. I used some  strong white flour and a little malted grain. I used the malted grain because it has whole grain in it which, if I understand right, has more of the natural yeasts present which are needed to get your bread going. The malted grain also contained rye which again is supposed to make a good starter.

I put the flour in a tall kilner jar and then added water to make a paste the consistency of single flour. I then put the lid on and left it.

A couple of hours later he looked like this…

Birth of Bob

This is not good…

If I was a puritan I should probably have ditched the mixture and started again. However I’m ‘winging it’ so I chucked in a bit more flour, gave it a mix and left it.

On day 2 it looked better but still had water separating so I added more flour again. It did smell nice, a bit like beer, which is good… I think?

On day 3 he’s looking like this…

Bob day 3 full

Now to me that is looking quite healthy…

I guess only time will tell, watch this space…

Sweet Potato & Red Chili Soup

 

Sweet Potato and Chilli Banner

Soup… We absolutely love it in our house. Not the tinned variety of course. It has to be ‘Ome-made! And it’s so easy to make. You take your favourite ingredients sweat them off in some butter add some stock, cook for a bit and then blitz. Not leek and potato soup though, that can’t be blitzed. That’s completely breaking the rules, that has to be… ‘lumpy’.

 

If you make your own stock it’s even better. Even if it’s chucking the bones from the leftover roast chicken in a pot and boiling for an hour, you will be left with a nicechicken stock blog base for a soup. Of course if your one of those non-meat eating types you can make a stock from those manky left over carrots at the back of the fridge any veg trimmings and some onion. If you roast the veg for 20 minutes or so you’ll get more flavour and a deeper colour to your stock too.

 

So heres a recipe for a soup I made the other day along with a recipe for some cumin, ginger and garlic croutons. If you don’t have the croutons with this soup I suggest putting the spices used to flavour them in the soup. Although this recipe has chillies and spices in it it is no way spicy. If you prefer it spicier just up the amount of red chili in the recipe.

  croutons blogcoriander and chilli blog

Sesoning Blog

 

 

 

Sweet Potato & Red Chili Soup

 

Ingredients 

 

50g butter                                                       Diced Potatoes Blog

1 medium onion roughly sliced

2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped

200g (a large baker) potato cubed

700g sweet potatoes (4 small or 3 medium)cubed

1 large carrot diced

1 teaspoon ground white pepper (or extra black if you haven’t)

1 teaspoon salt

1 heaped teaspoon mild curry massala (or curry powder)Diced Carrots Blog

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 litre of stock

2 medium sized red chillies deseeded and finely chopped

1 tablespoon chopped coriander

Ground black pepper and salt to taste

 

Method

 

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan. Gently fry the onion and garlic for about 10 minutes.

Sweet Potato Sweating Blog

Add both types of potato and carrot to the pan along with the white pepper, salt, curry massala, allspice and thyme. Gently sweat all the veg off for a further 10 minutes stirring so the spices don’t stick and burn.

Add your stock which should just cover the vegetables. Bring to a simmer and cook for approximately forty minutes or until all the veg is cooked through and soft. Take off the heat and carefully blitz with a hand blender, blender or food processor.

Put back on the heat and add the remaining ingredients. The soup will be ready after 20 minutes.

 Sweet Potato Soup Blog

 

Cumin Ginger & Garlic Croutons

 

8 slices white bread

Olive oil

2 teaspoon crushed garlic

2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

Salt and black pepper

 

Method

 

Cut the bread into cubes and put in a shallow roasting/baking tin.

Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with the garlic, cumin and ginger. Give the croutons a good toss and then sprinkle a little more olive oil on them and toss them again.

croutons cooking blog

Put in an oven preheated to 165°C on fan setting (185°C for conventional)the croutons will take 30 – 40 minutes but you need to regularly check on them and give them a shake or turn every 10 minutes or so.

Once the croutons are cooked they can be used straight away. Once the croutons are completely cool they can be put in a sealed container where they should be good for up to five days.

Sweet Potato Soup Banner

Happy soup making!

 

 

Peter Piper Picked A Padron Pepper…

And it nearly blew his head off!

Well maybe not. Allegedly one in every thirty, or twenty % padron peppers is a hot one. So eating them is a bit like playing Russian Roulette… but with peppers.

For those that don’t know Padron Peppers are little chilli peppers that grow in the northwest of Spain in an area called, well, Padron of course.

I first heard of them when Rick Stein was doing his series on Spain. He cooked them the classic way, in olive oil until blistered and then sprinkled with sea salt.

I thought then that they looked delicious but that was a couple of years ago and it is only now that these little tasty morsels seem to be readily available. In fact they seem to be the new craze!

They are incredibly tasty, and generally not spicy. However it’s great fun when you get a spicy one and there is no way of telling!

We simply cook them gently in olive oil until the skin starts to blister and small flecks of charred flesh appear. They are then spooned into a bowl and sprinkled liberally with salt.

The bowl is then handed round the table and we all take one. The kids always look a bit apprehensive just in case they have picked one of the hot ones. It’s great to watch them gingerly take that first bite!

We always give the children a little pot of Greek yoghurt on the side which they dip their pepper into. And of course it helps if they do happen to get a hot one!

I whole heartedly recommend anyone to try these peppers. They really are tasty and such a simple little treat to prepare as a snack, simple starter or a full Tapas blow-out.

Just remember as they say in Spain; Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non, Padron Peppers, some are hot, some are not!

padron pepper blog