CHESTNUT SOUP

OK - with sincere apologies to those who have been waiting for this since our soup day at work - here at last is the recipe for that fantastic Chestnut Soup I made!

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients – serves 4-6

1kg shelled chestnuts (yields 500 grams)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 onion, chopped
1 celery stick, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 litre vegetable stock
to taste sea-salt and pepper
300ml cream
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Method:
Score chestnuts - by carefully cutting a cross into husk and roast for 20 mins with unpeeled garlic. Once they cool, the shell and thin lining are hard to remove so protect your hands and peel quickly. Squeeze garlic out of skin.

Warm oil in a heavy-based saucepan.

Sweat onion, celery and diced carrots in a small amount of oil.

Add whole chestnuts and stock and bring to the boil.

Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Blend with stick mixer, stir in cream, grate nutmeg over and season to taste. Add more stock, veges, chestnuts and cream as needed to make greater quantity – volumes approx.

Serving Suggestion: Slurp beside a raging fire

Easy (lower fat) Macaroni Cheese

I grew up on this - my mum wasn't the greatest cook and she might have got the recipe wrong for macaroni cheese but I always made it her way and it is so quick & easy - plus not SO fattening as the ones with the cheese sauce through. When I don't feel like cooking - if I don't do the penne alla arrabiata - I do this - my son's favourite!

You need (feeds 4 with side salad and dinner roll)

1 onion (tennis ball size) chopped
4 rashers bacon - trimmed
pinch herbs
garlic if you like
2 cans unsalted roma tomatoes
250gms macaroni elbows
100 gms grated cheese

Bring to boil sufficient salted water in large pot to boil pasta. Follow directions on packet (probably 8 mins). While this is happening ....

Fry onions with bacon/herbs/garlic until onion transparent - add tomatoes and gently smash with potato masher then cook on medium to high to reduce liquid.

Drain pasta when cooked, stir through tomato mixture then cover with grated cheese and brown under grill. If you can't get this on the table in 15 mins you need to come over and I'll show you how it can be done!

I've decided to take photos of the dishes I make so will post this next time - tonight's effort has been polished off!

Shared Recipes

A little while ago I received an email with a recipe in it and two names/email addresses at the top.  I was instructed to move the number two name to number one and place myself at number two.  Then send my all time favourite recipe to the number one on the list and twenty of my friends with the same instructions.

So I did

I got three replies (I think it was calculated I would get 33).  Anyway two were from New Zealand and were for the same 'diabetic' fruit cake recipe and one from my divine cousin George in London was a fish stew which we will be trying out - I like the easy/quick recipes!

So although I cannot absolutely vouch for their success by my sampling - as I haven't yet - I can simply because of their sources! Thanks Thelly, Betty and George!

DIABETIC FRUIT CAKE

1kg  mixed dried fruit

2 cups orange juice or black coffee

2 cups self raising flour

1 teasp cinnamon

Place fruit in bowl. Pour juice/coffee over and leave overnight. Then stir in flour and cinnamon.  Cook in 23cm tin for 3/4 to 1 hour in 180deg.C oven

Test with skewer - comes out clean when cooked.

You can add 1tbsp sherry/Cointreau/Grand Marnier to the juice to spice it up

... hmmmm must try this one - the only Christmas cake I ever knew was my mum's boiled one and she emptied the dregs of her grog cabinet into the mix every year.

CHEATS MEDITERRANEAN FISH STEW - about 40 mins

(some call it fish soup)

1 onion finely chopped

white wine - about a glass - more or less

olive oil

crushed garlic

herbs, de provence or parsley

passata ( sieved tomatoes )

water if needed

lemon or honey (optional)

potatoes, small new or large peeled and cut into chunks

mix of fish (marinara mix)

Saute onions in large pan till transparent then add garlic - stir. Add wine increase heat until onions absorb most of the wine. Add herbs and passats (tomatoes), increase heat and add potatoes and water if needed. Put lid on pan and cook until potatoes done, taste, add lemon or honey then add chopped fish/prawns/etc. Serve.

I will be thinking of my beautiful cousins when I try this. Cath, George and Carmela just spent Christmas 2008 in France with their step brother Tony and as they indulged in seafood there I'm thinking that's what inspired George to give me her recipe!

Butter Chicken

I went out to dinner with some of the girls from work , actually we were going to see a movie so went to an Indian restaurant beforehand.  When they liked the butter chicken I told them I had been given an authentic recipe from a spice shop owner (Lotus) who had owned a couple of Indian restaurants.

I had wanted the recipe as when I took my children (now teens) out to dinner and they had Butter Chicken they woofed it down and nearly licked their plates!

I am a very versatile and not a bad cook but they didn't even eat their favourites at home like that and dinner time was often a long and laborious pain in the rear.  So here is the recipe - first time I cooked it the kids LOVED it and said it was as good as or BETTER than the restaurant. Ha!

BUTTER CHICKEN

500gms chicken thighs chopped into chunks

2 tbsp tandoori paste (from Indian shop - not supermarket)

2 cloves garlic

tandoori colour powder (from Indian shop)

200gms whipped plain yoghurt

Mix all together in bowl

1 onion sliced into slivers (wedges in quarters)

100gm butter

100ml cream

olive oil

Fry onion in oil

scoop chicken out of yoghurt sauce and fry with onion

when cooked (couple of mins in a wok is good) pour in rest of yoghurt sauce, throw in butter, pour in cream - fry stirring a few minutes to reduce sauce then pour all into shallow oven dish and cook on 210C for at least 5 mins at top of oven until parts of chicken blacken. Then your butter chicken is ready.

Enjoy! with basmati saffron rice and rotis