Leftover Vegetable Soup

It's easy to end up with leftover vegetables at the end of a week. I find I often buy too many or the vegetables are too big for my recipe (e.g. swedes or pumpkins). Also, it's often tempting to go for an offer in supermarkets which leaves you with more than you really need. This week I had half a butternut squash, a quarter of a swede and half a cabbage hanging around my fridge. Try not to throw away leftover bits, keep them until you have enough to make leftover vegetable soup.

All you do to make a delicious and healthy soup is:

1. soften an onion in oil in a big pan
2. chop the veg up roughly and add to the pan
3. cover with water, add some bouillon or stock and a cup of lentils
4. bring to the boil and let it simmer until all the veg is tender and the lentils are cooked (about 20-30mins depending on how big your chunks of vegetables are)
5. I then usually blend it all up with a hand blender as I don't have the patience to cut everything up nicely, plus I prefer smooth soups. If you find it is too thick at this point - just add more water.
6. give it a taste and add seasoning if needed.

I think the key thing with leftovers soup is not to be too precious. If you don't have an onion, don't worry - have it without. If you don't know how much bouillon or stock to add, don't worry - add a teaspoon, taste when it's cooked and add more if it needs it. You can make it to your taste, add garlic if you wish or herbs or spices.

I often add lentils to mine, they make the soup more substantial and I usually try to have some in the cupboard. Red split lentil usually cook at about the same pace of most vegetables and add a lovely earthy taste and smooth texture. I also sometimes use green lentils, they keep their shape more, and have more bite. You could add any tinned beans and if you're really organised you could even soak dry ones overnight (alas, I always forget!). Another great addition is pearl barley.

Of course, we can't forget about potatoes which make a lovely smooth texture once blended and are brilliant to add if you only have watery or stringy veg such as leeks, broccoli or cauliflower. Leave the skins on to add more fibre and vitamin C.

Give it a try! It's great to try different combinations of vegetables and you'll find that some work better than others.

I'm expecting that the soup I'm making today will contain a good 6 servings . You can always freeze it if you don't want it all in the next couple of days. (To save room in your freezer - freeze soup in bags that have a zip-lock, then you can lay them flat and stack them.)

Salmon

Salmon is an excellent source of Omega-3 fatty acids* and protein. The British Dietetic Association recommend that if you have had a heart attack you should aim to have 2-4 portions of oily fish a week. Everyone else should aim to have one portion of oily fish a week.

Fresh salmon can be quite pricey.  I, like everyone, look out for bargains and often it's cheaper to but with the skin on.

My tip for today is to buy big. If you've got a friendly fishmonger and a huge freezer buy a whole salmon and ask them to skin, bone, and cut into fillets. Or you can buy a half side, I bought one yesterday for £8 which I cut into 6 pieces (£1.33 per portion):

Now, you can just wrap them up and freeze them. However, to save time on cooking I make foil parcels with 2 fillets in ready to bake. If you live alone it would be better to wrap them individually.

Unfortunately my husband isn't keen on salmon, so I usually try and mask the taste with something such as sweet chilli sauce, horseradish sauce, mustard or pesto. Our current favourite is pesto so before wrapping I spread some over the tops of the fillets. I then wrapped the foil into parcels ready for the oven:

In order to prevent smells in the freezer I put them in a zip-up bag:

There you have 6 portions of salmon and pesto ready to cook straight from the freezer. I would bake them in my gas oven for about 25 minutes at 200 degrees celsius. These do have the skin, it's very easy to remove when they're cooked, just use a spatula or fish slice to ease the salmon away from the skin. I usually accompany mine with some steamed vegetables (broccoli goes very well) and pasta or potatoes.

If anyone else has any tips I'd love to hear them - just leave a comment.

*Omega-3 is a polyunsaturated fat found in oily fish which appears to have benefits in heart health. Go to http://www.bda.uk.com/foodfacts/Eating4HealthyHeart.pdf to find out more about eating for a healthy heart.

Posh party on a budget

Parties, they're great aren't they! But they can get pretty expensive. It's tricky to get a decent bottle of wine under £5 these days and where do you stop with combinations of spirits and mixers? So when my husband suggested having a party a few weeks ago for around 30 people I got my thinking hat on.

I started trawling the web for hot punch ideas. We had been given some whiskey for Christmas (which neither of us usually drink) so I thought it would be a thrifty idea to use that. (If you have different spirits lying around it would be worth searching for other recipes.)

I found 2 brilliant recipes - 1 for hot whiskey punch and one for hot cranberry and ginger punch (links below). They were easy to make and made the house smell delicious! When the whiskey punch ran out, we added sweet sherry to the cranberry punch which was even nicer! With all the antioxidants from the fruit they were full of antioxidants and Vitamin C.

I didn't work out how much it cost exactly but I don't think I spent more than £15 which is much more economical than 3 bottles of wine. I made them in the morning of the party which meant that I could just heat them up 10 minutes before everyone arrived.

My next quandry was food. I didn't want just crisps and nuts as they always end up being trampled into the rugs. Plus they're not something you can use as a tool for mingling. So I thought I'd make canapes. Well, the internet failed me, I couldn't find anything that inspired me. So I set about making something up.

I got some ready-made puff pastry and a selection of toppings, including: tapanade; basil; sundried tomato paste, pesto and mozzarella. I rolled out the pastry very thinly and cut it into squares (about 1 inch squared but that's up to you). I pricked the squares with a fork and then mixed and matched the toppings. We found that you had to be quite generous to get a good flavour. My favourite was the tapanade with mozarella. I set the oven to about 200 degrees C and they only took about 10 minutes. You had to keep an eye out that they didn't burn. I had to do them in batches because my oven is quite small. It was quite time consuming.

As an alternative I also made tomato and oregano "straws" where I rolled out a rectangle of pastry, spread a layer of tomato paste on it and sprinkled it with dried oregano. I then folded it in half longways, cut into strips, twisted and brushed with milk. Again, they were baked in about 10 minutes.

We made the nibbles earlier in the day but found that we had to heat them up in the oven when guests arrived as they had gone soft under the foil. All the ingredients for the nibbles cost about £15

So, for a grand total of about £30 we threw a lovely and quite sophisticated party. Our guests loved the punches and the nibbles and nothing was left at the end. Good job we invited everyone to bring a bottle!

http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink8458.html
http://www.sunset.com/food-wine/kitchen-assistant/warm-drinks-00418000073450/page9.html