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Contents of the Fridge Summer Soup

https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/cookery-books-i-love

We are off on holiday soon, so I have been tidying out the fridge and giving it a deep clean. I have also managed to plan meals using up left-overs from the freezer and taking into account those oddments of salad and vegetables which always seem to be lurking. I am really pleased with myself. Sometimes I just cannot resist buying new stuff even when I have things in the freezer which I should thaw out and use. So this week’s menus including beef tagine twice – once with jacket potatoes and salad and the second time with polenta and a tomato and avocado salsa.

Today I made some really lovely cold soup. Now it might have been gazpacho or it might not have been. I know people can get very hung up on the authenticity of recipes. I was very interested to hear Jay Rayner on Radio 4 yesterday saying that it is fine to put cream in carbonara as long as it tastes good! I always put cream in my carbonara by the way! He is also not keen on pineapple on pizza, but purely for flavour reasons, not anything to do with authenticity. Here is my recipe, using oddments from the salad drawer and supplemented from the store cupboard:

Sarah’s Summer Soup

  • 3 small cucumbers (grown by our cleaner/handyman team)
  • Some chunks of sad-looking cos lettuce
  • A few celery stalks
  • A handful of cherry tomatoes (not from the fridge of course, as who keeps tomatoes in the fridge?!)
  • 3 cucumbers (grown by our cleaner/handyman team)
  • A small pot of left-over canned tomatoes
  • Another can of canned tomatoes
  • A dash of tabasco
  • A dash or 2 of pomegranate molasses
  • A tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
  • A splash of Worcestershire sauce
  • A home-grown chilli (Hurrah! one of my few successes in the garden!)
  • Some radishes
  • A few anchovies
  • Plenty of seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Save a few radishes, anchovies and pieces of fennel to chop up by hand. You could save some cucumber and tomatoes too. Blitz everything else in a blender (works a bit better than a food processor) with a can of water, swilling out the tomato juices. Check the seasoning and adjust as necessary. Chop your saved vegetables and anchovies and mix in afterwards, or use as a garnish

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Carrots and Lettuce: Love your left-overs

We do love a party! Ever since socialising has been allowed this year, we have been indulging in our passion and having friends and family round for meals. This has been quite a challenge with constantly changing rules, and the restriction on numbers indoors to start with meant that we had to spread the love and actually have more gatherings with fewer people.

Sometimes I have help with the catering or we have a bring and share event. For our Merry Wives of Windsor after show party on the last night, two very good friends involved in the production assisted me with the catering. Afterwards there was quite a lot of green salad left. Sometimes it does not look that exciting the next day, so I decided to work my magic on it and avoid food waste at the same time. The best dish to make with left-over salad (in my humble opinion) is Peas a la Francaise, which is basically fresh or frozen peas cooked gently with stock, onion, lettuce of any description and a few lardons or any kind of bacon snipped into small pieces. Actually I don’t always put the bacon in, but on this occasion I was roasting a chicken for dinner. So the bacon that had been covering the chicken then went into my pea dish. Sadly I did not take a photo of this, but you get the idea.

Last night some school library committee friends came round for a bring and share social supper. I invited them to the house, as for me it is easier than trying to get to a pub; I don’t drive. This time I found that the main item left-over that was not going to keep for long, was the remains of a pack of carrot batons that was brought along to go with the dips. They were looking a bit limp, but I resisted the temptation to just throw them into the food bin. I decided to roast them with spices – coriander, cardamom and harissa (powder not paste) along with freshly milled pepper, sea salt and olive oil. They took probably more than half an hour to cook to a beautiful tenderness. I then mixed some of them with some red and wild rice that I had just cooked, and some seared chorizo. You could use feta to ring the changes. The rest I blitzed with some ricotta to make a rather interesting dip or pate. I am thinking of having that in some sandwiches as a base for salad and ham or cheese.

We had the salad for lunch, still warm, along with the celeriac slaw that I had made for last night’s supper but forgot to take out of the fridge!

It is a good thing that we both love carrots! Having them both raw and cooked for lunch was a really lovely contrast of textures. I might even include both as part of a buffet selection for a future party – hopefully remembering to take them out of the fridge (although the roasted dish is best served freshly cooked).

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Getting Ready for our long summer holidays: don’t let those left-overs fester in the fridge!

Recently we left for our long jaunt to Sardinia and Corsica via Bilbao and Barcelona. Now, just be aware that this is not an announcement that our house is empty for a month! Sorry, but we don’t leave the house empty, as my daughter will be staying behind. We also have family and neighbours watering the garden and painting the house whilst we are away.

My daughter Jess is a chef, and like many chefs, has little time to cook at home. I therefore aimed to use up most of the food in the fridge, leaving a few bare necessities and, more importantly, some money for her to buy easier to cook food. As we ate up the food, every time I looked in the cupboards and the fridge, the chance of making just one more tasty meal seemed ever less and less likely. I surprised even myself with the amazing dinner I managed to rustle up on Saturday night. It started with a lamb bone I took out of the freezer. This was one of a few left over from a roast lamb feast the previous weekend. I catered for a party and cooked for my mother’s birthday all over two days, and basically did the same menu twice. Cutting lamb legs off the bone and butterflying them was hard work, but so worth it for the tasty bones left behind! I also found half a bag of raw prawns in the freezer – one of my stock items for the freezer.

The meal that resulted with these two basics was absolutely divine, and completely unplanned. I give you a vague recipe below, but the point of this kind of meal is that quantities and exact ingredients should be flexible.

Warm Lamb and Prawn Salad with Fresh Flowers and Herbs

Roast one lamb leg bone for about half an hour with olive oil, salt and pepper (both freshly milled), chunks of onion, fresh chillis and herbs – use them from the garden if you have them. I used rosemary, sage, marjoram, mint and lemon balm. Meanwhile cook some carrots and fresh sweetcorn (cut off the cob) in a pan with a small amount of water and butter. You could of course roast these with the lamb. Cook some puy lentils until just soft. Cook a handful of prawns in a pan in some olive oil.

When the lamb is cooked, cut it off the bone, and mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl. Toss with more olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, plus plenty more pepper. Mix in some chopped olives and, if you have them, a few snipped anchovies. For the fun bit, toss in a few edible flowers. Obviously you need to be sure that your flowers are edible and have not been sprayed. I used rose petals and nasturtiums. Day lilies are also edible and suitable. If you have some spinach or salad leaves, these would be great tossed in too.

This is the kind of salad which needs to be eaten warm and fresh. If you have to chill it to keep it fresh, it just will not taste as good! I would serve this in smaller portions as a first course, although it worked very well as a last supper at Vine Cottage! I am so pleased with this recipe that I want to share it with the world. See the picture below for how it looked on the night! Oh, and this recipe is meant to be flexible. If you want to give it a go and don’t have a lamb bone, you could try some lamb neck fillet instead. Or it would be great with pork too.

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