Tag: recipes

🥘 Carole’s mushroom soup…

🥘  1 saucepan ~  🍽 Serves 4 ~ ⏱ 25 mins ~   🛒 7 ingredients ~  £6 (€8)

Use dried porcini mushrooms to make this flavoursome soup. Remember to strain them before adding them to the soup as they can be gritty. You will need a blender and the Braun range of stick blenders start at just £20.

Ingredients:

  • 1 handful of dried porcini mushroom
  • 1 medium size onion, finely chopped
  • 300g chestnut mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 vegetable stock cube
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp single cream
  • Chopped parsley
Have all you ingredients ready

Step by step:

  1. Soak the porcini mushrooms in hot water
  2. Place the onion in the pan with the oil and sauté for 3 mins
  3. Add the chopped chestnut mushrooms and sauté for about 5 mins. Stir occasionally so they don’t stick
  4. Add 1 litre of hot stock
  5. Add your (strained) porcini mushrooms and cook for another 10-15 mins
  6. Blend the mushrooms and then add your cream and optional porcini liquid
  7. Check the seasoning
  8. Serve in hot bowls, with chopped parsley

Tips:

When you strain the porcini mushrooms, set aside the liquid, so you can add that later if you like a slightly stronger, mushroomy flavour

Add two thirds of packet rice during the last 5 mins of cooking time for a thicker, crunchier soup

Kallo stock cubes £2 for eight
Merchant Porcini mushrooms £3.75 / 100g
Elmlea £1.54 / 270ml

Carole’s Moroccan bean soup HERE

🥘 Carole’s Pavlova…

🥘  1 Baking sheet |  🍽 Serves 8 | ⏱ 2 hours | 🛒 10 ingredients | €8

This showstopper dessert is easy to make and a joy to serve. Everybody loves to dive into the fruity, creamy, crunchy pudding. Carole serves it several times a year, particularly after summer barbecues and Christmas lunch.

Ingredients:

  • 4 eggs
  • 250g caster sugar
  • 1 tsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp cornflour
  • 400g strawberries, hulled and halved if large
  • 300g raspberries
  • 1 tbsp icing sugar
  • 150g blackberries or blueberries
  • 300ml whipping cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
Have all your ingredients ready before you start

Step by step:

  1. Heat your oven to 150C / fan 130C / gas. Line your baking sheet with baking parchment and draw a large circle in pencil around a bowl or dinner plate approximately 25cm diameter. Turn the paper over.
  2. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Add the sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, whisking betweeen each addition until the mixture is smooth, thick and glossy. Whisk in the cornflour.
  3. Place the large spoonfuls of meringue on the parchment inside the circle until it is evenly filled.
  4. Make a dip in the centre with the back of a spoon and bring up the sides a little. Put the pavlova in the oven and bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, leave the door ajar and let the meringue cool completely.
  5. Make the sauce by blending 75g strawberries and 75g of raspberries to a puree with the icing sugar, then sieve into a bowl. Gently whip the cream and vanilla.
  6. Top the meringue with the cream, the rest of the fruit, and berry sauce.
Easy and inexpensive to make.

Notes:

To make individual mini pavlovas, simply draw 10cm diameter circles on your baking paper and make as above.

Served here with white chocolate topping
Anna Pavlova

The dessert is named after Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. Born in St Petersburg on 12th February 1881, Pavlova was premature and often felt unwell. She died in the Netherlands on 23rd January 1931 aged just 49.

The origin of Pavlova is disputed between Australia and New Zealand. However, there is documented evidence of the recipe appearing in New Zealand as far back as 1929.