An apology, and an autumn cracker of a soup

Yes, it is more than a year since anyone last thought of this poor neglected blog, myself included.  I’ve been cooking, some, but a year full of travelling and music and movies (both watching and helping to make one!) and various other life changes have conspired to prevent me from spending much time writing outside of work, or being home much to do the kind of culinary experimentation that I so enjoy. 

However, as the winter nights draw in and thoughts turn to wrapping up warmly, getting home earlier and eating comfort food, it seemed like the right time to share a recipe I only just discovered but which I think will become a firm favourite.  It started life as a carrot soup on my very favourite blog of all time, but since I am not too fond of carrots but very enamoured of sweet potatoes and butternut squash, I decided to play around and make it my own. 

The real draw for me was the chili.  After buying a chili plant in the summer and nurturing it on my balcony, my obsession with fiery food has only increased. It elevates this soup into something special, and gives it a kick of heat that is very welcome on a cold day.

Autumn Sweet Potato-Squash-Coconut Soup with Chili and Lime
Adapted from Orangette

50g unsalted butter
800g sweet potato and butternut squash, peeled and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped

1 chili, chopped (and de-seeded if you prefer less heat)
4 cups (950 ml) vegetable stock (or chicken, if you like it better)
1 ½ to 2 (13.5-ounce) cans unsweetened coconut milk
Lime wedges, for serving
A few tbsp of crème fraiche to stir into the soup (if desired)

Chives, chopped (for garnish, if desired)

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the sweet potatoes, squash, chili and onion, season with a few pinches of salt and some pepper, and cook for about 15-20 minutes until the vegetables are soft.

Stir in the stock and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are very soft and the liquid is slightly reduced, which should take about 45 minutes. Puree in a blender or in the pot, using a hand mixer, and do a final taste test to get the seasoning right. 

Garnish with anything you like (I went for a swirl of crème fraiche and some chives) but don’t leave out the lime. A few squeezes of lime juice absolutely make this soup.

Sweet Potato and Almond Tarts

It's Thanksgiving in the US today - happy happy day if you're celebrating! As it's not a holiday here, I'm celebrating on Sunday, at which point I'm cooking the whole traditional meal with all the trimmings, so I probably won't be blogging. But it's a tradition of mine - and many - to start listening to Christmas music for the year while starting on the Thanksgiving baking, and I couldn't wait three more days, so here we are. I made this one up based on too many different recipes to mention - it's on the less sweet side, so adjust accordingly for taste. 

(Makes 24 tarts)

2x 365g rolls of shortcrust pastry (if you know how to make your own, you're way ahead of me)

Three sweet potatoes (approx 500g)

2 eggs

1x 170g tin of evaporated milk

50g ground almonds

50g sugar

Vanilla essence

Mixed spice (cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, clove, ginger)

Preheat oven to 200c

Grease muffin/cupcake/tart tin (or whatever you call that thing with the dents in it)

Cut the pastry in 24 discs - should use almost all of it - I use a large coffee mug.

Put the pastry in the dent thingies.

Blind bake for 20 minutes.

Repeat if working in two batches.

Turn the oven down to 125c.

Peel and finely chop sweet potatoes.

Cover with cold water in a pan, bring to the boil, simmer until breaking apart (approx twenty minutes).

Drain, mash. 

Leave to cool for a few minutes.

Mix in evaporated milk, sugar, ground almonds, vanilla, spices, eggs. Stir thoroughly. 

Spoon into pastry cases, leaving room to rise.

Bake for  an hour, checking regularly. Adjust heat if pastry is browning too fast. Filling should be golden brown and firm.

Salmon and prawn pie

                                                                      WE WILL NOT STARVE

although if you were depending on this blog for your inspiration (until to our great delight, two of our wonderful and loyal followers put up some amazing carbs), you'd have keeled over and expired of starvation some time ago.  It's been a busy month for two of the major bloggers on the site.  One has been travelling and then moved, the other has been going in ever-decreasing circles as the family home became a warehouse and then a ghost town. 

Life changes:  life goes on.  We now need to reorient, refocus and redesignate the purposes of three of the rooms in the house.  Everything is in transition here and I realised one afternoon whilst all this was going on, that there were, at the time, only three places where I could sit, lie or relax until more is moved out and reorganised.  But on the plus side, I had my bedroom, the bath and, thankfully, the kitchen that remained unscathed after the exodus.

So to celebrate kitchen functionality, David and I decided to make a simple fish pie for  supper but the number of steps and exhortations in the given recipe made the whole thing much more complicated than necessary.  The finished product was a great success so our last 'family' meal, before Kit moved away was a memorable one.  The Vas Felix Chardonnay was an excellent accompaniment and encouraged us during the  preparation of the meal.

Here goes, and I'll cut out a lot of the direction guff and just streamline the method as much as I can.

Peel and slice 750g each potato and sweet potato and boil (separately is easier) for 15 minutes until tender.  Remove from the heat, combine and mash together coarsely with 25g butter or margarine.

Put 250 ml semi skimmed milk (skimmed works just as well), 200 ml hot fish or vegetable stock, 500g salmon fillet and 200g cooked and peeled prawns in a roasting tin, fish kettle or large frying pan and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes or until fish is cooked through and will flake easily.  Lift fish onto a plate, reserving liquid.  Skin the salmon and break into chunks.  Arrange with the prawns in the base of a 2L casserole dish.

Wash 250g baby leaf spinach and, leaving the water on the leaves, place in a pan on hob and 'wilt' for a few minutes until reduced slightly.  Spread spinach evenly among the pieces of fish and prawns.

In a medium pan (yes, this recipe uses a lot of cookware!) melt 50g margarine and add 50g flour, stirring constantly to make a roux.  Remove from heat and gradually add reserved fish liquid, stirring until smooth.  Return pan to heat and continue to stir on low until sauce has thickened.  Remove from heat, stir in 170g soured cream and a handful chopped, fresh basil.  Pour sauce over fish in casserole.






Top with the mashed potato and sweet potato mix and bake in a 200ºC oven for about 20 - 30 minutes until bubbling and browned on top.

Serve with a green vegetable such as broccoli, asparagus or beans.

Serves 6

Roasted mushrooms

One of the few things to be said of the government-regulated monopoly that controls alcohol supplies in our province, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, is that it publishes an excellent magazine called Food & Drink. I was browsing the winter edition and found a wonderful new recipe for risotto by Leeanne Wright.

Now, normally, risotto is something I make instinctively, using whatever I have on hand. I can make it in my sleep, and it is possible that I have done so, on occasion. So it’s unusual that I would pay attention to a formal recipe.

What got my attention were the words “Roasted Mushrooms” in the heading. I’ve never considered roasting mushrooms. And the recipe further called for roasted sweet potatoes as well. I love roasted veggies, and I love risotto. Combining them seemed an inspiration.

My tweak on the recipe is that I used both sweet potatoes and yams (since I had one of each).

Risotto with Roasted Mushrooms and Sweet Potato

Olive oil

1 yam

1 sweet potato

About a dozen large cremini mushrooms (they will shrink, so the larger the better)

2 oz (60 g) pancetta, chopped up in cubes

2 shallots, diced

½ cup  (125 mL) dry white wine

3 cups (625 mL) chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup Arborio rice

Several sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped up

Parmesan cheese

Optional: toasted pine nuts

Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and spray it lightly with olive oil. Stab the yam all over with a knife and put it on the sheet. Peel the sweet potato and cut it into small cubes. Put the cubes on the sheet. Slice the mushrooms and spread them on the sheet too. Spray the sweet potato and mushrooms with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put them all in the oven.

The recipe said they’d need 50 minutes or more, but the sweet potato and mushrooms didn’t need that long in my oven. So keep an eye on them. Remove the mushrooms when they are curly and caramelized, the sweet potatoes when the corners are browned. You will want to eat them both like candy. Resist.

Warm the stock in a saucepan or the microwave. Heat up some more olive oil in a large saucepan and throw in the pancetta to cook. Add shallots and let them go limp. Add the rice, coat with the oil and stir until it is shiny. Add the wine and stir and then slowly add the stock. If you run out of stock and the rice is still too hard, add water.

Meanwhile, the yam should be done by now. Take it out, peel it and mash it. If you want to use the pine nuts, put them in the oven briefly to toast (this happens quickly, so pay attention).

Add the mashed yam into the rice mix. Keep adding more water if need be. Stir in the thyme. Finally, when the rice is getting close to being ready, stir in the sweet potato cubes and the mushrooms (if you haven’t eaten them all by now), as well as some grated parmesan. Stir through. Serve with pine nuts on top. Try not to eat in one sitting.

We are now so fond of roast mushrooms that I’ve used them in several other dishes since, including pasta. I may put them on ice cream one day.

Take a tin of tuna

No, take two actually, but before you do, please thank my sister Philippa for sending me this.  I believe she culled it from a book of recipes using canned fish of various types.  I might be wrong and she can correct me if so.  But she tried it last year and described it to me, it sounded great and I asked her to forward me the recipe which she duly did.

Since this is old hat to her and new to me, I'll put it here for both of us.

Tonight was one of those nights when nothing was planned: we'd been away for the weekend, got home mid afternoon and inspiration simply wasn't striking, or not hard enough to make a dent in my thoughts for an evening meal.  It was too late to defrost anything, there were no leftovers with which to get creative and I sifted through my 'Recipes Pending' file, the one that started in a small clear folder and now spills all over the floor beside my desk and spawns offshoot piles in other rooms.  I can't keep up, truly I can't.  I am addicted to collecting them all:  clippings from newspapers and magazines, emailed suggestions from kind friends and scribbled notes on the back of old envelopes.

I came across the following one close to the top of the pile closest to me.  Aha!  This is both recent and untried by me and will tick a couple of my personal boxes now.  My sister is a most creative cook, as you'll have discovered if you've followed the blog.  Lack of inspiration and a bare cupboard do not unsettle her.  She simply makes do with what's there.  She may have to rush out for tinned tomatoes now and then but usually she can can cobble together a wonderful meal from a few bits and bobs.

I offer you................ um, I'm not sure what it's called as it's a rather nice variation on tuna casserole and there is no pasta to sully the mix.

Let's just say Sweet potato, tuna and red pepper bake.

1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced or diced, whatever comes naturally and if you like squash then substitute an equal amount of squash for one of the sweet potatoes
1 red pepper, seeded and diced or (I had to do this) 1 roasted red pepper from a jar, chopped roughly
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil or 1 tsp dried

Mix the veg together in an ovenproof dish and drizzle with a combination of 2 tsp each olive oil, lemon juice and balsamic vinegar

Cover with foil and roast at 180º for about 20 minutes.

While this is all cooking merrily, make a cheese sauce.  Everyone has their own proportions but I find that a roux of 25g each butter and flour to thicken 300 ml milk is a decent and not-too-runny version.  The amount of cheese depends on taste and the dish involved, but 100g grated cheddar, mild or sharp, won't overpower anyone or anything.

NOW you take your two tins of tuna, drain well, flake with a fork and place on top of the roasted veg.  Pour the cheese sauce over all and return to the oven for another 15 minutes until top is nicely browned and bubbling.

This recipe is enough for two very hungry people.  I'd add more veg rather than tuna to extend it a bit further.  And if you put some soft rolls or crusty bread with it, you might feed three very nicely indeed.

We washed it down with a white wine from Rhodes.  We were there in October and found one one very palatable local one and brought a bottle back duty free so no point in me telling you what it was as it's not available here.  But any nice light white will do.