Soup-er Simple

I may have small obsession with soups right now. And it's true, I may be making one as I type this. But who doesn't love soup? It's cheap, very healthy and soup-er (I'll stop that) easy to make.

You can customise them and completely make them your own. I've been batch cooking them and keeping them in the freezer, ready to zap when needed. I've also made a great habit of using up whatever is in the fridge in my soups before it goes bad.

Here's how to make a quick and easy soup -

• Chop up one or two onions, and crush 2 or 3 garlic cloves. (We LOVE onion and garlic, the more, the better.)
• Grab your pan with a shot of oil and place on a medium heat.
• Stick on the kettle, making sure that it's full as possible.
• Throw in your onion and garlic whilst you chop up the main ingredients for your soup.
• Throw them in the pan with a stock cube and cover with the just boiled water from your kettle.
• Bring it all to the boil and then let it simmer for around 15 minutes, depending on how tough the veg is.
• Take it off of the heat and blend it up. 

Smoooooth, or chunky, it's entirely up to you. That's all you have to do.

This week my freezer has been filled with soups of a few varieties: Red Pepper and Roasted Tomato (as the name suggests, you're better off roasting your tomatoes if you don't want to take all of the skins off) - fresh tasting and extremely light at around 70 kcal, Broccoli, Yellow Pepper, Bacon and Cheddar (creamy, meaty, silky!) at 176 kcal and today's offering of Carrot and Corriander at 80 kcal.

A portion size is quite generous at approximately 300 ml, so you can't really go wrong, especially when they're so filling!

Broccoli, Yellow Pepper, Bacon and Cheddar soup

I also branched out today and made a non-soup-related culinary creation. Creation is probably a polite way of saying disaster. A meaty sarnie dreamt up in a day-dream, I couldn't get it out of my head so I just had to recreate it. It was a small off-shoot of a bigger dream that I have, to one day own a mobile street-food eatery.

Imagine a big kitchen that you could really work your magic in, complete with the street-foodie's best friend; a huge grill-press (think George Foreman grills but a more industrial size).

Now think of 2 slices of thickly cut, dark and grainy bread. The first spread with a layer of refried beans, a great portion of chilli con carne, a generous sprinkling or cheese and then topped with the second, heated throughout and grilled to perfection.

Okay, so forget the previous specification and replace dark and grainy bread with white farmhouse, and the chilli con carne with normal bolognese (with a little more than a hint of chilli, my hand slipped when I was cooking it, okay?) and well, we were pretty spot on with the refried beans. Apart from they were kidney beans, and also had a small (but lovely and sweet) chilli hit - Ooh, sooo close.

Oh, and remember that grill? Replace that with a budget one from your local department store, good for your average cheese toastie but a bit on the small side...

The 'Frankenstein'

So my intention was a sandwich that was meaty, warming, satisfying - just plain good. And without sounding too bloody big-headed, it was. It just wasn't so aesthetically pleasing. In my big café pipe dream  I was gonna give it some corny name, like "Genesis", you know the beginning, as it was my first creation but I've decided that "Frankenstein" would possibly more appropriate...

Home Again

I'm home. I've had a brilliant time at Mum and Dad's but it feels great to be in my own space, on my own terms with all of my new stuff. (I'm so grateful, thank you!)

Now, of course Christmas is a season full of food, and I was definitely not an exception to that rule!

Christmas Eve breakfast was a treat, it's not often that I get the opportunity to have a cooked breakfast, especially one of such gigantic proportions!

Yep, there was the Christmas dinner, but there was no boring turkey curry for Boxing Day but I'd managed to convince my mum to give up the brie from the cheeseboard so I could make the Sorted boys' Festive Rolls. (I told you these boys were my idols!) They were brilliant, the pastry came out lovely and flakey and well, who doesn't love Christmas in bite-sized pieces?

On Christmas Day, I received a 3 in 1 blender, lots of Reese's chocolate and the classic Cadbury's selection box. So naturally, I had to make myself a peanut butter chocolate milkshake. That went down well.

Taking advantage of my many new cookery tools, I decided to treat the boyfriend to some peanut butter cookies (we both love the stuff!). I'll admit, I did burn the tops a little bit, but to rectify this, I whipped up a quick peanut butter buttercream mix and filled half of them with that, and the other half with Nutella to make some delightful nutty sandwiches. He seemed to be quite pleased with his surprise, so if he's happy, I'm happy too.

Unfortunately, despite being ecstatic to be back in my own home, it has been a little slow. Just lots of tidying up and getting the house sorted after receiving so many presents. (My arms still ache from trying to get them back to Kent, approximately 150 miles away!) Can't wait to use all of my stuff and see what I can make.

You know, I should probably get on with some university work...