Broccoli, Courgette and Stilton Soup

I'm trying to eat more veg this month, and I also wanted to use up some cheese from Christmas, so I decided broccoli and stilton soup would be a great idea. I am a pretty fussy eater and don't like a lot of veg, so had an idea of sneaking some hidden veg... into my own food! My theory was that if I couldn't see it, and hopefully couldn't taste it, I wouldn't mind eating it. Courgette (zucchini) seemed a good option!

I can only give rough quantities for this recipe as it depends how thick you like your soup. To serve 3/4 you need:

1 head broccoli

about 100g stilton or 6 Laughing Cow Light blue cheese triangles

about 1 pint vegetable stock

half a courgette (zucchini)

salt, pepper

crispy bacon pieces to serve (optional)

Chop the broccoli into florets

And slice the courgette

You can either use leftover Stilton...

... or if you want to make this soup low fat and Slimming World friendly, use Laughing Cow Light Blue Cheese.

Bring the vegetable stock to the boil in a pan and simmer the broccoli and courgette until tender. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

Blend to a smooth soup either using a hand blender in the saucepan or by transferring the soup to a standalone blender.

I had some leftover bits of crispy bacon I decided to serve on top of the soup, the different texture and taste complemented the flavour of the soup really well.

Most importantly, I couldn't taste the courgette - so I successfully squeezed an extra portion of veg into this meal. The soup lasted me three days and I took it into work for lunch so it was both healthy and thrifty, which is a great combination for January!

First I am sending this to Family Foodies, the blog challenge hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash and Louisa at Eat Your Veg, as the theme this month is hidden goodies (that is, hidden fruit and veg).

The theme for this month's No Croutons Required, hosted by Lisa's Kitchen and Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, is a vegetarian soup or salad. Obviously if you were making this for vegetarians, leave off the bacon! You should also check that the cheese is made with rennet that does not come from animals and is suitable for vegetarians.

Louisa at Eat Your Veg is also hosting the Four Seasons Food challenge along with Anneli at Delicieux, and they are looking for virtuous recipes this month, so I think my vegetable soup - with extra hidden veg - is a good example.

On a similar note, Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy are hosting a new challenge, Extra Veg. They want to encourage us to eat an extra portion of vegetables whenever we can - so while this broccoli soup alone would count, I've also added the extra portion of veg with the hidden courgette.

January's Feel Good Food challenge, hosted by A Kick at the Pantry Door, is tasty and inexpensive. You can use vegetables that are a little past their best in this soup, and it's a good way to use up leftover cheese (eg from Christmas) so this is a pretty frugal recipe.

I'm not done yet... January's Cheese Please challenge, hosted by Fromage Homage, is comfort food and winter warmers. Soup is a lovely winter warmer and since I've used stilton I am sending this over.

Simply Food is hosting the event Let's Cook with Green Vegetables, and since it has to be a vegetarian recipe, you'll need to leave out the bacon and check your cheese is vegetarian.

And finally I am sending this to Turquoise Lemons' No Waste Food Challenge as you can use leftover veg and the cheese was hanging around from Christmas.

Festive Cheese Ball with Nuts and Cranberries

 I recently came across the concept of cheese balls or 'cheese bombs' which are typically served over Christmas in America; they consist of soft cheese and other ingredients shaped into a ball. I thought it would be fun to make one, but it did turn out a lot softer than I expected so I'm not sure if I did something wrong. It was tasty, anyway!

I used this recipe on the Tesco website.

You need:

300g soft cheese

2 cups mature Cheddar, grated

2 tbsp red onion, finely chopped

2 tbsp mango chutney

1 tbsp crushed garlic

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Mix the soft cheese, Cheddar and red onion in a bowl.

Add the mango chutney, garlic and Worcestershire sauce.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In another bowl, mix the chopped nuts and cranberries.

At this point you are supposed to be able to form the cheese mixture into a ball, and roll it in the nuts, but I found it far too wet and sticky. Instead I mixed the nuts and cranberries into the cheese mixture, which made it a little less sticky and a bit easier to form into a ball, but it was still extremely soft.

I wrapped it in two layers of clingfilm.

Finally I wrapped it in greaseproof paper and twisted the top - I got two of these out of this quantity of ingredients. It didn't turn out quite as I expected and isn't really something you could give as a gift but it would make a nice starter or addition to the buffet on either Boxing Day or New Year's Eve. You can spread it on crackers or eat with bread sticks.

I am sending this to Feel Good Food, a monthly blogging challenge hosted by Victoria at A Kick at the Pantry Door and guest hosted this month by JibberJabber.The ingredient she has chosen is cranberries.

I am also sharing this with Cheese Please, hosted by Fromage Homage, as the challenge is to make a festive cheese snack.

Apple Cider Crumble Traybake

 

 

 

Today my work colleagues and I spent a day volunteering at a children's centre as a team building day - we worked on the centre's garden, making raised beds, weeding, planting a sensory garden and treating wooden fences. I decided I would take along some cake for elevenses, as I knew we would want a break and would be hungry from all our hard work - and I was right, my colleagues were really pleased when we stopped for tea and I produced some cake!

 

I wanted to make something that would travel well and would be easy to eat so some kind of tray bake. One of my team doesn't eat chocolate so I found this recipe for a cider crumble slice on the Caked Crusader. It also seemed perfect for autumn with the apples and raisins.

 

I adapted the recipe slightly; this is what I did:

 

You need:

For the base:

20g butter

2 tbsp. golden syrup

150ml cider

250g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp ground ginger

50g brown sugar

75g raisins or sultanas

75g walnuts

1 egg

 

For the topping:

2 apples

40g butter

2 1/2 tbsp. caster sugar

60g plain flour

 

Preheat oven to 160C. Line a square tin with baking paper.

 

Place the butter and golden syrup for the cake base into a saucepan and melt over a gentle heat. Stir in the cider and remove from the heat.

 

In a bowl mix the flour, ginger, sugar, raisins and walnuts. Fold in the golden syrup and cider mixture then add the egg and stir until well combined

 



To make the topping, peel and chop the apple. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the sugar, flour and apple.

Spread the cake mixture into the base of your lined baking tin and spoon the apple mixture over the top.

Bake for 30 minutes and leave to cool.

 

Slice into squares and serve

 

I'm sending this to Feel Good Food, hosted by Victoria at A Kick at the Pantry Door, as the theme this month is apples.

 

 

 Tea Time Treats has as its theme this month flapjacks and tray bakes so I am sending this to Karen at Lavender and Lovage, who is hosting the challenge this month. The challenge is hosted in alternate months by Kate of What Kate Baked.

 

 

I am also sending this to Baking with Spirit as the ingredient chosen by Janine at Cake of the Week is cider. I do enjoy an occasional cider but think this is the first time I have used it in baking; I think it gives the cake a lovely flavour and of course works perfectly with the apples.

 

 

 

Finally the theme for this month's Four Seasons Food is 'sliding into autumn'; I think the flavours in this tray bake are very autumnal. The challenge is hosted by Anneli at Delicieux and Louisa at Eat Your Veg.

 

 

Ginger Peach Crisp

I had some peaches that were going a bit soft and decided to use them up in a dessert. I thought peach would go well with ginger - which is the ingredient for this month's Feel Good Food Challenge, and begins with G which is ideal for Alphabakes! I decided to see what ideas Google could suggest using both peaches and ginger, and found this recipe for a ginger peach crisp - which turned out to be a lot like a crumble, and very nice!

To make enough for three, or two hungry people, you need:

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp chilled butter, diced

2 tbsp sliced almonds

4 peaches, sliced

1 tbsp sweetener

2 tsp cornflour

3/4 tsp fresh ginger, grated - or a squeeze from a tube of ginger puree

Preheat the oven to 180C. First make the crumble topping, by rubbing the butter into the flour until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency. Then mix in both the granulated and the brown sugar and stir in the almonds.

Slice peaches and place in the bottom of an overproof dish. Sprinkle over the sweetener and the ginger.

Spoon the crumble topping over the top.

 Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

I love crumble - and the ginger and peach made this a nice change from the apple crumble I would normally make. It's lovely served with cream or ice cream, or if you don't have either, even just a splash of milk.

I'm sending this to Feel Good Food. hosted by Victoria of A Kick at the Pantry Door.

I'm also sending this to Alphabakes, managed this month by my co-host Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as our letter this month is G.

I'm also entering this in the No Waste Food Challenge, which encourages us to use up leftovers - the peaches were getting soft and needed using up, and the flaked almonds came from an open packet in my cupboard that has been there for quite a while! The challenge is hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary on behalf of Kate from Turquoise Lemons.

Sticky Ginger Cake

Last weekend I went to a car show with my family and wanted to take something as a snack. It needed to travel well (as we were driving quite a long way to get there, then walking around at the show all day) and be easy and not messy to eat. I only decided to make something the night before, so also needed to use ingredients I already had in the house. This ginger cake ticked all those boxes. The recipe is a combination of the Fresh Gingerbread with Lemon Icing in Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess and this one which I found online here (which was itself a version of Nigella's recipe). I left off the icing so I could wrap the cake up in foil; it didn't seem to lack anything for it.

You need:

2/3 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup honey

1/3 cup black treacle

1/3 cup golden syrup

1 tsp ginger puree

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup plain yogurt

2 eggs

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 and 1/3 cups plain flour

Place the butter, sugar, honey, treacle, syrup, ginger and cinnamon in a pan. 

Heat gently until the butter has melted and sugar has dissolved and you have a thick liquid.

Mix the eggs, yogurt and bicarb of soda in a bowl.

Mix the butter and treacle mixture in to the flour and add the egg mixture.

Pour into a greased square cake tin and bake at 170C for about half an hour.

 Remove from tin and cut into squares. If you want to make the icing from Nigella's recipe, just mix lemon juice and icing sugar with a little warm water and spread over the cake with a palette knife when the cake has cooled.

The letter for this month's Alphabakes challenge is G so I am sending this ginger cake to my co-host for the challenge, Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, who is taking care of the challenge this month.

My tin of black treacle had been hanging around in the cupboard for longer than I like to imagine, and I was able to use up what was left in this recipe, and I also used up the end of a pot of yogurt, so I am sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen on behalf of Turquoise Lemons.

Ginger is the ingredient for August's Feel Good Food Challenge, hosted by Victoria of A Kick at the Pantry Door  so I am sending in this recipe.