Wednesday, June 25, 2008

mushroom soup!

                                          

I know it's June and I'm posting a soup recipe but although the sun maybe shining down on the lovely people at Wimbledon it ain't shining anywhere near Ireland. Once again like last year we have a band of rain just doing a little "jig" over us and having a great time going round and round and round with no signs of heading over to the rest of Europe who deserve it for a while with the beautiful weather they are having at the moment - me bitter??? NEVER!.

As a result we are all sick again with the flu and I had great intentions of making beef stroganoff from the Silver Spoon but 3 sick "italian foodies" put a stop to that so rather than waste my mushrooms and cream I had bought I made a quick soup to warm the bones. Mushroom soup is one of my favourites and if I had known how simple it was to make in my college days of Campbell's tinned mushroom soup, life would have been a lot different:) There is nothing fancy about this recipe, it's just a bowl of simple, fresh goodness.

                                               

what you need:

 - 500g mushrooms sliced

 - 1 small onion finely diced

 - 1 clove garlic finely chopped

 - 4 tbsp plain flour - I didn't measure so this is a rough estimate.

 - olive oil

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - 1 litre veg stock

 - double cream  - hey I was sick, I needed cheering up!!

what to do:

 - fill the base of a pot with olive oil and cook your onions and garlic until softened but not coloured.

 - add your mushrooms and cook until soft and season.

 - add your flour to thicken the soup, I love my mushroom soup thick.

 - add your stock and leave to simmer for about 10/15 mins.

 - add some cream and liquidize with a hand blender.

 - serve and enjoy!

                                         

buon appetito!!

p.s. I know there is a problem with the comments section, so apologies to all of you out there in your 1000's who have tried to comment;) and haven't been able to but I'm harassing blog.com at the moment to fix this blog. An email a day doesn't seem to be working though:(
Posted by LOR&BRU at 21:56:27 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Thursday, March 20, 2008

NOOOO I'm the sickest!!!

                                    

There seems to be a bit of a competition going on in the Italian foodie house at the moment as to who is the sickest, the princess is definitely winning in the moaning section followed closely by me and then a little bit behind surprisingly is Bru!! The 3 of us picked it up on our trip to Canterbury for the "wedding of the year" from the bride, father of the bride and mother of the bride, yes we were all sick on the day of the wedding!! My poor sister was so sick I don't know how she got through the day, all I can say is thank god for fake tan and false eyelashes, she looked stunning, and the 3 of us "brideslaves";) scrubbed up pretty well too so I heard anyway:). I will do a post on it when I have some pics, the venue was fab even though it didn't stop raining once that day which was such a disappointment as the hotel was set on the most amazing grounds, lake, swans, you name it, it had it but more of that later!! In case you didn't know we're off to Italy on Sunday and a really bad flu is not something I had planned on packing so there is no fancy recipe today just a big pot of minestrone soup to try and fight this flu along with every drug possible;) There are so many different minestrone recipes out there, I've already posted one here but this is the one I normally make!!

what you need:

 - 1 onion finely diced

 - 1 clove garlic finely chopped

 - 1 carrot diced

 - 2 sticks celery diced

 - 1 large potato diced

 - 1 courgette or 4 baby courgettes diced.

 - tenderstem broccoli(optional)

 - sprig of thyme

 - bay leaf (optional) it was too wet to go down the back garden to the bay leaf tree, hey I was wearing my new white Nike's!!!!:)

 -  200g frozen peas

 - 1 litre chicken or veg stock

 - olive oil

 - knob of butter

 - sea salt and black pepper.


 
 

what to do:

 - fill the base of your pot with olive oil and heat with your butter.

 - add your onion, garlic, carrots, celery, thyme and cook for about 10 mins until softened but not coloured.

 - add your stock and potatoes, season and cook for a further 10 mins, add your courgettes, peas and broccoli and cook for another 5-10 mins until all your veg is soft.

 - check your seasoning and serve with grated Parmesan or pecorino and some flat leaf parsley on top.

                                               

buon appetito!!

p.s. the fabulous Marie and Maryann are hosting a great blogging event called "Festa Italiana" which I had planned on making something "fabulous" for this week but that's obviously gone out the window so sorry "Ladies". You can have my pot of "wholesome goodness" if it's not too boring???:)

p.p.s. I shall be thinking of you all while eating and drinking my way through the south of Italy, don't worry I'll take lots of pics just to rub it in a little more:)

Ciao

L
xx
Posted by LOR&BRU at 15:07:16 | Permanent Link | Comments (11) |

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

zuppa di vegetale!!!

                                    

I don't think there is anything more simple than vegetable soup, you can basically use up whatever veg you have in your fridge!! I've noticed recently that the convenience soup section in the supermarket seems to be getting bigger and bigger and even the chilled soups are overtaking the chill cabinet!! I know a lot of people do make soup from scratch but I get the feeling that they are way out numbered by the amount of people that don't!! I think people assume that soups are a lot more difficult to make than they actually are and I know the food purists would have my head but just use stock cubes if you don't have time to make fresh stock, if it means that you will make your own soup I'm all for it!! Now there is nothing groundbreaking or gourmet about this recipe but if it gets somebody who reads this blog to make soup who doesn't normally, my work for the people is done:) You can use any veg you want and just roughly chop them as you will be liquidizing them anyway, this is the way I normally make mine!!

what you need:

 - 1 carrot peeled and chopped

 - 2 leeks chopped

 - 1 onion chopped

 - 1 garlic clove peeled and chopped

 - 1 courgette chopped

 - 2 potatoes peeled and chopped.

 - broccoli - I use the tender stem broccoli if I have it or else just use a head of regular broccoli!

 - 1 litre chicken or veg stock (I use the Kallo chicken stock cubes)

 - olive oil

 - sea salt and black pepper

what to do:

 - heat some olive oil in a saucepan and cook your garlic and onion until soft but not coloured.

 - add the rest of your vegetables, season and cook for 10 mins to soften.

 - add your stock and leave to simmer for 20 - 30 mins or until all your veg is cooked.

 - take off the heat and liquidize.

 - serve with some freshly grated parmesan cheese.

                                         

On another note just to let you know that Eoin Purcell has just launched a great new foodie site called OUR GRANNIES RECIPES which aims to collect 101 of Ireland's favourite traditional recipes!! The recipes will be collected into a book for publication in October 2008 and the royalties will be donated to Age Action Ireland. The great thing about the whole idea is that we can all be involved by submitting our favourite traditional recipes and judging the final cover for the book!! Best of luck Eoin and we'll definitely be buying a copy in October, now let me see what recipe I'm going to submit, it will have to be "nonna's" recipe in our case:)

buon appetito!!

p.s. a big "grazie" to Val who did a great article on food blogging in this weeks Limerick Independent which included a nice big piece on Italian foodies and La Cucina!! Thanks Val:)
Posted by LOR&BRU at 20:57:29 | Permanent Link | Comments (12) |
1 2 3 4