Recipe

Glut of pears in the supermarket today, so on Managers Special at 49p a kilo :-) And Kent grown to boot so not travelled very far either.

Anyway - was inspired to do some baking.

Orchard Muffins

2 Pears (juicy, medium sized dessert. I used Williams Green)
1 Apple (small, juicy. I used Cox Orange Pippin)
c. 50g margerine (about 2 heaped dessertspoons).
1 cup self raising flour
15g (or 1 Tablespoon) soya flour
1 tsp mixed spice

Peel and grate the Apple and Pears with a fine toothed grater (I used a fine microplane). Place in a bowl with the marg and 'cream' together (you'll end up with most of the margerine mixed in with small lumps of fat). Sift in flour, soya flour and mixed spice. Mix well together.

Spoon into paper cases set in a tin. Will fill 12 cup cake cases, or 9 muffin cases. Bake at 170 degrees Celcius for 20 mins and leave to stand in tin (out of oven) for 5 mins before removing to cool.

Recipe

This was yesterdays pair of culinary offerings. I used the leftovers from both meals, plus a handfull of soya mince to form lunch today as well. Both these recipes will serve 4 with a left over portion or two, which will freeze or refridgerate well.

Winter Soup

1/2 swede
4 smallish onions
1 carrot
1 400g ish can chick peas, rinsed
1 400g ish can butter beans,rinsed
about 500ml water, but add to desired consistency.

Slice and fry onions for 5 mins then add chopped carrot. Cut swede into 1cm ish pieces and fry through. Pour in around 500ml water and cover, leave to simmer until swede cooked. Add beans and chick peas, and any more water if ness to prevent sticking. Heat through.

I served this with rosemary bread, which we had bought this past weekend at the Mansion Market (see www.michaelhall.co.uk for details).


'Old' mushroom stew.

Remains of a large punnet of mushrooms (was around 400g)
4 smallish onions
1 large sweet potato
1 400g can red kidney beans (buy the budget ones without salt unless you are cooking your own, in which case reserve around 100ml cooking water)

Finely chop the onions, fry off. Then finely cut the sweetpotato. (I used a peeler to get thin slices then chopped them accross. It really helps to get this veg fine as it then melts down somewhat in the cooking process). Add to the pan and stir through and add water to cover. Cook for around 15 mins, then add the red kidney beans (inc. the water in the can, assuming no salt used, or the reserved cooking water). Cover and leave to simmer as you chop up the mushrooms. Add these as you go along say, 4/5 mushrooms worth at a time. Once al the mushrooms are in stir well and cover, cook for a further 10 mins (or until you are happy with the consistency) then *leaving the lid on* turn off the heat and leave to stand for around 30min, or until you are ready to eat.

We served this over long grain brown rice. Allow around a handful per person and a little more and just cook it. In a pan this will take about 30 mins, I do it in a rice cooker and it takes a little less.


:-)

Reading

Hello.

Busy week so keeping it brief (remind me of this when the post exceeds a thousand words, lol).

New issue of The Vegan arrived. If you don't know what it is - its the membership magazine of the Vegan Society . Food for thought, anyway.

Also spent a happy half hour this afternoon on www.parsleysoup.co.uk I went searching (via google) for a vegan bread and butter recipe to use up a half loaf of nice bread that no one seems to be eating. Well, we do seem to be on a rice kick this last 10 days so... (more of that under recipes).

There are some fantastic recipes there and it has themes built in and all sorts. Think that some use may be made of it by us over Easter.

Anyway - off to do a recipe entry now :-) (hey, I managed to be brief!!!)

Reading

New Waldorf books arrived by GPS. Came nearly a week ago, but have only had the most cursory of inspections.

Feel a bit ashamed admitting that...

Other reading - well I found a lovely new blog to look at

ReKal

Has inspired me to take DD1 to the charity shops in search of wool for her projects. We bought 4 big jumpers for a pound each in Oxfam yesterday. That should keep her in knitting wool for a while, lol.

Reading though - one of my favourite 'sites is Knitty (www.knitty.com). One day I may even get around to making one or two of the things on there. Need to practise more with the knitting first.

Books - well I've reread Wives of Bath again. Formulaic 'chick lit' but Ok for getting your head down with.

Spent a large chunk of Thursday am at the local childrens library - came out with several interesting books including lots of farm stories to feed into DD1's next main lesson theme. Also bought a copy of The Widows Broom by Chris Van Allsburg from the ex-catalogue shelf. The illustrations are wonderful and a heartwarming story to boot.

Off until tomorrow - or there abouts.