ramtops

I love butternut squash. It has a lovely texture, and works in so many things: risotto, roast veg, Thai currys, soup, etc. But there’s no denying that it’s a faff to deal with due to the peel. So I did a little experiment.

I wanted some soup to come home to on Saturday, and astonishingly, there was no mongrel soup on the go (which I must address). And there was a squash in the fridge. I cut the top off the squash, and then chopped the rest in half, scooped out the seeds, and put it in the medium slow cooker with about ½” of wine (all there was left in that bottle, although obviously in this house, other bottles were available). I then added about 1″ further of water. Switched it on, went away. Returned after a couple of hours and added a diced and peeled Bramley, because it struck me that it would work rather well.

In the small slow cooker, I put a big onion, chopped, three cloves of garlic, and some chopped sage leaves from the garden. Half of this mixture went to make sage and onion tear and share bread (which I baked in the Remoska when we got home),

After four, or maybe five, hours, the squash seemed well cooked, so I scooped a bit out, and lo – even the skin was really soft. So I put it, the apple, the onion and sage mix, into the food processor and blitzed it all. Returned it to the pot with a bit more water, tasted it, and decided it needed some toasted cumin, which Pete obligingly provided. Switched the slow cooker onto medium, and it was all done and dusted when we got home, just half an hour to bake the bread. Splendid.

And then …

I had planned to make Anjum Anand’s Gujarati lamb on Sunday, and had removed half a shoulder of the relevant beast from the freezer. I usually add a squash to this, because the texture is so nice, but there was a bowlful of soup left and it seemed rude not to use that instead. So instead we had a kind of use it up Gujarati lamb, which went like this.

one shoulder of lamb, browned on all sides.
one onion, finely diced
some garlic (I used about six cloves) and a big piece of ginger, made into a paste with some water
a couple of handfuls of dessicated coconut
ground cumin, coriander, turmeric
some chilli flakes
leftover butternut squash soup (I accept that most of you won’t have this to hand)
some chickpeas (I always used dried, so had them cooking in the small slow cooker while this was going on)
lemon juice – about a tablespoon’s worth
salt and black pepper

Soften the onion in some vegetable oil, then add the garlic/ginger paste and fry for about three minutes. Tip in the spices (quantities here are very individual – we like our foot spicy). Fry a bit longer. Put the lamb in the slow cooker, tip the onion mix in, add the soup, and a little water if required – I wanted it to come about half way up the meat. I normally add sweet potatoes, but mine had gone mouldy (oh the shame).

Cooked it for about six hours (adding the previously cooked chickpeas about two hours from the end)  and it was just beautiful. We gorged on it, and there was plenty left for today’s lunch. And indeed there’s still a fair bit of the sauce left, so I shall be adding red lentils and veg to that, and making it into this week’s  mongrel soup.

So there you go – slow cook your squash, and no need to peel. Win win.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Not terribly Reactive, I know, but still …

I had a ham shank in the freezer – they are ridiculously cheap, really; this one was £1.69, I think. And yesterday, our Morris side, Rackaback, was due to dance out in Bridlington, a seaside town on the East Yorkshire coast, where the wind blows straight from the Russian steppes, with nothing in the way to divert it.

So, I sautéd a finely chopped onion in olive oil, dumped the ham shank in the slow cooker with 500g of dried split peas, added the onions, a couple of teaspoons of Marigold bouillon stock, and enough water to cover the lot, switched it on, and went out.

And came home seven hours later, after a cold and rainy afternoon, to a glorious smell. Fished out the hock, and let it cool, then stripped the meat off it, We ate the meat separately (not all of it in one sitting!), accompanied by the soup and some ciabatta. Just wonderful. We shall be doing that again.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Well, not quite … But this week’s soup includes broccoli stalks, leek tops and cabbage stalks!

Into small dice were cut one courgette, two carrots, and the aforementioned veg leftovers, and they went in the slow cooker on low for about six hours with a little bit of olive oil to soften them up.

Then this morning, I added a mug of red lentils, a good pinch of chili flakes, about 2l of boiling water, the very last of last week’s lamb and barley soup, and some seasoning, put the slow cooker on high, and with a bit of luck and a following wind, it’ll be ready for lunch.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Here’s the forecast for Kingston-upon-Hull for the next few days – not really what you might call an Indian Summer, is it? Pete and I both have a Lurgy, so soup is called for.

Last night I Magimix’d four carrots, a courgette and a leek; the food processor does well with the first two veg with its chopping blade, but it really doesn’t like leeks, so I had to fish out the big bits and chop them by hand. Dumped all the veg in the slow cooker with some olive oil and left them on low for a few hours.

Pete then had to get out of bed to turn the slow cooker off, as we’d forgotten it …

This morning, I dumped in about 1.5 pints of goulash stock from the weekend, together with assorted bits of veg and beans and pork, about 2.5 pints of boiling water, and a mug of lentils, and hopefully it will make a rather nice soup by lunchtime.

This is what’s known in this household as mongrel soup, and generally is far finer than any contrived soup recipe I’ve tried :)

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

I’m getting the hang of this winemaking lark now, and I’m much more confident than I used to be.  We did our monthly trip to Makro on Saturday (first time the car had been out for a fortnight!), and they had a 5kg bag of carrots reduced to £2.30.   “Wine!”, I thought, and bore the bag home in triumph, along with 96 cans of cat fud and other essentials.

5kgs is a *lot* of carrots, I may tell you, but Pete and I topped and tailed them and chopped them up, and then I boiled them up in my preserving pan (bought from eBay a couple of years ago, and so useful).  We had to do it them in two batches.  You want the liquor for wine, and the carrots can be repurposed for eating.

I had a little ham hock in the freezer, and I put it in the slow cooker yesterday before I went out.  So, in a serendipitous style, I had a load of nice ham stock for soup.  One half of the Jordan carrot mountain went through the Magimix and into a big pan with the stock, and that’ll be this week’s soup, or the start thereof.  And I have some coriander to go with it, which will be nice.

The other batch of carrot will be liquidised and, somehow, shoehorned into th freezer for another soup.  I really can’t get used to living with just one freezer, and it’s always full to bursting, with me wanting to cook still more.

I have a big batch of Gujuerati beef curry in the slow cooker right now, and space will have to be found for that too … I’ll write the recipe up tomorrow.

And there are cheese scones and some cocktail sossidges in the oven for supper …

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

It worked really well, the sweet potato soup.  But we were out and about all weekend, so I put the remainder (a litre or so) in the fridge, and of course it went very gloopy.

So this morning, I fished it out, added a mugful of lentils and about the soup’s volume in water, together with a good teaspoon of harissa paste to warm it up a bit.

It’s been on a low heat for a couple of hours, and we’re going to consume it with toast for lunch.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Not cooking much at the moment, but here’s a recipe from my mate Mym, which I will try when I am ensconsed in my new house.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
2 cups radish greens, roughly chopped, packed
2 cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
fresh chives for serving

In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat; add finely diced shallots. Sauté, stirring often, until shallots are soft and translucent.

Add the radish greens and wilt, then add the stock. Bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add the chopped parsley and mint. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Remove from heat; purée with an immersion blender or in blender, in batches. Top with with freshly chopped chives just prior to serving.

Makes 4 servings.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Bit late with this, as first we finished last week's soup, and yesterday we had -shock horror- Tuscan bean soup from the Co-Op, as I have a cold and hadn't made any and wanted soup.

The Co-Op was selling bags of "stew pack" veg reduced to 99p - a bunch of carrots, a swede, a parsnip and some onions. Seemed ideal, so I hurled one into the basket ...

Read more at Reactive Cooking.