Roasted Mushroom soup & French Onion Soup

 Winter is coming and something quick and warm is required. So I thought I'd make a few soups. I'd already made some leek and potato soups, so I thought I'd try something different.

 The first recipe is Creamy Roasted Mushroom Soup.

I hadn't thought about roasting the mushrooms with Garlic & Thyme, but having the air fryer made that quite easy. 

It asks for about 900g mushrooms so I had to do the roasting in 2 batches. About 10-15 minutes each.
The roasting really gave the soup a lovely flavour.
For stock I used a gelatinous concentrate that went with 2 cups of water. It was fine for the soup.
After roasting and letting mushrooms cool down I sliced them as I wanted a chunky soup, not a cream. 
I froze 3 batches for later, having about 2 cups per ziplock bag and freezing them flat so they are easy to store and thaw. I didn't add cream to the freezing bags. If I have it I'll add cream when I thaw it.
The soup definitely had a lot of flavour. As it was chicken stock the mushroom and garlic flavours stood out. I am very please with this soup and will use the recipe again.

The 2nd recipe is French Onion Soup. 

The french restaurant in Kaiwharawhara does a mean french onion soup. Very warm and hearty.
This one I sliced quite a few onions, I think I had about 10-12 cups rather than 8. I used the mandolin to slice them up.
I put 8 cups of stock in (4 gelatinous concentrate packs) but it didn't really have a beefy kick to it. There is more than enough onion, in fact, I run out of soup and have lots of residual onion in the bowl.
I used Mozzarella cheese rather than Gruyere (There was only one brand in Pak'n'Save and it was expensive), so I got stringiness but little flavour with it. I do find the olives in a pizza offset the blandness of the Mozzarella.
I ended up with 4 freezer bags worth of the French onion soup.
The ciabatta goes well with the soup as I don't have baguettes.

Nice, but not the best. I will try another recipe I think for the French Onion soup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne2hhWeLSS4

So for the moment well stocked with soups. I just had a snack with the residual dregs that were too small for freezer bags.

Sourdough Starter Pancakes- NICE

This recipe definitely works for me.

This sourdough starter recipe just uses the sourdough starter. Makes enough pancakes for a sitting with some left over. They are more like buttermilk pancakes and are filling and sweat too.

This is a recipe I've done a couple of times and enjoyed. In fact I had too much recipe at the end so made some pikelets for the next day, and they were nice then too.
Much better than the other ones I was making.
This is a great recipe for sourdough starter, I'd like another recipe for the leftover sourdough starter as pancakes every week is too much for me. Although with winter coming on, maybe a good one. Especially if I cook them the night before and just heat them up (a cold kitchen in the morning is not too much fun).
I think I overdid the crispy bacon in the image above.
On the hotplate the leftover mix for pikelets.

 I have this regularly now, on the weekends, when I top up my starter. They are light and fluffy and the bacon definitely adds a saltiness. A bit like salted caramel ice cream. It sounds weird but tastes great.

Recipe:
1 cup sourdough starter
1 egg
Some honey into the mixture- about 1-2 tablespoons
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4  teaspoon baking soda

After mixing it froths up, so I use the measuring jug to mix and pour.
I usually have leftovers. I find the rings in the photo above are a waste of space, so just pour less of the mixture. I put them in the fridge and microwave the next day. So 2 breakfasts out of one cup of sourdough starter. 
 

Dim Sim

I bought some Dim Sim pastry from the Asian Market in Kilbirnie.
The pastry was more yellow than the dumpling ones, and thinner, but thicker than the spring roll pastry.
I made some little parcels with the meat showing at the top, with a raw pork and vege mix.
 I then tried to cook these in the air fryer. The pastry was very hard and just seemed dry and crusty. It didn't seem to bake.
So next time I was at the market I asked about them, and the lady said they should be steamed. So this time I did

 

They sort of looked like won tons but they tasted fine with some  chilli sauce and soy sauce. 

So, next time I'm making spring rolls I'll make some of these too. 

I was careful not to thaw them out too much as the pastry sticks to everything and tears. 

I had wrapped these individually so they came out nicely. I also seamed them on a cabbage leaf that stopped them sticking to the side of the metal steamer. I still had a few tears in the pastry. 

The filling had too much veges in it so was a bit crumbly. More meat would have bound it together better. 

Very yummy though as a snack. 

I may think about freezing batches, then trying microwaving a small batch to partially thaw them quickly to see if that works.  I'm having issue with over-thawed spring rolls tearing and falling apart.

Pad Thai - Beef first try

I watched a couple of videos on it and got the general idea of the recipe.
What started me on this was seeing Pad thai noodles (that look a bit like vermicelli noodles but ribbons) in the Asian Market Grocer in Kilbirnie.
In Cambodia I loved the Pad See Ewe and when I looked up Pad Thai it was not too different. A Mee Goreng type recipe, but Thai style.
I'd taken some beef schnitzel out of the freezer to do this, but left if for a couple of days as I had fresh food to eat up.
When I got around to cooking up the beef schnitzel I was still not going to make the dish that day, but I did not want the meat to start to go off, so cooked it in a bit of oil on its own.
When I got around to making it I followed Marion and a few others recipe's generally. I also wanted to use up my Mung Beans as they were getting big and I'd thrown away the last batch as they had been left in the fridge for too long.
I had too much beef, too little noodles, and I made enough for one meal and a meal to freeze. I was happy with the result but next time I'd like to have more noodles and I think I'd try chicken and or prawns. The light vegetables, beansaprouts and peanuts were a bit overwhelmed by the beef.
Definitely a meal I'd do again.
Its a meal that you set up and prep. Get everything ready then the actual cooking and presenting is fast. I quite liked the process of it.
A good use of the beansprouts too.
My result first time, about 4/10, needs more practice.

Leak and potato soup

The weather is turning, autumn through to winter. Time for some hot food.

Soups are easy to heat up, are warm and filling. I'm rather partial to some Seafood chowder, French Onion soup (only since I was in Ireland and grew some onions) & tinned Campbell Mushroom soup was always a mainstay from my childhood.
Appearing at the markets at the moment are leaks. They are in season, so I thought I'd try stocking up on some soups in the freezer. So I went to Mr YouTube and these video's seemed to show the way of making a simple soup:

Both recipes seem to be similar, so I charged ahead and put all the ingredients into a pot, potatoes, leeks, chicken stock, garlic and a dab of butter:

The result is very nice. Not exactly the most exotic of ingredients but fills you up and keeps you warm. 

A front is just coming in, and after I walked the dog I made heated up some of the soup. 

Quantities:

I used 3 leaks, cut them up then washed them, 1L chicken stock, and about the same volume of potatoes as the uncut leaks (about 5-6 medium potatoes). 

I had some panceta in the fridge (cured ham, I think I've spelt it wrong. This is thicker stuff from Moore Wilson) , so wrapped some in a paper towel and microwaved it for about 45 sec. It shrunk a lot. I chopped it up, with some wild parsley that I've been picking on my walk and sprinkled that over the top. Also toasted and buttered Ciabatta. 

You can add cream, and I bought some for the soup, but I didn't use it. I will add it for the next meal.

I intend to freeze the rest. Will try laying bags down flat so thin (so will thaw more quickly). Then I'll put them in the Freezer App I've been building.

I was a bit concerned about the cream, I didn't want that in the soup when I froze it. In fact its quite creamy without cream. The Bar Mixer does a good job of smoothing it out.

Pasta, Mussels & Wasabi- A sinus cleaner

I am not mad on fish, but I do like seafood.

 Pasta, Mussels & Wasabi

A simple lunch I like, if I've been to the shops on that day, is Pasta, Mussels & Wasabi.
I will only have it on a day when I go to the shops as fresh mussels are nice but I'm a bit worried about getting sick if I leave them in the fridge. My own personal wariness about them.
Cook up some pasta, steam mussels, either in water or in steamer over the water, and when they open take them out, de-beard them, take out any crabs and other crustations nesting within and cut the mussels into smaller pieces.
Then mix with pasta and put in some wasabi. I like it from the paste tube in this instance as you can add small dabs of wasabi as you go.
I usually buy 12 mussels for this meal. I only make it for myself, I've never offered it to anyone else. A personal comfort meal.

Mussels on a BBQ

Another way I like to do mussels is on a BBQ. Normally you're cooking up hunks of meat, its nice to have something that isn't greasy. Throw some mussels on and as they heat up the shells open. Pick them off and snack as you are cooking the rest of the food.