My soup recipe just got even lazier because TESCO are now doing vegetable packs specifically for soup, with everything cut small and mixed with onions and chilli. Add water, a stock cube and a hand blender and you have soup. I put garlic in this one too. And a few extra onions.
At this time of year our kitchen is so cold you can leave it in a pan on top of the cooker with no need to use the fridge. We’ve had it for tea once and I’ve had it for lunch three times. The rest will go in the vegetable curry tomorrow.
Sweet potato, butternut squash, onion, garlic and chilli soup
We also had the lazy pie this week.
Chop leeks, celery, chicken, mushrooms and tarragon.
Soften the veg and brown the chicken, Stir in some flour and milk to make a sauce bit and bung it in a pie dish. We had a gammon joint this week too, so I cubed some of it to make this a chicken and ham pie. This is optional.
Then unroll a sheet of ready-made puff pastry, cut off a bit about the size of the pie dish.
Argue about who had the pastry brush last.
Pour a little milk on top of the pie and rub it round lightly with your finger tips.
Add “pastry brush” to the shopping list.
Cook until it”s brown on top. This takes about 40 minutes if you put it in the oven cold but I really don’t see the point in heating up an empty oven first.
Serve with whatever veg you have. We had brussels and red cabbage (which I make in quantity and eat all week). With hindsight I could have selected a less environmentally damaging combination. Think methane.
Chicken Pie and vegetables – sorry about the smudge on the lens
I know ready-made pastry and “parachute pies” (ones with just a top and no bottom) are all frowned on on serious pie circles, but ask me if I’m bothered. It’s crispy, it’s flaky and it tastes good. You don’t need all that stuff underneath.
This cooking stuff really is quite simple. I can’t really see how so many people seem to be able to make a career out of it with TV and cookery books and such. As for Delia Smith being made a Companion of Honour “for services to cookery”, well I am, for once, speechless…
My sort of cooking… but I do confess to being a great fan of Deliah. I use her old Complete Cookery Course as a bible for the basis of many things, including her Christmas cake and pudding. At least all her recipes work, unlike some of those of certain celebrity chefs.
I’ve had major problems with Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson recipes, so I appreciate the reliability of Delia Smith.
She did a lot to make good cooking accessible and I have several of her books, some passed down from my mother.
Think methane! 😀 Cooking – chemistry with some potential for being creative. Simple. Can produce satisfying results too.
Coincidentally we are having that pie again tomorrow. 🙂
The vegetable curry sounds good. We are both getting over the lingering cold that has been going around.
A good curry should open up the sinuses. 🙂
My cookery bible is the Edinburgh Book of Plain Cooking which offers what it says in the title.
I like a book with a proper descriptive title.
I miss the pies in the UK. Came home and started studying up on the pie tins and thought about it seriously. Miss plenty of other foods, savory and otherwise which I might attempt, but maybe just a return would do me well. Simple foods are the best and keep showing up in restaurants world wide.
Simple food is hard to beat. 🙂
Some of our Culinary Queen’s recipes, e.g. sausage casserole, started out as Delia’s. That is because I used her when I was starting out. I took them on a bit, especially making them less bland; Jackie brought them to perfection. I know when I am beaten – and I’m going to keep it that way – then there are no arguments about missing utensils. 🙂
A wise man knows when to take a back seat. I have used Delia’s recipes too, nothing wrong with her cookery, just a question over the place of cookery in modern society. Jackie deserves a medal but does Delia deserve two?
🙂
To be honest, the whole honours system is a corrupt waste of time as far as I can see. I have a lot more respect for that dog that won the Dickin Medal yesterday.
I quite like some of it, though we need to get rid of the “British Empire” in the MBE etc. Also need to get rid of politicians and rich donors and highly paid sportsmen from the system…
OK, I agree, you have converted me. 🙂
Has your liking for the Dicken Medal got anything to do with a number of RAF Pigeons winning it?
Yes Asda in Arnold do them to.
🙂