...for an Autumn day! It's chilly outside so what could be more inviting for lunch than home-made bread and a bowl of soup – so comforting, so simple.
Not for nothing have I chosen this recipe – it's delicious, it's easy to make and it's very much in the cheap and cheerful category!
Soda bread
170g self raising wholemeal flour
170g plain flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
290ml buttermilk
an optional sprinkle of semolina – try a sprinkle of semolina
to flour your baking sheet and after you've added your “x”
on top of the loaf
Pre heat your oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6.
Tip the flours, salt and bicarb into a large bowl and mix.
Make a well in the centre, pour in 290ml of buttermilk and mix quickly with a large fork until you have a soft dough formed. You may need an extra drop if your dough is too stiff but take care it should not be too wet or sticky.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly.
Form the dough into a round and flatten slightly. Place on a lightly floured baking sheet.
Slice an “x” on the top of the loaf and bake for 30 minutes – the base should sound hollow when tapped.
Just to confuse the issue I've found buttermilk in different weights. A low fat version weighing 284ml and a full fat version weighing 300ml – a tip – if you can only source the 284ml rinse out the pot with a drop of milk.
Here it is :
Then there's the soup, this is a firm favourite – as an added bonus it's healthy too!
Carrot, Coriander and Chickpea Soup
1lb/500g Charlotte potatoes, peeled and diced
l large onion, finely chopped
4 large carrots, peeled and diced
2 stockpots, vegetable or chicken
1 litre of water
1 tsp mild curry powder
1 heaped tsp coriander
Salt and black pepper
Rapeseed oil
1 can chick peas, drained
Soften onion and carrot in drop of rapeseed oil for approx 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add curry powder, coriander and black pepper, cook the spices with the onion and carrot for 2 minutes so that the flavours are released.
Add the stockpots, plus 500ml water and simmer until the pots have melted.
Add the diced potatoes and the remaining 500ml of water, bring to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes until the carrot and potatoes are cooked. Taste, then add salt to personal taste.
At this point you can set aside the soup until you are ready to serve.
Before serving pop 3 ladles of soup into a food processor/liquidiser and blitz. Tip the thickened soup back into your remaining soup, add the chick peas, heat and serve.
By blitzing a portion of the soup no artificial thickening is required. You also get visible vegetables with your chick peas.
Note
Don't put potatoes in with the carrots, onion and oil – the starch that is released from the potatoes means that they will cement themselves to the bottom of your saucepan!
If you're lucky you might get two lunches – yum.
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