Souper Thursday: Asian-Esque Beefy Broth

So; I mentioned last week (on what would have ideally been last Thursday; but was, if fact, last Friday... Whoops!) that it's a Swedish Tradition to serve soup on Thursdays. Which is awesome.

I'm using my love of Sweden and Swedish culture to influence what I am now referring to as "Souper Thursday" wherein I force my family to eat soup every Thursday. Thus far, this proposition has gone down remarkably well. It is coming into winter in NZ, after all.

I like soup.

This is an easy soup. It looks fantastic and classy.

Look at that classy soup. With that fancy, mixed focus photography.

But all it is is beef stock boiled with a couple of star anise and a few, whole cloves before being poured over vermicelli noodles and thinly sliced beef (here I used schnitzel)... Topped off with some bean sprouts and julienned carrots and cucumber, a soft(ish) boiled egg and sprinkled with fresh coriander and finely sliced chilli and spring onion.

And that's it. Honest.

In other news I'm about to move (back) out of home and down to my beautiful capital city... in the hopes that being in the city I want to work in will improve my chances of being actually employed.

I'm excited because this will be my first time cooking for one in my "natural" (or rather "familiar") environment! I will now be able to augment my previously "flat friendly" meals with meals and baking designed for one. Because, although I am no longer a student (I graduate in December - WOO!), I will still be on a budget, and cheap, flavourful and healthful food will still be my aim!

Here's to an exciting, if unknown, future together: you, me and this blog!

Skål!

Taste & Create: Broccoli Soup

Did you know that in Sweden it is traditional to have soup on Thursdays? Specifically; yellow split pea soup because yellow split peas are associated with Thor and Thursday is, after all Thor's Day!

This recipe is not for yellow spilt pea soup. This recipe is for Broccoli Soup. This is because we had approximately a million (AKA 2) broccolis and no spilt peas (I used them making soup for last Thursday!)...

This soup that I made for Taste & Create this month is simple, tasty, vegan (if you let it be, I didn't) and requires very few ingredients. It's fantastic for Students and Real People alike! It also came out the most fantastic shade of green:

See?

I fried the cumin seeds and garlic in butter as PJ of Seduce Your Tastebuds recommended in butter because I like butter. And I think garlic tastes better fried in butter, over oil... But, as oil is such an easy substitute; I still think it's fair to store this recipe as a vegan option.

The potato gives the blended soup a creamy texture without the addition of milk or cream. PJ pressure cooks her potatoes and broccoli; but I don't have a pressure cooker in my student kitchen so I boiled my potato and steamed the broccoli over it... Feel free, however to boil your broccoli and potato together; bearing in mind that the broccoli won't need quite so long to cook as the potato and over-cooked broccoli is a kinda funky colour...

I really enjoyed this soup, and hope you do too!

Red Lentil and Tomato Soup

So guys, guess what? I'm still around!! Can I get a woop, woop?! :)

This is a recipe inspired by the delicious soup my cousin, Vicky served me while I was staying with her in England... It requires very few, very cheap ingredients but with the lentils providing protein and the tomatoes providing their fantastic anti-cancer qualities it's an excellent soup to keep away the Winter (or the it-really-ought-to-be-spring-by-now?!) Blues...

Gorgeous, terracotta soup garnished with crumbled feta and a drizzle of olive oil!

If you use vegetable stock (and skip the feta I sprinkled on my serving!) this soup is easily vegan/vegetarian... but because I'm perfectly happy to have animal in my diet - I made my soup with powdered chicken stock!

The recipe I used is based on this one from About.com's Low Fat Cooking Section... Because I was in Sweden for only 6 months - I was unwilling to buy all the spices I might ordinarily have in my kitchen - so I chose ground cumin over ground coriander - but use what you've got! Cooking should be a fluid action...

This was quick, easy, hearty and delicious... and it lasted for AGES (you can decide whether that last point is a pro or a con...)... I really encourage you to try it!!

Buttons and Bows

I may have mentioned this before... but I'm not a very effective preparer of "simple" dishes... the Great Alison Holst describes the following dish as a "well balanced family dinner which can be cooked in half an hour in one pan"... she neglects to add the bit "unless, of course, you are Kat. In which case this'll probably take an hour and a half several pans a couple of pots and maybe even a little floor-space for good measure. But don't worry! Your flat mates will love it!"

And, inexplicably, they do! This is not my favourite dish ever... but it comes to you highly requested by one of my most favourite people ever... and I aim to please! :)

Even I recognise that this is a very cute dish!

The flavour and sauciness for this dish comes almost entirely from a can of condensed soup - so make sure you pick a flavour you like from a brand you trust! I usually pick mushroom soup and then bulk up the flavour with some combination of; shit-loads of garlic, onion, Worcester sauce, soy sauce, chilli sauce, oregano, mushrooms etc... It's a stone soup type recipe!

The bows are provided by the pasta shape... and the buttons come, ideally from carrots and courgettes... but if, like me you don't have any courgettes to hand make buttons, bows and pearls! Substitute in any veggies you have lying around! Make this dish your own...

You can bulk out the greens with salad, as I did here - but with all the veggies in the dish proper salad isn't a necessary addition to make balanced-ness.

And so Joshee, I have for you (at long last!) the recipe for buttons and bow - enjoy!

The Broke Student's Cupboard Feast

Okay. So, admittedly "feast" might be taking this dish one step (or a leap) too far... but it is an invaluable cupboard scraping meal. As it's based on a Nigella "recipe" (the Exhausted Mother's tea-time special from her "Bites" series) you know it's gotta be good! (I would post a link, but apparently it's not deemed a real recipe and the internet doesn't have a copy yet?)

It's a sort of rice/lentil pasta sauce soup... Nigella tells you to simply bring a jar of pasta sauce and a jar of water to the boil before stirring in a handful of rice, cooking for 10 (ish) minutes and serving to small children with a lump of Parmesan nearly the size of their heads to grate over.

My "ingredient" list is a little more extensive, but the basic premise is the same. I added lentils for protein, and frozen spinach for greens thus making it an *almost* balanced meal...

As with my last post - you need to make sure that you use a pasta sauce you like, as it is the dominant flavour - but other than that go nuts with whatever you have in your cupboard/fridge/freezer...

eg: chick peas, broccoli, pasta, un-veggie-ise it with some chopped ham... or veganise it and leave off the cheese...

The beauty of this dish was that I could not go to the supermarket for almost three weeks (not something I recommend!) and still manage to put a tasty meal on the table... Score 1 for Kat!

Real World Wednesdays:Chicken Soup

There are two reasons that this post is currently going image-less and neither of them is "because Kat was too hungry/lazy/forgot to take a photo" they are a) I'm at Uni and Uni doesn't like uploading photo's for me... and b) my flat internet is down to dial up speed. This, in NZ is not a rare occasion, unfortunately. In New Zealand the interwebs SUCK!!!

Also. Google Chrome can't spell "Zealand" just FYI...

So, in honour of RWW (and just to prove that I can stick with something for more than one week) I took a photo of my dinner even though it was made in a rush and is not particularly exciting... Real, honest student food then!

Chicken Soup. I blended mine with a stick-blended because clear broth with floaties freaks me out no end! I also chucked some bacon in - because it was there. The bacon gave the soup a faintly smokey smell and after tasted. Joshee (boyfriend) said it tasted like "soup" but that he was please with me for making him eat soup because it's not so bad after all... Or words to that effect!

There was also a chilli in this soup. Gave the soup some bite. And a litre of store-bought chicken stock because a) it was on special when I bought it and b) I hadn't gotten around to stripping the chicken carcass of meat yet (and by "I", I mean Joshee...) because I wanted to put that meat into my soup!

Steamy, hot, and screaming "Delicious!"

So read on for a set of guidelines to make your own 60-Minute Chicken Soup...

Student Staple: Mince Chowder

I've been watching Nigella this afternoon... And she's inspired me to make, what was last year a total staple, Mince Chowder with a "Mexican" twist...

Sorry, it's kinda blurry - but this photo is sooo much prettier than the other one!

Last year this dish would grace our table at least once a month - it's a real winner! This year though, I've been remiss... One of the greatest features of this dish is its versatility - usually I make it with a hint of the Mediterranean but tonight I've gone Mex-ish!

This one's actually quite pretty too... This is Joshee's dinner...

Read further for the recipe:

Taste & Create: The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybuch's Broccoli Dal

Phew! What a mouthful!

Well, after this morning's vegan-less panic... I thought to myself... "Mmm... breakfast time!" so I went looking through Shelby Mae's vegan recipes for something I could submit to Taste & Create this month!

I was avoiding all tofu recipes because a) un-fermented soy freaks the bejeebers out of me and b) because of a) I don't have any tofu lurking in my fridge...

But! Only a few recipes down I found this...

Delicious, healthy breakfast? I think so!

Broccoli Dal! OM NOM NOM NOM!!!

I'm going to brutally force y'all to click on the link to get the full recipe - because I don't want you to miss out on the blogging magic that is The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch!

But let me tell you - this is a delicious recipe!

I did make a few changes - mainly to scale down the recipe so that it'd feed only one. I quartered it.

• Also I didn't have any mustard seed, so I used prepared mustard instead.
• I may have accidentally trebled the original recipe's calling for turmeric... But it was still delicious!
• I don't have any almond milk, so I made my own by soaking LSA in 1/4 cup water!
• And I cooked it with a teeny-weeny red chilli rather than sprinkling cayenne over the top.

Also - add salt! This dish tastes good before salt and AMAZING afterwards!

Y'all should definitely make this sometime, for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

REAL Student Food: Leek and Potato Soup

Heeey...

So. I have this HUGE, important lab report due in in a couple of days, which I should TOTALLY be doing right now. And I'm gonna. Just as soon as I finish this post. I promise. I'm a good student. I promise.

Aaanywho.

It's winter here in NZ right now, and good ol' Wellywood sure turned on the waterworks today... And do you know what is totally awesome on a wet, windy, winter's day in Wellington (or anywhere?!)

Do you?

WOUP!!! (more commonly known as "soup", when used by people not making a pathetic attempt at alliteration)



Potato and Leek soup, with sage. And homemade bread roll. Mine was the little one and the heart was for my Gorgeous Boy... (you may pretend to gag now...)

 This stuff is AMAZING! All it took was 30 minutes and a nearly empty fridge with a leek in it...

Read on, Mac Duff!