Creamy Tomato Soup

I have a few backlogged recipes to catch up on, unsurprisingly, but this most recent meal is crying out to be blogged as soon as possible. I've made tomato soup from this BBC Good Food recipe before as a pasta bake sauce and as a soup, and it's worked really well. Unfortunately I don't have any baking soda, although the milk trick works really well, so substituted with cream. A really great easy soup, even better with grilled cheese on toast.

Creamy Tomato Soup

(Printable Recipe)

Makes 2 small or 1 large portions

1 tablespoon oil

1/2 onion

2 cloves garlic

1.5 teaspoons basil, fresh or dried, divided

3 cups tomato sauce/passata

1/2 teaspoon parmesan dust (optional)

1 tablespoon cream

(OR 1 tablespoon milk with 1 pinch baking soda)

Seasoning

Quick Onion Pizza

It is a daily challenge deciding what to have for lunch, and one that Tom in particular finds very trying. It's a difficult meal, because I don't get another chance to eat until finishing work - seven hours of class without a lunch break. Luckily, I was recently inspired by my own onion-stuffed chicken to make a lunchtime pizza in the style of Flammkuchen. A perfect meal for my specific needs: quick, tasty, filling. I would advise using creme fraiche if you have it; if not, my cream concoction worked pretty well.

Quick Onion Pizza

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 1

2 rashers bacon

1 tortilla wrap

2 tablespoons onion relish

1/2 cup cream

1 teaspoon lime juice

1 tablespoon butter

(or creme fraiche instead of cream/lime/butter)

1/2 onion

1 teaspoon mixed herbs

Seasoning

Apple Mustard Risotto

Risotto has been one of my favourite lunches for a long time - it was one of the first meals I posted, not that I strictly wrote recipes back then. It's the sign of someone who doesn't have to go to work until after 2pm. If I ever have a real job, I'll miss lunch risottos.

So yesterday I made an apple and mustard risotto, after trawling through a bunch of links and somehow finding my way to Cookie & Kate's apple cheddar quesadilla. Oh, I miss cheese. Anyway, more things happened and I ended up using apple in a risotto. (I also used apple in a peanut sauce for dinner, which was also delicious, but there are no pictures of that meal - partly because Tom burnt his contribution - so it's like it never existed!)

 Apple Mustard Risotto

(Printable Recipe)
Serves 1

1/2 an onion

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 an apple

1/2 a glass white wine
1 cup rice

400ml stock (roughly)

1 tablespoon mustard

Seasoning

Chop your onion and apple, and fry in butter until softened. Add the rice to the pan and stir to coat the rice in the butter - it should go translucent. Pour the white wine in and allow the mixture to simmer for a few moments.

A very liquidy pan.

Add stock to the pan little by little, waiting until the rice has absorbed the liquid before adding the next 100ml or so. Stir as regularly as possible. Usually I just dump all the stock in in one go because I have better things to do with my life, but you do run the risk of oversaturating the rice that way.

The rice has absorbed more of the stock.

Towards the end of the cooking time, add the mustard - it should need about five minutes in the pan to heat through and allow the rice to absorb some of the flavour without being totally overwhelmed by it.

Season the risotto, and taste - after twenty-five minutes it should be nicely edible. Serve.

Throw some extra apple chunks on to garnish.

Bagels

It's half past three here in Korea, and only now are both of us up and dressed.

Today is the first day of our five-day holiday, so naturally we didn't wake up until 11:30. Somehow I decided that baking was more important than showering, or dressing, or brushing my teeth, so two separate batches of dough were made before I did anything to make myself presentable. Or clean. Now I'm really cooking in pink pyjamas (and extra thanks to my parents, because the pyjamas have half-length sleeves so I'm not constantly pushing them out of the way to stop flour from getting on them).

I had found a bagel recipe yesterday and already decided to make it today; when I woke up, I saw a recipe for crescent jam and cheese cookies and immediately added that to my list. The recipe for the cookies will come later today, because the dough is still chilling and I need to go out and buy square cookie cutters anyway. On a barely related note, I also need to cast on a new knitting project today, because tomorrow we're going on a road trip, and I'll need something to do with my hands!

Anyway. Bagels.

Bagels

(Printable Recipe)
Makes 8-12 bagels (depending on size)

8g instant yeast

4 tablespoons brown sugar, divided

300ml warm water, divided

2 teaspoons salt

3 cups flour

Empty the yeast sachets into a large bowl with one tablespoon of the sugar. Put the kettle on but turn it off before the water reaches boiling point. Pour 100ml of the warm water over the yeast and sugar, and leave for ten minutes. (The original recipe says to leave it until the mixture becomes frothy, but mine never developed more than one or two bubbles.)

A very unfrothy mixture.

Pour the remaining 200ml warm water into the bowl, reheating it beforehand in the kettle. Add the salt and 2 cups of flour, stirring everything through. I needed to add one more cup of flour to make the mixture into a firm dough, you may need more or less.

Turn on to a lightly floured surface and knead for ten minutes until the dough is stretchy and elastic. Gently coat the dough and the inside of a bowl with oil, and put the dough in the bowl to rise. Cover with plastic.

Leave to rise for an hour.

It doesn't look much bigger, but that's just because the camera was further away. Honestly.

After an hour, pull off small handfuls of the dough and shape them into slightly flattened balls. Using the handle of a wooden spoon, poke holes in the centre, and with your fingers make the hole bigger by spinning the dough slowly around the handle. Make 8 larger bagels, 10 medium bagels, or 12 small bagels this way.

Don't worry if they come out a little misshapen.

Boil a pan full of water and add the remaining three tablespoons of sugar to the pan. Stir to dissolve. After boiling, the bagels will be baked, so grease either some parchment paper or just your baking tray with butter. I forgot until halfway through the cooking time, when I pulled bagels off paper and quickly greased it. That wasn't much fun, so grease now.

 Using a slotted spoon, boil each bagel for a couple of minutes, turning them in the water. When they come out, they should be slimy to touch. Drain as well as possible (it doesn't matter if a little water gets on to the paper) and put the boiled bagels straight on to the baking tray. I recommend not boiling more than three at a time, but it depends on the size of your pan.

Boiling.

Bake at 200 degrees C (390 Fahrenheit) for twenty minutes.

Delicious with butter.

Tortillas Galore

Two vegetarian recipes - one good, one mind-blowingly brilliant - for lunch and dinner. Both are extremely easy and can generally be made with what's on hand. The pizza was my idea, although no doubt it's been done before, and the pie came from this recipe. I had planned on using two or three tortillas in the pie, but in the end we only had one left, and it worked well anyway. It's so filling that it's almost shocking that this is vegetarian!

I've used this post as an excuse to add a 'potentially vegetarian' label to all posts that are, or could easily be (by skipping on the meat rather than replacing it), vegetarian.

Tortilla Pizza
Serves 1

1 tortilla wrap
1 tablespoon tomato sauce/passata
1 tablespoon garlic sauce (or minced garlic, or just leave this out)
Handful of grated cheese
Handful of chopped onion
1 tablespoon cream cheese

Use the back of a spoon to spread the tomato and garlic sauces lightly over the (flat) tortilla, leaving a slight margin at the edges. Top with the grated cheese and chopped onion. Blob (yes, blob) bits of cream cheese over the pizza and put in an oven at 180 degrees (360 Fahrenheit) for 5-10 minutes, depending on how crispy you want the 'crust.'


Tortilla Pie
Serves 2

1 1/2 cups rice
1 onion
1 green chilli
1 cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon ssamjang
1 tin red kidney beans
1 green pepper
1 broccoli stalk
Seasoning
1 tortilla wrap
Grated cheese
Cream cheese

I put the rice on to boil while I chopped the onion and chilli. Fried those for a few minutes before adding tomato sauce, sugar, chilli and curry powders, and ssamjang to make a salsa. Allowed to simmer for a few minutes before adding the kidney beans, chopped pepper, and chopped broccoli stalk. Seasoned, and drained the rice. Once heated through, half of the bean mixture went into a deep dish, and was covered with rice. This was covered with grated cheese and several teaspoons of cream cheese. The remaining bean mixture went on top, was covered with the tortilla, and more grated & cream cheeses. Baked for 15 minutes at 180 degrees (360 Fahrenheit) and served.

Lunchtime Panini

I started this meal with this recipe for caramelized onion, apple and blue cheese panini, and immediately made some changes to it because we don't have any apples and my boyfriend doesn't like blue cheese.

I fried two thin pork steaks (escalopes?) in oil on a high heat for two minutes, and then on a medium-high heat for a further five, flipping once. Flipped them again at the end to get some colour on each side. Sliced two smallish onions. Removed pork from pan, added onions along with a little bit of vinegar to deglaze. Once the onions were soft, I added a few splashes of balsamic vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar. Turned heat down to low.

Placed pork on toast. Cut to fit (eating a few bits along the way). Dolloped lots of caramelized onions on top, with a couple of handfuls of grated mozzarella and six to seven teaspoon-carved bits of blue cheese on top of that, and the other slice of toast on the very top. Put sandwich in a non-preheated oven at 180 degrees C for about five minutes till the cheese went melty. Then had to add more caramelized onions as there were tons left over.

Tom put some pork on each slice of toast, covered each with half a slice of cheese (Emmentaaler, I believe) and put them in the oven for five minutes. Removed, added a handful of mozzarella to each, replaced in oven for another five minutes. Removed, caramelized onions added, the whole thing squashed together and eaten.

It was a brilliant messy lunchtime, with one pan used for all the cooking. Tom insisted that the sandwich would have been improved with the addition of mayonnaise, but that opinion is to be rejected as he is obsessed with mayonnaise and thinks that everything would be better with it. I foresee home-made mayonnaise in my future...

Eggy Spaghetti

A lunch for two. Another recipe that I wrote for my little brother before he decided to take a gap year.

Eggy Spaghetti

For two people

Takes about 10 minutes

You will need:

Spaghetti (make a circle with your first finger and thumb – you should need about that much for 2)

2 eggs

Grated cheese

Salt and pepper

1. Boil enough water for the spaghetti in your kettle.
2. Break the spaghetti in half, if you want to, and put it in the pan with the boiling water.
3. Crack 2 eggs into a mug and stir them quickly with a fork. Add salt and pepper and stir a bit more.
4. When the spaghetti is cooked (taste it to see), use the colander to drain the water out.
5. Put the spaghetti back into the pan you cooked it in, which should now have no water in it. Pour the beaten eggs into the spaghetti and stir until most of the spaghetti is covered in egg. The spaghetti will be hot enough to just cook the egg as it is, so don't worry about eating raw egg.
6. Add grated cheese and serve.

We didn't break the spaghetti, cracked eggs straight into the cooked pasta, and added both mozzarella and gouda, grated. Didn't add enough salt+pepper though. A quick and easy lunch!

Tomato Soup

Used the real tomato soup recipe (used before for a pasta bake) to make myself a comforting lunch yesterday. Followed the recipe, although used ketchup instead of tomato puree, and obviously did only about a quarter of the recipe. Served with two slices of toast, buttered, one with cheese.

Now all I have to do is plan tonight's dinner for 10. Unfortunately there is none of the following: meat of any sort, potatoes, vegetables, cheese. And not enough pasta or passata. Should be a challenge...

Two meals

Lunch:
Pasta salad for two.

Two large handfuls of pasta, boiled with salt for 10 minutes.
Sauce: normally I use a dip as the base, but we didn't have any today, so I made one from scratch. I mixed natural yoghurt with 1 egg and some mayonnaise before putting it on the heat. Added 1 tsp honey, 1 tsp mustard, salt+pepper, more mayonnaise, remoulade and salad cream. Also dusted Parmesan.
Pasta was run under cold water and mixed with sauce. Most of one raw chopped onion was stirred through.

Sauce wasn't quite right but good enough.

Dinner:
'Meatballs' in fresh tomato sauce with pasta, cooked for five/six-ish with some leftovers.

I basically followed the recipe, although I didn't have carrot and celery. After simmering it for fifteen minutes, I put the pasta on (one 500g packet). Fifteen minutes later, the pasta was nearly ready; I cut six Frikadellen (pre-cooked hamburger-esque German things) into eighths and stirred them through to warm them. It was lovely, the sauce was a teeny bit sour, but the whole thing was AMAZING and so more-ish with dusted Grana Padano. Mmmmm.

Lunch Risotto

A couple of times a week I make myself risotto for lunch - mostly because no one else eats it, and it's so relaxing to make a meal for one for a change.

Based on this recipe for shrimp risotto (although I never use shrimp).
Cooked for 1.

Tablespoon of margarine, melted on a low heat. 1 chopped onion and 1 minced garlic clove, fried; sometimes I add a herb or spice at this stage but didn't today. Half a cup of rice and enough white wine to cover it, bubbled for a bit - I turn up the heat at this point.
I boiled water and added it to three teaspoons of my chicken stock, then added the stock bit by bit to the pan. Stir stir stir. Salt + pepper. I often add an extra flavouring at this point, normally a squeeze of tomato puree but mustard today - I think I prefer the tomato puree. Once cooked, I stirred in grated gouda and parmesan. It was a bit too liquidy today but still delicious comfort food.