Sorrel Soup

Hi Friends,
Well, it's a quick post from me this week, as it's Thursday already & my job list for the week is only about half done due to one thing & another. I thought I'd share my sorrel soup recipe with you, as it's that time of year when sorrel leaves are so bright green & lush, it's a shame to waste them.

I bought this sorrel plant as a job lot of herbs - one of those 4 for £5 type of offers - years ago. Sorrel is very easy to grow & doesn't seem to have any special requirements. It is perennial, so it dies down in the winter & grows back again ready to use in early Spring. It's so useful, I don't know why more gardeners don't grow it. I use the baby leaves raw in salads (they are like a lemony-flavoured spinach), it's good in quiches, frittata, as curry greens, & for many recipes as a substitute for spinach. Sorrel grows wild too, so if you are hot on plant recognition, you can forage it for free. I do a small amount of foraging, but I never risk eating anything I'm not 100% confident I've identified correctly. I used to gather field mushrooms, but have stopped since the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship informed me, "I trust you with my life, Babe, but I'm not eating any mushroom YOU'VE picked'! (Hmmm!)

If you find a little corner of your garden for a sorrel plant, it will soon fill out sufficiently for you to divide it up & give starter plants to friends. If you're one of those non-gardeners who could even kill bindweed, then this is a good plant. In that very cold winter of a few years ago, we experienced overnight temperatures down to -16 degrees here, but the sorrel still popped straight back up in springtime.

So, my soup recipe, which is what I most often make with our home grown sorrel. It doesn't require any weird ingredients.

Sorrel Soup

1 quite large onion, chopped.

1 smallish potato, chopped.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 bunch of fresh sorrel leaves - you want a generous handful - shredded.

300 ml vegetable stock (I use Marigold powder or Aldi veggie stock cubes which are great in soups)

300ml semi-skimmed milk

Salt & freshly ground black pepper 

Heat olive oil in a pan, add the onion & cook gently until softened, but not browned. Add the potato, sorrel, stock, milk & salt/pepper to taste. Bring pan to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Put the lid on & let it cook gently together for about 20 mins. The contents will look rather curdled at this stage because of cooking the milk, but don't worry, this is normal. Take pan off the heat to cool a little, then blend it until smooth with a stick blender (or put in liquidiser goblet...... if you like washing these up). Taste the blended soup for seasoning & add a little more salt & pepper if needed. Reheat gently before serving.

If you want to go a bit la-di-dah fancypants, then add a swirl of cream to the top of each bowl.

This soup freezes really well, so just divvy it up into portions & that's a few free lunches & pack-ups to enjoy in weeks to come. It's a very velvety soup, & quite delicately flavoured, so it makes a good 'starter' for anyone who wants to look a bit cheffy.

I find these quantities make about 3 portions, but it depends on size of appetite like everything else. For recipes which state 'Serves 4', I mentally add 'Or my husband!'

I made my last batch of sorrel soup about 2 weeks ago. The sorrel has already completely grown back ready for cutting again, so it's a nice productive little plant to cultivate.

For those of you who I know like a regular update on Albert Whiskers.....well, he's been busy testing a brand of cat biscuits this week. Burgess Cat Biscuits with salmon, chicken & chicken & duck. He thought they were worth waiting for..........

.....& threw himself into this task with his usual food-related vigour. After snarfing all three bags (just to make sure), he has declared them all most definitely fit for purpose. Burgess Pet Foods seems to be a UK company too, so I'll look into that, as may want to support a small British company more than a huge multi-national. Albert Whiskers won't care, as the only ethics that matter to him are the ethics of his hungry tummy.

Have a good week all,

Will soon be ready to share a little tour of our veggie garden to show how it's getting on for the new season.

Cheers,

C x

Rhubarb cake & yet more rhubarby loveliness......

Hello Friends,
Isn't it fab to see a bit of sunshine after what feels like 4 months of sort of indeterminate grey. I feel we need a theme tune this week, so who remembers this? Surely one of the best theme tunes ever, & most appropriate today when I'm going to be boring you all with rhubarb! 

On Easter Sunday, I lifted the forcing crock & harvested our crop of lovely pink rhubarb, the first significant food from our garden this year. When people leave their jobs, they generally like some kind of commemorative or personal gift, but practical to the end, I decided that a forcing crock was what was missing from my life. This year, it was sending signals that it was more than ready.........

After a winter of pretty much bare soil, the pink stems & bright lime leaves are always a welcome burst of colour.

Surprisingly, there was sufficient to make a few different things. I started by trying a new recipe from the Waitrose 'Spring Harvest 2015' booklet. 

These are free booklets, & are nice enough to collect & give as a gift if you know someone who loves cooking......if I didn't live near enough to a Waitrose to pick them up for myself, it's the kind of little gift I'd be happy to receive, tied up with a bit of arty-farty raffia, of course, with a couple of new pound shop wooden spoons. Anyway, back to the all-important life-giving subject of cake. I used 400g of my rhubarb in Rhubarb & Custard Traybake. 

What can I say? Oh my days, it was fab! I've made other rhubarb cakes, but this was different & special. First, the rhubarb had to be lightly caramelized in a hot oven.

The cake mixture is a sponge, made infinitely more interesting through the addition of ground almonds, custard powder & about a cupful of Waitrose Seriously Creamy Madagascan Vanilla Custard (no, definitely NOT the stuff you had slung in the general direction of your jam roly-poly at school in the 70s!). The cake mix is smoothed into a lined tray, then deep craters are made with the back of a tablespoon, which are then filled with the remaining custard. This seems counter intuitive, as it seemed to me, as an experienced home baker, that the cake mix would be too wet to cook through properly. If you try this recipe, don't worry, just follow the instructions & make the custard craters.....

When all the custard has been applied, add the rhubarb and bake. The custard sets a bit, but still retains a lush squidge on cooling. 

All it requires now is a sprinkle of sugar before devouring a piece with a really decent cup of coffee. Not sure if you like it a lot or love it immensely? Best have another piece. Seriously, this is the best rhubarb cake I've ever made.....or eaten. It's not difficult to make & it offers the deep therapeutic qualities of the cake that is just the right balance of squidge & crumb, sweet & tangy. Go on, bake one, you know you want to! 

So that was the fate of some of my pink rhubarb. The rest of it was turned into compote, a rhubarb, apple & ginger cake and a batch of rhubarb & cinnamon muffins. 

The muffins, which have now have a layer of lemon icing, are in the freezer waiting for a picnic opportunity. While the Big Hairy One & I are known for picnicking in all weathers, including 4 inches of snow, it's always great to be able to sprawl out in the sunshine so as to be able to combine a bit of serious communing with nature..........& cake.

For fans of Albert Whiskers, I am pleased to report that after a slow start, he has really taken to his cardboard claw sharpening pad. He hasn't stropped his claws on the rug for over a week. I still think that the catnip is the main pull, as he can enjoy inhaling it from his paws all evening. It's a result, though. Not often that there is helpful behaviour to report where Albert Whiskers is concerned.

Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine......& if I've tempted you to make a Rhubarb & Custard Traybake, I do hope you enjoy it.
Until next time,
C x

Happy Easter Wishes x

Hello Friends,
Spring is here at last! In our garden here at the People & Cats Republic, everything is busy germinating, bursting into bud, tweeting, buzzing & pecking people's prize purple & white stripy primulas to shreds with naughty vandal beaks.

The 'Ice Follies' daffodils are looking fab & I must have bought mine on the day the bulb counting machine had a melt-down, as my sack of 30 bulbs actually contained 45, enough to plant an extra couple of pots. 'Ice Follies' are a tall strong variety, with very pale lemon yellow petals & frilly darker centres. 

Over the last week, they have put up with all-day rain, gales, hail, not to mention the ever-present delinquent sparrow army & sporadic cat spats, & they are still standing tall, so I can recommend them for anyone wanting a good show this time next year.

I always like to make an Easter Tree, an easy sustainable project, as I just cut a few twiggy branches from the garden, arrange them in a vase & decorate with a motley assortment of spring decorations I've made or collected over the years. 

Some are looking a little the worse for wear. This poor chick moults off a load more feathers each year & will soon be bald, but we have an Equality of Opportunity Policy here at 'Hagstones', so bald mange-suffering poultry are as welcome on our tree now as the legless robin with the staved-in head is at Yule.

It wouldn't be Easter without baking, so this year, I made a big iced sponge to take along to yesterday's family fuddle. Even as a very keen baker, it was the first time I'd made a Genoese sponge. I can remember we had to know the difference between a Genoese & a whisked or Victoria sponge for O-level cookery........yes, we really learned to cooked back then........we didn't spend a whole term farting about with designing a sandwich & a marketing plan for its packaging.........cookery was a life skill, & one of the most useful, money-saving & creative things I learned at school. Anyway, I'd noted the general paling & twitchiness of 'Great British Bake-off' contestants when twigging that the recipe they'd been given involved a Genoese. Decided to give it a go on the basis that if it collapsed in a tragic heap of crumbs, I'd easily be able to knock up my quick bomb-proof chocolate cake. It turned out to be pretty straightforward, just a case of being organised & having the melted butter ready to drizzle in down the sides of the bowl. (Admittedly, I made mine without the gimlet eyes of Mr Hollywood roving over my batter, & with nothing more distracting than the continued attempts of Albert Whiskers to get into the fridge). I split it into 3 layers & filled it with home made plum jam & vanilla butter cream. I was pleased with the result. Everyone enjoyed it & wanted some to take home, so it was all eaten (just in case anyone was thinking of accidentally calling by for a spare slice........).

So, it's Easter. The Wheel of the Year is turning & everywhere I look in the garden, I see a task which needs doing. I'll try to catch up with some of those this week. Whatever you are doing today, I hope you had chocolate for breakfast. I have to hold my sticky hand up in admittance that I had both breakfast AND chocolate for breakfast, but that's kind of the law at Easter. 

So whether you are celebrating the welcome return of the Spring, as we do, the resurrection of your god, a pleasant weekend away from work spending time with your families & friends, or a mixture of all of the above, we three at the People & Cats Republic would like to wish you all a Very Happy Easter filled with all the promise of springtide. I would like to extend special wishes to all those people in essential services who have to work over the holiday weekend, often for wages which do not reflect the value of the work. Our country would grind to a halt without them & they deserve our thanks.

Till next time, when I shall mostly be boring you with rhubarb, but all being well, there should be an interesting cake......
Cheers,
C x