Truro twinned with .Qo'noS!

~  Menu  ~

Scrambled Egg Tart with …

Roasted Asparagus and Frazzled Prosciutto

White Wine Spritzer

Lindt’s New Caramel Chocky

Coffee

I’d just like to apologise for any tardiness in blogging – we are having a bit of a sad time here as my 87 year old father in law, who moved in with us a year ago tomorrow, seems to be on his way out.  He is sleeping 20 hours a day and eating hardly a thing.  On the plus side however, I have to say he is perfectly cheerful about the situation!  Anyhoo because of his frailty and the doctor’s prognosis we are having some of the family to visit which at least keeps me busy. 

For lunch today I realised I had run out of bread, or at least the stuff I call bread.  I only panicked for a moment before remembering the pastry leftovers (good old pastry scraps) in the fridge and knocked up a scrambled egg tart.  This wasn’t too extravagant as the oven was on anyway. 

There is not too much to say about this tart here's how to roast asparagus, here's about frazzling prosciutto and see here for information on scrambling eggs.

Baking blind is not difficult although I'll run through it, just in case ...

How to Bake Blind

This is how to bake an empty pastry case without the pasty puffing up and filling the space where you were hoping to put something yummy. Baking the pasty case first will go a long way to prevent a soggy bottom!

~   Preheat the oven to 5375ºF/190ºC/170ºC fan/gas 5 give or take a degree or two.  

~   Lightly butter or oil your chosen receptacle.

~   Roll the pastry large enough to fit said receptacle including the sides.

~   Lift the pastry carefully and gently press into the baking container.

~   Chill for a little while if you have time which should result in crisper pastry once cooked.

~   Prick the bottom of the pastry with a fork several times.

~   Loosely lay a piece of foil or greaseproof or baking parchment or waxed paper into the pastry case and up the side.

~   Put some raw rice or dried beans or purpose bought baking beans onto the lining; enough to weigh it down.

~   Bake for 20-25 minutes till the edges of the pastry are lightly browned.

~   Remove the foil or paper and the rice or beans and return the pastry to the oven to crisp the base which should take another 5 or 10 minutes.

See here for lots of other ideas for pastry scraps.

Not so pretty once cut but who’s looking apart from you lot?

Truru a'gas dynnergh 

We went to Truro today (in the rain, obviously) and I was surprised to see that the city has been twinned with what appears to be somewhere on .Qo'noS where, as you probably know, they speak Klingon.

On second thoughts it might be Cornish!

What to do with Leftover Soup!

~  Menu  ~

Spicy Roasted Tomato & Fresh Coriander Scrambled Eggs

Toasted Ciabatta

Red Wine

Homemade Cookies from a Friend

Coffee

We haven’t been food shopping for almost 2 weeks due to the aforementioned bout of ‘flu but I like to think I keep a tight ship, doncha know, so there’s been no problems.  

Today I was a bit lost for something to get me cheerful about lunch but a quick glance in the fridge helped tremendously.

A couple of nights ago I had roasted tomato and chilli soup but still being a little under the weather was so pathetic I left a little.  Really a little; less that 2 tbsp but I couldn’t throw it away.  For some reason, perhaps you are the same, if I throw something away immediately I feel guiltier than if I leave it in the fridge a few days and then throw it away! 

Lunch then was this modicum of soup heated up, 2 eggs broken in plus some chopped fresh coriander, scrambly, scrambly – toasted Ciabatta, red wine.   All’s well.

Handy Tip when making Scrambled Eggs

Incidentally a good tip for making extra delish scrambled egg (which I didn’t do today) is when the egg is just how you want it add a knob of butter or a splash of cream which not only enhances both taste and texture but also cools the eggs down so they don’t keep on cooking whilst you serve them. Scrambled eggs can be buggers that way.  I think that officially this idea is credited to Julia Child although I am sure lots of people must have realised the same thing independently.

See here for lots of information on cooking eggs.

If you click through to the Roasted Tomato Soup Recipe you will find another tasty way to use up soup remains.  Of course much depends on the flavour of your leftover soup but here are some other ideas:

~   add to more soup!

~   use to deglaze a pan to make a sauce
~   use as a sauce!
~   put a spoonful of warmed leftover soup into a buttered ramekin, crack over an egg, drizzle with a little more soup or some cream and bake at 350ºF/180ºC/160°C fan/gas 4 till the egg whites are set and the yolk just perfect: approx 20 mins.

~   add to casseroles and pasta bakes

~   mash into potato

~   stir into mayonnaise - see here for all sorts of ways to flavour mayonnaise 

~ fry it! ...

Soup Fritters!

The most fabulously impressive thing I ever did with leftover soup was make fritters! For a several years (not all of them consecutive!!) I ran the kitchen of The Tamarind Club in Tortola and, as anyone who knows Tortola will understand, Sunday’s at the Tamarind Club are hugely busy and no time for mucking about. Well …

… we had a group of regulars who for several days had been verging on having a celebration, I can’t remember what. Suddenly just as we were serving the last brunch dishes and cleaning down they decided they needed a party with nibbles that very afternoon. So I added handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs to the last couple of portions of the Seafood Chowder, chilled it, balled it up and fried till crisp. People, as is typical of People I find, asked for the recipe. They only do this when it is almost impossible to give one.

Several of these ideas are included in The Leftovers Handbook. If these are just some of the suggestions I can think of for leftover soup don't you wonder what ideas I have for the other 450 potential leftovers?

Here, apropos of nothing, is a picture of some lilies my Real Man brought home yesterday.  If you feel he can’t be that real-mannish buying flowers I would point out they were one helluva bargain!