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Saturday 26 January 2013

Spicy Pear And Butternut Squash Soup

The weather has been horrendous lately. Snow, ice, wind and rain. Ick. it is the perfect weather for soup. Hot, spicy, filling soup.


Pears, roast garlic and plenty of curry powder work beautifully with the bitternut squash. Yummy!

Ingredients. 

3 Pears
1 Butternut squash
5 or 6 Cloves of garlic 
2 Large potatoes
1 Onion
3 Good sized carrots
Some stock (home made or from a packet, I personally don't have enough room in the freezer to keep fresh Stock on hand.)
Mild curry powder
Paprika
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Method



Peel, de-seed and chunk the butternut squash. Peel, de-seed and chunk the pears. Peel and crush the garlic cloves. In a deep baking dish (like a lasagne pan) toss the squash, pear and garlic in olive oil, salt, pepper, 1 teaspoon of paprika and 1 of curry powder. Pop in a  hot over for 30 to 45 minutes.

Chop the onion, peel and dice the carrots and potatoes. Sweat the onions in a large soup pot with some oilve oil and some more seasoning if you like (I usually add another teaspoon or two of curry powder in at this point.) Toss in the carrot and potatoes and give a good stir. Spoon in the roast squash, pears and garlic. Pour over with warm stock until 3/4 to 4/5th full. Cover. 

When the potatoes and carrots are soft take pot off the heat and blend until smooth with a stick blender. This shouldn't be too much work. Pop back on the heat for 10 or so minutes until piping hot. 

Then serve up and enjoy! 

Minnie xoxo

Monday 21 January 2013

A New Year

21 days into the new year and I finally post. Crazy. Its needed though. A few weeks to figure out what I want from 2013. Its a big year. Bloke and I are getting married in July. I turn 26 in September. For some reason 26 seems like a bit of a watershed. I don't know why. Weird huh?

Anyway what have I actually been up to?

Well Dad and A came to stay a lot which was really awesome! There was a lot of food and a lot of banter. 


That's my Dad, he had a beard before they were hipster cool. He doesn't understand hipsters but he likes their food. 

I've fallen in love with the display in the village carpet shop. 


I think she'd make a fetching end table. I jest! I'm just a bit taken with with the idea that I live in a world where life size plastic sheep are a thing. She is part of the campaign to buy british wool, which I heartily support. 

This is the only picture of the Christmas cake I got post feeding. It was too tasty. I didn't even manage to decorate it. Food blogger fail or win? 

I have had a few requests for whole cakes off people for next year, so I don't think icing was missed all that much by anyone. It was proper lush with some (dairy free alternative to) butter on. NOM. 

I got my flower girl her dress! it was on super duper sale. Hurrah for the sales!


I was not a fan of the weird beige/dark sand sash though. So some magic that involved scissors, my sewing machine and some ivory satin silk from my fabric stash resulted in this lovely transformation. 


And now I'm kind of obsessed with silk. Not really a practical or attainable obsession to have huh? 

So I'm distracting myself with some more of my stash and a lot of tulle because I have underpinnings to make! 


This is what 15 meters of tulle net and notions looks like. I'm still working on this one. 

So far I've made one layer of my underskirt. 


Its utterly huge and wonderful. 

And that's it, pictures wise anyway. I've done a lot of cooking and some of that will make its way to here I expect. My only real resolution has just to live life a bit better this year. 2012 was on the whole a good if turbulent year, so my aim is for 2013 to be just that little bit happier, more colourful and more friendly. 

I hope you've all had a bright and happy January!

Minnie xoxo