Saturday, 3 November 2012

Preparations

Having made the focaccia dough last night, I knocked it back this morning and rolled it out to fit the baking pans so that it could prove. I don't think the house is very warm as it's taking a long time to rise again. Here's hoping it will be ready for tonight.

I made the soup this morning - a butternut squash one and a lentil and chickpea one. As I was making the soup, I realised that I didn't have any bouillon powder left to make the vegetable stock. I did think about driving to the shop to get some more but decided I would make do with water. I made the butternut squash soup by frying three chopped onions, then adding two diced butternut squashes and salt and pepper. I added about 2 litres of water, cooked until the squash was soft and then blended. It was at this point that I realised the soup didn't have enough body so I decided to cook some chopped carrots separately and then add them to the soup and blend again. It now tastes much better. For the lentil soup, I dry fried 4tsp of cumin seeds and 2 good pinches of chilli flakes. I then added olive oil and 3 diced onions (you don't have to dice them really small as the soup will be blended). Add 280g red lentils, 2 tins of tomatoes and 1.7 litres of veg stock (I added water as I had run out of stock). Boil for about 20 minutes until the lentils are soft. Blend the soup and then add 1 tin of drained chickpeas. Add salt and pepper to taste. As you can see from the photo, this amount feeds enough for an army so hopefully I should have enough for tonight. The lentil soup is at the front of the photo.


I've also made a double batch of chocolate brownies and I've just taken a double batch of fairy cakes put of the oven. I thought it would be good to have something sweet that isn't chocolate. I'm planning to ice them then maybe add a malteser to each one. Here's the chocolate brownies which I'm really pleased with.


The only problem is that after doing all this cooking and tidying the house up, I'm shattered. I now need to sit down and take the weight off my feet before everyone comes round. Have a lovely evening.

2 comments:

  1. What time did you start this morning to do all that!?

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  2. I think I've sorted the timing issue now. It was on Pacific time rather than UK time

    ReplyDelete