Life is Short.

A very good man died in a climbing accident on Saturday. A very good man indeed. But K, his best friend, pointed out to me that he'd done more in his short life than most 70 year olds.

So here's to remembering that life is beautiful, you never know what's round the corner, and friends (including family) may be far away but distance doesn't mean they stop being there.

Sorry I've been quiet.

Had a lovely busy weekend filled with wine, Gossip Girl, S, Brossos (lovely restaurant in La Grund), Liquid (awesome bar a la Grund) and the cinema (don't watch New Years Eve it will leave you sobbing!!!! S, M and I went to see it and we were messes!).

So today marks a new week full of exciting prospects, like the perfect leek and potato soup, and the fact that I did Salamba Sarvangasana (supported shoulder stand) in my yoga practise today! I'm not sure which I'm more excited about!!

So anyway, here's the perfect leek and potato soup recipe:

You're going to need a large leek, a good knob of butter to cook it in, three baking potatoes peeled and sliced thinly, and a litre of chicken stock.

So, you cook the leek in the melted butter (there isn't a better smell in the world than when you're cooking something in good butter), when the leeks are nicely softened throw in the potatoes and the chicken stock, bring to a nice rolling simmer and leave until the potatoes are soft (now it's important that you've sliced the potatoes thinly because you don't want to overcook the leeks) once the potatoes are cooked blend until smooth, gently reheat (adding a splash of milk if you like a think soup) and serve with parmeasan (I don't care about my spelling of it!)

This soup is best served on a rainy day with a cup of lapsang souchong tea and a good book.

Enjoy!!

Yesterday's lunch ...

... was a seriously tasty bean soup. The children had polished it off before I managed to take a picture!! But here're the remnants...

To make this tasty soup you need a can of baked beans, a can of chopped toms, a can of kidney beans, a can of bortolli beans and any other beans you fancy adding, butter beans would be lovely! You also need a dash of chilli powder.

Now it's a very complicated method ... drain the kidney beans and bortolli beans and put in a big stock pan, then add with baked beans, chopped toms (rinse out the can with about half a can of water and add to the soup) and chilli powder. Stir, put the lid on the pan and leave over a low heat for about an hour (or to speed things up heat it up over a high heat for 10 mins). That's it! Serve with bread and cheese :)

Messages

On my run this morning I decided I'd had enough. I wasn't in the mood to run, I didn't need to go for a run after the hour and a half of exercise the day before, I was just running for the sake of it and what's the point in that? Surely you should do something because you enjoy it not just because you feel you should be doing it? So I stopped (and caused the cyclist behind me to nearly crash, but it was his fault for being behind me!). I stopped and thought about things, I carried on walking through the Petruse Valley because it was a nice morning, but I just took the time to think. I thought about the wonderful message my friend L had sent me the previous night (I found the message as I was turning my alarm off this morning, it was trying to make me do yoga but I was so warm in bed that I didn't). This message made me feel so grateful to have people like her in my life. And it made me feel very happy that people (person) was reading my ramblings! It's nice to know that people are reading what I'm writing. I often feel like Julie, from Julie and Julia, when she's talking to her computer screen saying 'hello? is anyone out there?'

Enough of my ramblings for now, there's a bean chilli that needs looking at!

Hello yummy kedgeree!

After weeks of no posts you get two in one day! This one is about the delicious kedgeree I made for the kids tonight.

Isn't it beautiful (if a little blurry)

Here's the recipe.

Cook some rice, now I was feeding four children and me so I used two small cups of brown rice and four cups (exactly the same cup) of water. Popped it onto a medium heat, covered and left for 40 mins. DO NOT whatever you do lift the lid until at least 30 mins have passed. Trust me!

While the rice is cooking poach some white fish. Do you know how to poach fish? If not here's what you do. Get a frying pan full of water, put your fish into the water, bring to the boil. That's it. Wait until the fish is cooked (until it's not slimey!) and then remove from the pan, get rid of the water and use the same pan for the next bit!

The next bit is frying up some onion, green beans, peas and pepper (whatever veg you feel like!) fry the veg in a blob of olive oil and a good sprinkling of curry powder (the kids aren't fans of spice so I only used a tiny bit, but if I was cooking it for myself I'd used a good teaspoon and a half). While you're frying the veg boil some eggs, until they're soft boiled, about 7 mins. You'll want an egg per person. You need to peel these (run them under cold water to cool them down else you'll be playing catch with them) and chop them in half.

Once everything's cooked mix it all together (not the eggs, leave them out of it for the time being) and add either fromage fraise or creme fresche. Whichever you've got handy, natural yoghurt would do if needs be! You want it to be not too gloopy, but not too dry either. Once it's all nicely mixed pour/spoon into a serving dish and place the eggs on top. When you're serving it you'll need a good crunch of black pepper and a smidgin of salt. You could make it fancy with wedges of lemon and sprigs of parsley, but who has time for that?!

Enjoy!

No posts then a post with TWO recipes in! You lucky things!

Sorry for the serious lack of posts! I've been at home and far too lazy to do anything! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has set lots of New Years Resolutions!

I wish I could say the past two weeks have got lots of photos to go with them, but sadly they haven't, I took the camera home with excellent intentions but my intentions just didn't manifest themselves! So instead there's a recipe with pictures for you.

I made pumkin soup for the twin's lunch (seriously yummy by the way!) and decided that instead of throwing the seeds away I'd roast them for a healthy snack.

So here goes, my first recipe with pictures!

You need:

Pumpkin seeds (I take my hat off to anyone who frequently deseeds pumpkins, they are fiddly!)

Salt

Olive Oil

Baking Tray.

Method:

Step 1: De-seed the pumpkin! I didn't even know that the little seeds went all the way through that stringy bit in the middle!

Step 2: Wash the seeds and make sure all the little bits of pumpkin flesh are off them, it's a bit like cleaning mussels and getting all the beards off.

Step 3: Dry them and place in one layer on a baking sheet, cover with a good drizzle of olive oil and loads of sea salt (the seeds become a lot less healthy with all the salt, but they're so tasty!)

Step 4: Bake at 120 degrees Celsius for about 40 mins (I went off to do yoga and lost track of time when theses were in the oven and they managed not to burn so don't worry about them!) et volia! You have tasty, relatively healthy, toasted pumpkin seeds!

Here's the lovely pumpkin and pesto soup.

To make this bad boy you throw an onion and a clove of garlic into a pan, and let them soften while you chop a pumpkin into cubes. Throw the pumpkin into the pan with a good shake of cinnamon and cumin, cook for about 5 mins and then add 650ml of chicken stock. Simmer it until the pumpkin's soft then blend and add a good dollop of green pesto and a glug of cream. Re-heat gently and then serve with a lovely splatter of pesto on top.