Random Recipes does No Croutons Required - Get Better Soup

So I was ill this weekend and I was so disappointed because I was suppose to go to Norwich for a weekend with the girls, Oli and Rosie. Instead I was stuck on the sofa with a swollen neck looking like a chipmunk! I guess the silver lining was that I got to watch lots of girly films and harry potter (!) and got away with whatever I wanted by telling the boy "but i'm sick".

As I was going away this weekend I didn't think I would have time to participate in Dom's Random recipe challenge this month. He has teamed up with Jac from Tinned Tomatoes (who you have met on my blog before in this post and this one) and her challenge no croutons required. The challenge this month is soup!

Being ill made this challenge perfect for me, and I had time to do it. So here is my recipe for "Get Better Soup". I didn't 100% follow the rules, but my excuse is that I don't have a cookbook with a soup recipe in, so I googled soup and the first thing that came up was a roast tomato soup. I didn't have all the ingredients for this and wanted to get in as many veg as I could to boost my immune system! So I roughly followed the recipe and chucked in every other veg I had in the fridge....randomly. Hope that counts!

This makes 6 bowls of soup:

6 tomatoes
2 carrots, peeled
2 onion
1 leek, chopped
3 mushrooms, chopped
3 cloves garlic
parsley, diced
chicken stock
2 tbsp balsamic vinger

1. Put the tomatoes, whole onions, carrots and garlic together in a baking tray. Drizzle with oil, salt and pepper and roast for 35 mins at 180C
2. Meanwhile make up the stock and cook the mushrooms and leek in it.
3. Take the roasted veg out of the oven. Put everything in a big pot/blender. Chuck in the parlsey, salt, pepper, other herb and balsamic vinegar in.

4. Blend in the blender or with a hand blender. Add more water until it reaches the consistency you are happy with.
5. Eat or slurp!

I had this soup on two days:

Day one - I added some wholegrain rice, I just love rice in soup.

Day two - I didn't add rice but topped with toasted wholegrain bread and cheese (obviously in full on feeling sorry for myself mood!)

Feeling much better now and am already planning another weekend to make up for the lost one!

We Should Cocoa - Roast Goose with Apples and Cocoa

I mentioned my thanksgiving meal in my last post, which was delicious but you may have notice I didn't elaborate on the Goose recipe. That is because it is my We Should Cocoa entry this month.

Chele from Chocolate Teapot is hosting this month's We Should Cocoa and she challenged us to make something with cocoa and apples! I didn't have a lot of time this month. I had originally planned to make apple and chocolate Mille -feuille but I'll have to make that another time, instead I decided to double up my thanksgiving meal with the challenge. I got this roast Goose recipe from allrecipes.com but I added two teaspoons of cocoa to the spice rub. The Goose is stuffed with fried apples and covered in a spice rub with cocoa. You could taste the cocoa on the skin (yum!) and the goose meat had an overall spicy taste.

Here is all the food on the plate, covered in gravy!

Just as a side note, this is the weird fused mushroom I used for the green bean casserole.

Was too busy eating the Goose so forgot to take a pic before it was carved but...erm...here is one after.

 Do you like my new wintery placemats? They are in red felt with cut out stars. I also sprinkled on some felt snowflakes, cute huh?

These are from the new plate set my mum got me for the "festive season". I don't have too much room for them but I love festive stuff!

So be thankful today, in fact all weekend, and tell at least two people you love that you love them because   this holiday reminds us to be thankful for what we are blessed with x

Happy Thanksgiving - Pecan Pie

Happy Thanksgiving y'all

As you've probably noticed I am English but something I don't think I have shared is that my mum is American. We used to celebrate 4th July when I was younger but haven't for a few years and as my mum doesn't really enjoy cooking she hasn't gone in for Thanksgiving.

This year I decided I wanted to have another excuse to eat yummy food celebrate my other roots!

My Thanksgiving menu

Starter: 
Deviled eggs

Main:
Goose with cocoa and apple

Sides:
Green bean casserole (I added mushrooms and a tbsp of soy sauce to this)
Sweet potato and nutmeg
Mash potato
Caramelised onion and leek stuffing (I added two leeks to this recipe and swapped the chives and thyme for fresh parsley)
Gravy

Dessert:
Pecan Pie with clotted cream ice cream - The recipe can be found on allrecipes.com here (I'm sorry there aren't more photos, I got distracted eating it)

I took a half day off at work and prepared the food before the boy got home and my parents came over. I had to carry the 6.5kg goose home from the butchers and it was heavy! It was fun making all the food but hard work and me and the boy will be eating goose for a long time. I had goose and mushroom risotto tonight ;o)

My mum sang a Thanksgiving song which was the highlight of the meal! Hope your having a lovely day with your family and loved ones.

x