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Squash, Sweet Potato & Coconut Autumn Soup

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As much as I like Summer and the warm, balmy evenings… HA I live in Wales who am I kidding? I really embrace Autumn. I’m all for snuggly jumpers, fleecy throws, steamed puddings and SOUP.

I picked up a red onion squash at my local market and I was intrigued as I had never seen one before. I wasn’t sure what to make with it so I ended up splitting it into two and using one half to make this incredibly tasty autumnal soup.

Red onion squash

I used my Kenwood kCook to create this dish from start to finish to dice, soften and simmer my soup. I’ve had this Multicooker for a few months now ands it’s a really useful piece of kitchen gadgetry! It saves time from chopping vegetables and from changing from pan to pan etc etc. Perfect for anyone who loves homemade food but struggles with finding the time.

KCook soup

You will need:

1/2 a medium squash
2 sweet potatoes
1 shallot
400ml of vegetable stock
300ml of coconut milk
1/2 tsp of oil
1 small red chilli finely diced
Pinch of sea salt ( I used smoked salt from Flavour Magic )
Pinch of black pepper

Peel your vegetables and cut into quarters before placing in your kCook machine with your oil ( if you don’t have one you can dice your veg yourself) and press stir for 1 minute until finely diced. Now cook on the soup/sauce option ( or in a pan ) for 10 minutes to soften.

KCook softening vegetables

Add your vegetable stock, coconut milk and seasoning and cook for a further 20 – 30 minutes. At the end of cooking stir/puree for 2 minutes until smooth and serve immediately.

Red onion squash, sweet potato and coconut soup

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Doesn’t just looking at it make you think of conker fights and walking through crunchy leaves? Autumn in a bowl.

Keep your eyes peeled to find out what I did with the rest of the squash!

* I received the kCook for the purpose of a review and recipe development.

Sweet Potato, Wild Garlic and Spinach Soup

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I love wild garlic. It smells incredible and at this time of year it’s so abundant and of course it’s FREEEEEEEE.

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We went foraging a few weeks ago and it was lots of fun. We came home with a bulging bagful of fragrant leaves and I’ve already made a wild garlic oil, a pesto and this soup:

You will need:

4 small sweet potatoes diced
1/2 large red onion diced
4 handfuls of wild garlic, roughly chopped ( I just used the leaves)
2 handfuls of baby leaf spinach
750ml of vegetable stock
1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
Pinch of sea salt
25g of butter

*50ml of double cream – optional.

Sauté your sweet potatoes and onions in butter in a large saucepan until softened and golden. Add your stock and bring to the boil before adding the wild garlic and simmering for 5 minutes. In the last minute add your spinach, black pepper and seasalt.

Now you have two choices, you can purée it thoroughly using a hand blender or you can blend mostly and leave some texture which is what I chose to do. I then added the cream for a little splash of indulgence but if you are watching the calories it would be perfectly good without it. Again the butter can be substituted for oil if needed.

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This soup was delicious and made about 4 large bowlfuls. It was even better the following day after the flavours had mingled. Yum.

Have you got a glut of wild garlic you want to use up?

Try these recipes from some of my fellow bloggers:

Wild Garlic Scones
Wild Garlic Pesto Pinwheels
Feta & Wild Garlic Muffins
Quinoa with Wild Garlic Sauce
Fennel and Wild Garlic Salad
Beetroot, Walnut, Wild Garlic and Goats Cheese Brunch Muffins

Love Soup

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There are lots of variations of Love Soup floating about online or in recipe books. The Jack Monroe version is one of my favourites. This is my version of Love Soup ready for Valentines Day next month. It’s warming, delicious and EASY. I make mine in a Vitamix but other blenders would work too I imagine. The Vitamix just takes all the work out of it and also heats it which is a bonus.

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There are two ways to make this – you can use all raw vegetables or you can use baked sweet potatoes which I actually prefer for the extra flavour.

You will need:

2 carrots
2 sweet potatoes ( preferably baked with flesh scooped out and skins discarded)
1 shallot
1/2 clove of garlic
1/2 red pepper
1 mug of vegetable stock
1 handful of fresh coriander
A pinch of crushed black pepper

If you are using a Vitamix, place all ingredients in and blend on the highest setting ( increasing gradually ) for approximately 4-5 minutes until steaming hot. Serve immediately or chill and refrigerate. If you are making this using a pan and hand blender you should dice your veg and herbs and cook until soft with the stock before blending with a hand blender (carefully) until smooth.

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This is delicious and full of flavour. My girls love it as do I. It’s also great served with pasta as it’s fairly thick and tastes almost creamy – add sautéed chorizo for a special treat.

I’m linking this to Extra Veg run by Michelle and Helen.

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Hide the veggies pasta sauce

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My daughter will eat pretty much anything. I know I’m lucky and many of my friends and family really struggle with what their toddlers will or won’t eat. I am also sensible enough to realise this may not last forever and next month she may be as picky as picky can be.

Today I was making up a pasta sauce for my OH to take to work and decided to make up a batch for Izzy at the same time. Now as I said at this moment I don’t have any problems with getting her to eat veg but this is a sure fire way of knowing that she gets everything she needs.

So here we have a super easy but tasty tomato sauce which can be whipped up in 5 minutes and frozen if necessary.

You will need:

A carton of passata (500g)
A large handful of baby spinach leaves
2 handfuls of frozen broccoli ( steamed or boiled)
1 sweet potato ( diced
50g of cheese (grated)
1 knob of butter
1 tbsp of chopped parsley

Boil/steam your broccoli and sweet potato and set aside.
Sauté your spinach in butter until soft, add your passata, broccoli, sweet potato, cheese and parsley. Warm through and use a hand blender to thoroughly blend all ingredients.

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This made enough to feed my hungry man and toddler with another leftover for another meal. Next time I’ll definitely make double and freeze a batch.

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Knocking up some Gnocchi

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Being able to make the food you love from scratch has to be one of the best parts about being a foodie geek. I love Gnocchi and if you have read my blog over the past 6 months you will see at least 2-3 recipes pop up using the ready made stuff.

A while ago I was given a book from two of my lovely friends and its called Homemade and written by Yvette Van Boven. I’d never seen this book before and never actually seen it anywhere since but I’m sure you can find it online and it’s definitely one I recommended buying. The book itself is a bit mad and all over the place and it has recipes for all sorts of things from bread to ketchup and marshmallows to liqueurs and all from scratch. Imagine knowing that everything you served was made from scratch. So if you made a burger and the roll, the burger and the ketchup were all made by you .. Well that would feel kinda good yes? So whilst I’m not setting myself ANOTHER challenge as I don’t want to go overboard I do want to make more dishes entirely from scratch.

Gnocchi seemed a little scary to make but I don’t know why. As always being the disorganised chef I realised at the last minute that I didn’t have enough potatoes so I substituted with sweet potatoes and it worked. In fact it worked so well I don’t think I’ll be buying ready made again as it just doesn’t compare.

Ill give you a list of ingredients and a bit of a how do I but if you really want to know how I recommend buying the book as each step has a picture and well I just can’t do it justice!

You will need:

1kg (2lb) mix of potatoes and sweet potatoes or you can just do potatoes
1 egg
300g 00 flour (pasta flour)
Pinch of salt

Step 1

Boil potatoes in skin until soft, remove skin whilst still hot. Mash or use a potato ricer ( I don’t have a ricer – it’s in my want list)

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Step 2

Tip onto a clean work surface and add your flour ( not all in one go – it gets messy) you may not need it all or you may need a tiny bit more. Also add your salt.

Step 3

Add a beaten egg ( again not all in one go ) and mix together with your fingers. Be prepared for mess and stickiness.

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Step 4

Knead into a smooth dough, if needed add more flour or your egg.

Step 5

Roll out into a rope and divide into equal sections

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Step 6

Roll the sections into smaller sausages.. Mine were quite long.

Step 7

Cut these sausages into small cushions and leave

Step 8

When they are all cut roll over the back of a fork ( or use a gnocchi board if you have one)

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Step 9

Save under a clean tea towel until ready to use

Step 10

Or cook immediately, they are ready when they float to the surface

Cooked and ready for my bake

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It’s worth noting that this recipe makes a lot of gnocchi! I divided into 3 batches and cooked one and froze two. I haven’t defrosted yet so can’t comment on how they coped with being frozen – I’ll let you know when I do!

Gnocchi and bacon cream bake

I placed my cooked gnocchi in a small cazuela (overproof pan) and poured on some single cream,chopped parsley, seasoning and cooked bacon. I gave it all a good stir and baked for 15 mins them sprinkled on a little cheese and cooked for 5 more minutes. It was delicious served with a salad and garlic breaded mushrooms – this recipe will follow later today.

Just ready for the oven:

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And just out of the oven:

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My verdict: it was slightly fiddly and messy but I enjoyed and the end result is more than worth it!

Give it a go x

Super (food) sides

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Curly Kale may not be that familiar to you. Not all supermarkets stock it and its only readily available from September- March. Kale is a brassica and part of the cabbage family, it’s very attractive in dishes due to its green curly leaves and packed full of nutrients – considered by many to be a superfood. I have only recently started buying it but I can tell you it’s delicious and versatile.

The recipe below is one I have made previously with Savoy cabbage but I actually prefer this with the Kale.

Sautéed curly kale with bacon and sweet potato

You will need:

Curly kale ( I buy washed and ready to cook) break up any big bits and discard chunky stalks
2/3 rashers of bacon diced
1/2 a sweet potato chopped very small
2 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 a banana chilli diced finely
1/2 a red onion diced
Butter
Olive oil
Seasoning

Heat a little butter and olive oil in a large frying pan or cazuela, add your sweet potato, onion, garlic, bacon and chilli and sauté for 10 minutes or so until bacon is golden and everything else is softening. Add your curly kale, season and cook for a few more minutes. Don’t overcook and ensure it doesn’t burn.

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Serve immediately on warmed plates – cold kale is like cold cabbage. Not good.
This is great as a side with chicken or fish or on top of spaghetti aglio olio – yum.

Last time I made this I threw in a handful of peppery rocket right at the end and it was very good!

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Served on top of spaghetti with a small amount of crumbled extra mature cheddar.

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Don’t neglect one of the most nutritionally rich vegetables in Britain. Next week I’m going to try making Baked Kale chips as a low calorie alternative to crisps.

The simplest slow cooked supper

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Sometimes food needs to be simple and cheap.. And well easy! However you still want it to taste good, there’s no point in ever cooking something from scratch if its not going to be tasty.

This is a very brief post just to share with you a delicious recipe for a slow cooked sausage, sweet potato and bean stew.

The prep will take you 5-10 mins then its throw it all in, leave for 8-10 hours et voila.


Sausage, sweet potato and bean stew

You will need:

6-8 sausages ( I only use sausages from my butcher or Debbie&Andrews in the supermarket as they are 99% meat which is after all what should be in our sausages)
1 red onion diced
1/2 large sweet potato cut into smallish chunks
1 large carrot diced
2 tins of baked beans
1 it of chopped tomatoes
About 100ml passata
Some fresh or dried herbs ( I used oregano on this occasion)
Seasalt and freshly ground pepper

First lightly brown your sausages all over in a frying pan with a tiny bit of olive oil and your onions then scoop it all into our slow cooker with the remaining ingredients and give it a good stir. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours and then serve.

Crusty bread to mop up the incredible sauce is optional but delicious.

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