Tomato soup recipe..... yummm!!

RECIPE: 1 large carrot

1 stick of celery

2 onions (brown/yellow will give a sweeter taste, purple will be tangy)

crushed garlic to taste

450g/1lb tomatoes

2 tbspns olive oil.

1.2 litres water

1 vegetable Knorr stock pot (or similar) - google that if you've never heard of it!

salt/pepper

Chop up the carrot, celery and onions and fry in a big soup pan in the olive oil until soft.  Add crushed garlic.  Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes in half and add to the softened veggies.  Add salt & pepper.  Stir for about 5 minutes until all the veggies are part cooked.  Add in the water and vegetable stock and simmer for about 40 minutes.  Blitz the soup with a liquidizer - we use a hand held one similar to this

- blend until the vegetables have been totally blitzed and it's a thick soup.  Add basil leaves and then eat.  

This is our favourite soup recipe!!!

Savoury Brioche recipe

This weekend, we made savoury brioche and it came out rather well!!

We used 500g plain white bread flour

7g salt (1.5 level measuring teaspoons)

10g Allisons easy yeast (2 level measuring teaspoons)

140 ml full fat milk

5 medium eggs

250g unsalted butter

2 level measuring tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese

1 level measuring tablespoon of dried oregano

1 level measuring teaspoon of Colemans mustard powder.

3 cloves garlic, crushed.

First of all we put all the dry ingredients into a big bowl, with the crushed garlic and mixed it all up.  We let the butter soften and then we rubbed that in until it all looks like breadcrumbs.  Then we added the milk and eggs and mixed it all up with a wooden spoon.  Then we put a big dish on top of the bowl and let it stand overnight.

The next morning, we butter-greased two small loaf tins.  We put a handful of flour on the worktop and tipped out the dough.  We folded it over on itself a few times and then cut in half and put half the dough in one tin, the other half in the other tin.  Then we put both tins inside a plastic bag, closed up the open end of the bag and left it to prove for 2 and a half hours.  

Then we preheated the oven to Gas Mark 6 (about 190 C) - whipped up another egg in a cup and brushed a bit on the top of each loaf and then put the loaves in the oven for 45 minutes.
Remove from tins, and cool on a wire rack.

Yummmmm.....!!