Spicy butternut squash soup recipe

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 27 October 2010 in cooking, recipes | 2 comments

I made this spicy butternut squash soup for lunch for John, Strowger and me yesterday; Strowger liked it so much that he wanted the recipe so I thought I’d put it on here :)

For us spice fiends, it’s more flavourful rather than head-exploding spicetastic – if you’d prefer the latter, just add more dried chilli flakes. The flavour comes more from the cumin & ginger than from the chilli.

If you don’t have a blender or stick blender, using a potato masher to squash the … squash when it’s ready. The resulting soup won’t be quite as smooth but it should break down easily to give a chunky soup consistency.

Simple spicy smoked mackerel kedgeree recipe

Posted by louisa on Thursday 7 October 2010 in cooking, recipes | 4 comments

We had some reduced-to-clear smoked mackerel in the freezer so I decided to make some kedgeree for a quick but tasty dinner on Monday evening.

It’s a bit buttery, pretty spicy and quite, quite fishy – basically yum on a plate. And it’s easy to make too.

Super easy blackberry jam recipe

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 21 September 2010 in cooking, preserving, recipes | 11 comments

I love cooking but I have a surprisingly low tolerance for faff – particularly faff involving large quantities of sticky substances that need to sit for a long amount of time. I’m also very clumsy, live with an equally clumsy boy, and have less than graceful pets. In other words, preserves that involve the use of jelly bags are not for me.

Most blackberry jam recipes are more like blackberry jelly recipes – they involve straining out the juice and using that to make to the finished pulp-free seedless product. However, if you don’t mind partial berries and seeds, this blackberry jam is super easy and tastes really, really good!