0 Potato, spinach, pea and basil soup - a tasty vegan feast

Another week has passed and we have another soup recipe for you, this one does have some reseamblence to shrek's swamp but trust me its very tasty and great for making when you hardly have anything in the cupboards. For the sake of economy I use frozen peas and spinach and there is no waste either.

                     

Vegan as it contains only vegetables, however if this isn't important to you then its delicious served topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese or swirled with creme fraiche or yogurt.

Thickened by blending half the ingredients in to the soup its low in fat and containes no flours or grains so its gluten free too.

What you need

• Onion - peeled and chopped
• 2 potatoes - peeled and diced
• 3 blobs of frozen spinach
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• Vegetable stock
• Salt and pepper
• A little olive or rapeseed oil
• Handful fresh basil

What you do

• Fry the onion and the potato in a little oil add the vegetable stock to the pan, simmer until softened
• Add the frozen peans and frozen spinach to the pan and bring back to the simmer and the spinach is defrosted. Add the basil 
• Now blitz half the pan with a stick blender until smooth and retaining some chunky vegetables for texture.
• Taste and season with salt and pepper as necessary.
• Serve piping hot

We are linking up to "Eat your Greens" over on Allotment 2 Kitchen , the challenge being to cook with a green vegetable and for the recipe to be vegeterian.

Detail: Potato, spinach, pea and basil soup - a tasty vegan feast

0 Lentil and vegetable potage in the slow cooker

I love making home made soup, its so comforting and ideal for a weekend lunch or for packing and taking to work. This recipe is so simple and so delicious and is so healthy too, what ever your diet this soup is for you. Potage was a medieval staple and even though I have taken some "poetic" license in including ingredients that were not available at that time, such as potatoes, onions, etc,  I think its can still be called a potage.

Lentils are used to give a smooth rib sticking velvety feel to the soup supplemented with seasonal local vegetables. I slow cooked this soup  in my slow cooker but this is not absolutely necessary and you would get the same great results on the hob.

What you need

• 1 cup red/orange lentils
• 1 large onion, peeled and  chopped 
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, chopped
• 1 large potato, peeled and chopped
• A little oil / butter
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• Sprig of fresh rosemary
• Small piece of pared lemon rind 
• About 1 litre vegetable stock - this needs to be hot / boiling
• Salt and Pepper

What you do

• Switch on your slow cooker to pre heat
• Heat a little oil or butter in a large pan and add the vegetables, cook for a few minutes until slightly softened
• Place the vegetables along with the lentils, stock, herbs and lemon rind in the slow cooker
• Cook on high for about 2 - 3 hours, until the vegetables are soft and the lentils mushy
• Remove the bay leaves, rosemary and lemon rind
• Process to a smooth velvety texture with a hand held blender, taste and season as appropriate, you may also want to add a little hot water or stock to thin the soup to your desired consistency.

I am using this recipe for  entry into several related blogging challenges.

Slow cooker challenge - this months theme is soup.The challenge was created and is hosted by Janice over at Farmersgirl Kitchen, I used my slow cooker to create my soup so it more than qualifies.

                                         

Cooking with herbs (theme this month is citrus) - January 2014 created and hosted by Karen over at Lavender and Lovage, the recipe features bay leaves, rosemary and lemon peel.

                                              

Simple and in Season - January 2014 created and hosted by Ren over at Renbehan.com . The recipe is a simple seasonal soup using local winter vegetables and herbs from the garden.

                                               

No croutons required Vegetarian Soup and Salad challenge hosted this month by Lisa at Food and Spice, the recipe is suitable for vegetarians and could easily be made vegan by using vegetable oil rather than butter.

                                                        

My Legume Love affair hosted this month by Briggishome , as the recipe uses lentils it qualifies for this challenge. The rules of which you can find here , a lovely blogging challenge created by Sue at the well seasoned cook.

                                                             

Detail: Lentil and vegetable potage in the slow cooker

0 National Vegetarian Week and Greenhalghs

Greenhalgh's Butter pie served with brown sauce

This week is National Vegetarian Week  a great celebration of vegetarian food. One great Lancashire delicacy is a great dish for vegetarians and that is Butter Pie. A pie that has its history firmly fixed in Lancashire and the area surrounding Preston in particular as a economical and nutritious meal for catholic mill workers. Butter pies are still produced by a number of local north west bakeries to satisy local demand, one of which Greenhalghs recently approached me to review their butter pie, obviously as a connoisseur  of the butter pie I was more than happy to undertaken this task.

A butter pie has a filling of potatoes, onion and butter, plus a little seasoning this is all in cased in a shortcrust pastry parcel, happily all the fats in Greenhalghs pastry are of vegetable origin so no worries there if you are vegetarian  I found the freshly baked pies to be delicious, juicy and tender and the pastry having just the right amount of crumble combined with melt in the mouth filling. Some people may think a pie with only potato, onion and butter in its filling would be a little bland, but far from it in a Butter pie the potato flavour comes to the fore. It is also nice that the pie has potato slices which create a nice texture rather than a mush I have seen in other butter pies.

Most high streets in the North west have a Greenhalghs so its easy to pop in and stock up on this great tasty vegetarian snack , especially during National Vegetarian Week.

                                           
Alternatively if you are feeling creative you could always make you own , check out the recipe in the popular posts.

Detail: National Vegetarian Week and Greenhalghs

0 Cheesy potato topped chilli

This is another recipe which uses Tasty Creations ready made Lancashire Cheese sauce, in need of a quick warming supper dish and not having much time to make it, I raided my stash of frozen goodies. I found a pot of Tasty Creations sauce and a couple of pots of homemade quorn chilli, so out they came, with the frugal addition of a couple of par boiled potatoes and this dish was born. Pronounced delicious by Mr Lancashire Food it certainly hits the spot on a cold winters night.

Ingredients

• Tasty Creations Lancashire Cheese Sauce - thawed
• Quorn chilli - made to this recipe but using quorn instead of mince and vegetable stock
• 3 large white potatoes, peeled , sliced and parboiled until tender

Method

• Pre heat the oven to 180c
• Place the chilli mixture in your oven proof dish, covering the whole of the dish
• Place the drained potatoes on the top of the chilli mixture in an even layer
• Pour oven the tasty creations sauce
• Place in the oven and bake for approx 25 - 35 minutes until golden and bubbling
• Serve accompanied with a fresh green salad if you are especially hungry.

Detail: Cheesy potato topped chilli