Bacon, Leek, and Potato Soup

This is not your usual pale, creamy, and smooth leek and potato soup. This is a chunky, flavourful, heartwarming dish with big bits of bacon, diced potatoes, and sweet leeks. It needs about 20 minutes to simmer, which is the perfect amount of time to make some rolls or a salad to go alongside. (Recipe for cloverleaf rolls coming this weekend.)

Four Ways to Eat Mushrooms for Dinner

Next time you see a punnet of mushrooms in the fridge you know you can make dinner. Here are four brilliant ideas.

1. The new idea for me this week is leek and mushroom fritatta, pictured above. It is a Donna Hay recipe that I tried this week.

"Green Things" Pesto

While I am cooking, I set aside all the little green scraps. I keep them in the fridge until I have collected a large handful or two. Then I make "green things" pesto to use up the delicious green leftovers.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

This soup doesn't have any cream.

This soup does have a creamy, smooth texture and taste.

Furthermore, this soup contains a full head of cauliflower, two leeks, and a potato. The potato is the secret to the creamy texture.

This warm and creamy soup could not be more satisfying in cold weather. It's easy and cheap to make. It dresses up well for company, when you can garnish it with parsley leaves, fresh ground pepper, and some sunflower seeds. It can be made in advance and reheated when needed.

This soup is the reason you need to buy cauliflower this week!

poached egg for lunch

December's Daring Cooks challenge is a perfect one for me. Jenn and Jill have challenged The Daring Cooks to learn to perfect the technique of poaching an egg. My favourite lunch is some sort of veggies accompanied by some sort of egg. And poaching the perfect egg is a skill I have relished learning. Together with some green bean and leek veggie pancakes, I had a perfect lunch.

for freezing: fish with cheesy topping

I am trying a few recipes from the book I borrowed from the library: The Kitchen Revolution. I expect to review this cookbook for you in a while, after I have tried out a few more of the 400+ recipes. The title of the first recipe I tried is Fish Rarebit. It's based on Welsh Rarebit, a fancy cheese-on-toast. Here, the toast is replaced with white fish. The idea of this "Two for One" meal is to make double proportions and then freeze half for a later meal.


Sweated leeks are added to lots of cheddar cheese, breadcrumbs, some ale (or water), mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Then this is layered on the fish and grilled for a few minutes, then baked to finish. The recipe in the book makes two meals for four people, so I made half this, serving Ant and I one fresh meal and one frozen for a later date when things get hectic and we are both thinking of take-away. The original recipe is below.

Fish Rarebit
two meals for four people


3 leeks, approximately 500 g, finely sliced
2 T butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 T mustard powder
1/2 t ground cayenne pepper
350 g cheddar cheese, grated
2 t Worcestershire sauce
75 ml bitter or ale (or water)
100 g breadcrumbs (made from 4 slices of bread)
8 portion sized white fish pieces (haddock, pollock, cod, or coley, for example)

Melt the butter in a pan and add the leeks. Cover and sweat gently for 5-7 minutes.
In a bowl, combine eggs, mustard powder, cayenne pepper, cheese, Worcestershire sauce, beer or water, and breadcrumbs. Season with salt and pepper.
Remove the lid from the leeks and cook until the liquid evaporates. Season the leeks, remove from heat and allow them to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F and heat the grill to its highest temperature.
Oil an ovenproof dish large enough to hold four fish pieces. Place four fish pieces in the pan and use half the topping to cover the fish. Place under the grill for 3-5 minutes, or until topping is brown and set. Then bake in the oven for a further 7-10 minutes.
Meanwhile, top the remaining four fish pieces with the remaining topping. Place them in a suitable container (plastic, foil, or ovenproof dish). Cover and freeze well.
To cook the frozen meal at a later time, defrost the fish completely. Cook as above.
Serve with new potatoes, watercress salad, or veggies of your choosing.