Roasted Leek and Potato and Other Soups (Pumpkin and Smoked Garlic, Broccolini and Potato)

A few weeks ago my little boy started wearing dental plates, and since it is still hard for him to chew I have been making lots of creamy soups. Soups are nice, and quick, but not necessarily photogenic. To make it more fun I have been using the Camera+ iPhone application that Arfi showed me.

Roasted leek and Potato Soup with Leek Broth

Generally I sauté the potatoes and leeks in the pot to make this soup, but I wanted to try something different. So I cut the potatoes (Agria) and leek in big chunks, placed them in a roasting dish lined with baking paper, added olive oil and salt and roasted everything for about 30 minutes. I didn't want the potatoes to become brown, just lightly roasted on the outside, and soaking up the flavour from the leeks.

I washed the green leaves from the leek (the ones that are too hard to be eaten) and place them in a pot of water with some rock salt. I cooked the leaves until I got a fragrant and light leek broth. I removed the leaves and added the content form the roasting pan, oil included. I cooked everything for other 30 minutes, then blended the soup with an immersion blender.

The iPhone photos are so bright, not something I would use all the time, and not really suited to printed photos, but certainly fun for blogs, and soups!

Another good soup combo: Pumpkin and smoked garlic.

Here I just cooked some pumpkin (add a carrot for a brighter orange color) in vegetable stock, and before blending I added a couple of cloves of smoked garlic. More garlic salt and spices can be drizzled directly on the plate.

And then broccolini (from my garden), and potato soup.

Simmer the veggies in vegetable stock, blend and drizzle with

extra virgin olive oil.

All these soups are vegan, inexpensive, easy to make, gluten free, and healthy :-).

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book Sweet As... where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal...

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content ...

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel...

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