Carrot Broth

Well it's the end of the month and I don't have any money to spend on fancy things like eggs or parsley, so today's soup is made from the junk at the bottom of my vegetable drawer.
I'm actually really really pleased to have this book, it's a little photocopied collection of recipes from a cookware 'club' which sold pots and pans to housewives, dated April 1977. There's a preface, introducing the club ethos, all about how nutrients are lost if you cook things with the lid off or boil veg in water, so all of the equipment sold is cast aluminium wooo and has tight fitting lids ahhhhh.
If I was a housewife and had nothing to do during the day while my husband was at work, I would go to a club like this to meet other women and buy frying pans. I wouldn't have any friends because we'd just moved to this neighbourhood, in the suburbs, and after I've made him breakfast in the morning and tidied the lounge I would have 4 or 5 hours free before I had to start making dinner (not this soup, my man likes a real meal). We got all sorts of useful things as wedding presents, so I don't really need the casserole dishes and frying pans with domed, well fitting lids that the Club sells, but it's nice to feel a part of it all. Hmmm, one day.
This is the recipe, so basic, so beautiful. Season with seasoning. I used ham stock because I was extra hungry today.
Believe it or not, a soup made with onion and carrot is very sweet, but nice. It's not blended, rustic and hearty. Next time I would add a bayleaf, celery, something savoury.

Update and Cream of Celery Soup

So I got engaged on Valentine's Day! The bf (now he's just f, but I'm not going to call him that)
He bamboozled me, I told him that it was a really cheesy thing to do to propose on V Day and he agreed, and then he did it! I came home and made him his favorite dinner and he gave me a beautiful ring he designed himself.
I'm very very happy, and what better way to bring me back down to earth than to start my wedding day diet again.
I bought this book in a charity shop ages ago because I'm weak! I can't help collecting sets of things, and already had the Winter Puddings Cordon Bleu book, so you know... I've never cooked from it because it's so dated. Dated how, you ask? This celery soup is thickened with roux, cream and egg yolk, to make it luxurious? Cooked celery doesn't have that much flavour, so all you're left with is thick, mild chicken stock that's slightly green.
Look, I put it in my fanciest bowl and it's still very uninspiring.
But I'm engaged! I'm walking around on clouds, from now on I'm only making positive comments. So this soup is perfect to give for dinner to someone who likes their food quite plain. I like spicy food, so sometimes it's hard for me to empathize with people who don't, but now I can at least have them round for a meal. Serve with one plain piece of white bread.

Paella Rice with Red Mullet and Roasted Pumpkin

I haven't posted anything for a while because I've been working on a new project. It' early days, so I'll see how it goes over the next couple of months, in the mean time I will do my best to keep this blog - my pet poodle - going. I've honestly missed the stream of consciousness confessional nature of writing here, never again!
Paella, by Alberto Herraiz is one of the books I got for Christmas, I saw a review for it here and put it on my wishlist on a whim, it's that kind of impulsive behavior that makes so charming you see.
My bf (who is also my bff) is half Spanish and I invited his mother over to borrow her paella dish and to get her hyper critical view on the validity of any of the recipes in this book. It's a very interesting selection, there are multiple recipes for stocks and sauces, a section of paellas made on the stove and in the oven, some to be made on a grill outdoors and even some sweet options. Some are very very traditional, some are quite... experimental. I chose red mullet because it's seasonal and there aren't any hard to find ingredients (did you know that Morrisons sells own brand paella rice now? Like ain't nothing but a thing!). You are meant to buy your mullets uncleaned and use the livers as a base for the rice. I got mine from Jonathan Norris's stall which is two minutes walk from my office. The first time I walked past him I thought he looked familiar, and then I realized that he's the guy from season 3 of Come Dine With Me!!!! So amazeballs, is it cool that I'm excited about that? Anyway, he was happy that I didn't want my fish cleaned and I feel like we really bonded.
Buying the fish was the best part of making this recipe, it will kill you. Here are some status pictures my stepmother took.
The result is beautiful and perfectly tasty, but a little too sweet from the pumpkin for me. It was also nothing like any paella Maria Isabel has ever heard of, but that's kind of the point of a paella, its a receptacle for any old junk you have lying around. And actually an insane amount of work. Why would you clean and fillet six red mullets, make a extraordinarily delicious stock, cut up pumpkin into two different sizes of cube, blanch, roast and puree half and assemble your 4 hour paella when you could just go down the road to your favorite Spanish restaurant and get something just as delicious for a lot less money. There are a lot of skills to master, and if that's your bag, this book is perfect.

Anyway, here's another thing I'm doing, it's a charming thing for charming people to do. Pick up the book closest to you, turn to page 45, the first sentence describes your sex life. This is a great game to play with cookbooks. Here's the result from Paella "There are differences of opinion when it comes to black rice", which describes my sex life exactly.