One for Halloween & Bonfire Night - Cream of Tomato Soup with Bacon & Cheese Muffins

Now this is just perfect food for watching fireworks, or for cold and hungry Trick or Treaters (assuming they aren't stuffed to the gills with sugar, that is!).

I didn't set out to make a Halloween or Bonfire Night
meal, I just liked the recipe for the Creamy Tomato Soup and had a sudden brainwave that my Bacon & Cheese Muffins would go really well with it.  I wasn't wrong either.

I found the recipe for the soup in the BBC Good Food Magazine and liked the sound of it immediately.  I can't seem to find the same recipe online - so you've got it reproduced below, albeit with the numbers scaled down a bit, just in case you want to try it too.

The recipe really couldn't be easier - it all happens in the one pot, with a little bit of blender action from a hand blender.  The soup also keeps happily in the fridge, as I was eating leftovers for the next couple of days, it made that much!

I was particularly attracted to the concept of there being celery, carrots and potatoes in the soup along with the tomato.  Any excuse to get a bit of vegetable matter into my menfolk and I'm there.

Son & heir really liked the soup - and enjoyed dunking his muffins in.  Hubby wasn't so keen, in that all he could taste was tinned tomatoes (which was odd, as there was rather more than just tinned tomatoes in there!) and found it too acidic for his palate.  I really, really liked it - and would make it again for just such an occasion as Halloween.

The soup comes up - after blitzing - as very nicely thickened and wholesome, but without degenerating into babyfood.  I liked the tomato flavour and didn't find it acidic at all.

I suppose all you can do is try it - and let me know if you think it comes up acidic, as we just can't agree, here!

If you are interested in the recipe for the muffins - scroll on down!

CREAMY TOMATO SOUP   (serves 5-6)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 onion, chopped finely
2 celery sticks, chopped finely
150g carrots, peeled and chopped finely
250g potatoes, diced finely
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp tomato puree (Tarantella is my favourite)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
400g tin chopped tomatoes (Tarantella, again)
250g passata (and again, Tarantella is my favourite)
1-2 vegetable stock cubes (I used Essential Cuisine's vegetable stock powder)
500ml boiling water
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
100ml full fat milk
100ml single cream.

Method :

1.  In a deep, large saucepan, heat the oil and add the onion.  Cook gently until it has begun to turn golden brown, then add the celery, carrots, potatoes and bay leaves.

2.  Fry gently, stirring from time to time to prevent the potatoes sticking to the bottom of the pan, until the vegetables have softened slightly.

3.  Stir in the tomato puree, sugar, vinegar, chopped tomatoes and passata, then add the stock cubes or powder.  Add the boiling water and stir well.

4.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes or until the carrot and potato are tender.

5.  Remove the bay leaves, then blitz with a hand blender until smooth.

6.  Season to taste (the amount of salt will depend entirely upon the salt contained in the stock cubes), you can afford to be generous with the black pepper.  You may need to add a pinch or two of sugar, depending on which brand of tomatoes you used.

(If freezing, this is the stage at which you would cool the soup for the freezer).

7.  Stir in the milk and cream, check for seasoning and don't let the soup boil from here on in.  Bring up to a simmer and serve.

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Now, the perfect accompaniment to the above soup, are my Bacon & Cheese Muffins.  The best part about these two combined, is that you don't need to see what you are doing, in order to eat them.  Hence, being out in the dark with a mug of soup and a muffin in your hand, is no problem.  You can keep your eyes on the fireworks without worrying about nibbling around a bone, or whether you've got the best bits on your spoon.  Just dip and slurp - what could be easier?

These Bacon & Cheese Muffins have to be the single most requested recipe in my entire repertoire.  I think of anyone was asking me for my signature recipe, it'd have to be these chaps.

I have made them so often in the past, that the recipe can be utterly trusted to deliver a gorgeously light and fluffy muffin, redolent of cheddar cheese and smoky bacon.  Whether you're eating these for breakfast, lunch or with soup for dinner - they hit the spot.

I have big problems keeping these muffins in the house long enough to take photographs of them, to be honest!  No sooner are they out of the oven than there's a queue of hungry menfolk licking their lips and clutching their woefully empty plates, with hopeful looks on their faces.  It's not just the menfolk either!  While the muffins are cooling, I have to barricade them behind tea caddies, fruit squash bottles and cereal boxes, plus make it very difficult for the Secret Paw (also known an Jonty, the Saluki dog) to get his paws up onto the worktop - or they'd be gone.  All he can do is patrol the area with his nose in the air!

The kitchen suddenly becomes a very busy place, when these muffins are out of the oven!

By the way, it might be worth your while to not let on how easy these are to make - or you'll be being petitioned for more baking before you know it, too!

You'll find the recipe for the Bacon & Cheese Muffins here.




 

Big thanks and a tricky meal plan, this week!

A cake for everyone!

First of all, before we talk about the meal plan for this week - I must tell you how proud I am of you all and thank you for being brilliant readers, commenters and loyal fans of Rhubarb & Ginger.

You see, at the end of September, Rhubarb & Ginger had registered a new all time high for page views of 18,953!  In one month!  Wowser!  Yes, I know - how close did we come to hitting the 19k mark?  But then, there's always next month.  *wink*

Great big thank you's go out to you all - across the globe - for coming back and reading my ramblings and salivating (or I hope you salivate!) over my recipes, before trying some of them at home yourselves.

~ applause! ~

Now then, to business and this week's meal plan.

It's a tricky one, because my parents are likely to call us at short notice to come over and put together my Dad's mobility buggy, which they've ordered and which should be delivered some time this week.  They just need some muscles to help put it together and deal with all the packaging - so it's not an onerous task, but it will probably mean we will need a quick and simple dinner for that evening.  Plus, of course, we don't know which day we'll be called on - which has made planning the meals a bit more complex than normal.  After all, we don't want to be committed to doing a recipe that will take several different stages over the course of a day, if we're not going to be here!

I think we've wound up with an interesting collection of meals, that are flexible enough to be cooked by pretty much either of us and which can be moved around (barring Sunday!) to suit.

Here's the plan :

Tues : Stir fried black bean beef, with noodles & vegetables

Weds : Pasta bolognese

Thurs : Oriental pineapple pork, with chinese style kale and rice

Fri : Smoked haddock & leek risotto

Sat : Creamy tomato soup with bacon & cheese muffins

Sun : Chicken Biryani

Mon : Rarebit sausages, mash and vegetables.

Now I don't guarantee that any of these (other than Sunday and maybe Thursday) will happen on the day that they're scheduled for - as it all depends what happens regarding the delivery of the buggy.  The plan is that the Pasta Bolognese is the wild card that can be moved on down the menu - to be had on the day we'll be out.

So fingers crossed, it'll work that way!

Photo c/o www.back-mirror.com

Tonight's Stir fried black bean beef is using the remaining third of the whopping great lump of Silverside that we bought a couple of weeks ago.  It's been in the freezer ever since, just waiting for a good idea like this one.

I found two sachets of black bean sauce in the larder cupboard - still in date, amazingly! - and so hubby volunteered to make a noodley stir fry with them.  The beef is a beautiful piece of lean meat and should be a complete doddle to cut into thin slices.  Just show it a blindingly hot wok and it'll be done - and stay wonderfully tender.

The Pasta Bolognese is, as I say, the wild card.  It'll be just a bog-standard version.  No singing or dancing involved and one of son & heir's favourites, so he'll be happy!

Something like this - c/o BBC Good Food.com

Thursday's Oriental Pineapple Pork is hubby's choice - he's still continuing with his "thing" about pineapple.  Keeps trying to include it in the weirdest of combinations, so hopefully this rather more predictable combination will be a) yummy and b) soothe the savage pineapple monster.

I'm looking forward to the Chinese style kale, as I absolutely adore kale.  Hubby isn't so convinced about the stuff, but this was his choice again - so hopefully it will be presented in such a way that it changes his mind.  It's actually a very simple dish - stir fried kale with garlic, soy sauce and oyster sauce, but I can just imagine the flavours and they're very nice indeed.  They'll go well with the sweet pineapple pork.

Hubby features highly in this week's meal plan, as Friday's Smoked haddock & leek risotto was his idea, too.  I love his risotto's - and so does son & heir (finally), so we're all dead keen on this one.

Little muffins of deliciousness

I thought we'd have an early Bonfire night on Saturday.  Son & heir's birthday is on Halloween, so we never seem to "do" bonfire night in any great way, as we're either all partied out, or financially broke, or both, by then.  I love the idea of a thick creamy tomato soup with bacon & cheese muffins (which are, universally, voted as "my favourite muffin") to dip with.  Who knows, if it's not pouring with rain (yeah, right - the forecast is for rain all week) we might even break out the fire basket and have a mini bonfire on the patio, just to make it perfect.

Sunday's Chicken Biryani isn't going to be one of those "quick" biryani's.  This is one that will be started the day before with a marinade and then move on into long slow cooking in a low oven.  I'm hoping that we'll be able to get the most flavour out of the chicken and spices by trying our hardest to follow the "authentic" way of cooking biryani.  I'll probably do a raita to accompany it, along with mango chutney and some flatbreads.  My mouth is watering already!

No!  Not RABBIT sausages - RAREBIT sausages! ~rolls eyes~

Hubby saw a recipe for rarebit pork chops and wondered whether it was possible to do the same thing, but with sausages.  His plan is to open each sausage out - butterfly it, effectively - and then cover with the rarebit mixture and bake.  I'm intrigued!  I can see how it would work on a pork chop, but with a sausage I'm a little unsure.  However, if it does work, it'll be a fabulous mid week dinner and just perfect for a Monday.  Oh, and it's an excuse to make some mashed potato - and I'll never turn down an opportunity for mash!

I haven't got any plans for any additional makes or bakes for this week, but I am anticipating the cropping of Ruby 2 (the second rhubarb bush) - so we'll be busy freezing the rhubarb in advance of some pre-christmas chutney making!

Bacon & Cheese Muffins

A very long time ago, when I first made muffins and they were successful, it got us to thinking about what flavours would combine well in that context.

We went through all the nuts and fruit combinations, all the chocolate combinations and chocolate/fruit combinations - and then began to think savoury.

The very first combination that struck us, was Bacon & Cheese.  Now that seemed to be a workable combination for a breakfast or elevenses muffin, provided enough cheese was involved.  So often, in recipes, cheese is on the ingredients list but in insufficient quantities to make the kind of flavour impact that cheese lovers like us are looking for.  To our way of thinking, if you're going to have cheese in something, then we want to taste it - not just imagine that it's there, somewhere, under the rest of the flavours.

So, what we have here is a very cheesy, very bacony, Bacon & Cheese Muffin.

Sprinkled with cheese and ready for the oven

These muffins are by far and away the very tip top favourite of all muffin-kind, where my hubby is concerned.  He even asked for some for his birthday!  Granted, they aren't the cheapest of muffins to make - as they use an entire 340g pack of bacon at £2.60 or so, not to mention the cheese and buttermilk.  As an "extra" (i.e. outside of the normal run of breakfast, lunch and dinner) and as the ingredients only make 6 (albeit large) muffins, they definitely don't work out as the cheapest baking in the world.

However, as a breakfast treat - or a school break time treat - you'd have to go a long way to beat them.

Mmmmn ... bacon & cheese goodness!

I've tried various additional flavours with these muffins - such as sun dried tomato, red onion, and olives - but it seems to me that these additional flavours just serve to detract from the beautiful friendship that the cheese and bacon to have developed.   Although, having said that, I do add some English Mustard powder and a small amount of paprika.  These, though, rather than standing up there and exchanging fisticuffs with the cheese, do a very good job of being backing singers to the cheese and provide a deeper flavour profile to the substance of the muffin.  The mustard powder also provides a comforting and gentle warmth that you're really not aware of until after the last mouthful has been swallowed.

I thoroughly recommend a good strong cup of coffee along with these muffins - and a drop of warm sunshine and a comfortable patio would be good, but we can't have everything!

BACON & CHEESE MUFFINS   (makes 8-10 large and 10-14 small)

Ingredients :

340g smoked back bacon
110g strong mature cheddar, grated (10g separated out for sprinkling)
360g self raising flour
2 tsp English Mustard powder
half a tsp paprika
half a tsp cayenne
1 tbsp sugar (I used a rounded tsp of Truvia)
100ml extra virgin olive oil or rapeseed oil
2 large eggs
250ml buttermilk
50ml semi skimmed milk (or plain yoghurt).

Method :

1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degF/350degC/gas4.

2.  Cook the rashers of bacon - whole - under the grill until the fat has rendered out but before they become crispy.  Put them on a plate and allow to cool completely.


3.  While the bacon is cooling, grate the cheddar.


4.  Take each rasher of bacon and with scissors, cut into small dice.

5.  In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, mustard, paprika, cayenne) until thoroughly mixed.

6.  In another bowl, combine all the wet ingredients (oil, eggs, buttermilk, milk) and give them a whisk with a balloon whisk until thoroughly mixed.


7.  Combine the liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients in the large bowl plus add the bacon and cheese.  Give everything a good few stirs - but don't over-mix.  It is good with muffins to retain a certain lumpiness to the mixture, so don't worry if there are small clumps of un-mixed in flour.  Too much mixing makes a tough muffin!


8.  Decant the mixture into one or two silicone muffin trays which have been placed upon a baking tray (otherwise they're hell to handle!).  Sprinkle over the remaining 10g of cheese.


9.  Put into the oven to bake for some 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the muffin comes out clean.


10.  Place onto a wire cooling rack and fight off all comers until ready to be eaten!


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