Another soup - if the vegetable soup was not your cup of tea

Tomato soup

Did you try the vegetable soup last week? Well, maybe it was too much for first bite.

Let's go and see how to make it much easier.

It happens that my sweetheart son does not like what I cook. He eats it on Monday but next Tuesday he dislikes it. Happens. He keeps changing, his appetite changes so does his taste. And it is also possible that I slightly change something which changes the whole meal for him. Well, for these cases I have a super 10 minutes soup which he always loves.

Tomato soup from pure tomato juice.

Always buy the 100% pure juice. Add to a pot as much as you need. Add some sugar, salt and pepper. Keep tasting it. Once it boils, add pasta and three drops of extra virgin oil.  If you'd like you can add some water. I use small sized Italian pasta as you cannot buy pasta for soups here. (Which I find kind of weird.) When the pasta is ready, your soup is ready. Add basil before you remove it from the hob.

If I have some spare time, I make pasta on my own. Shape it, dry it, use it. Lovely. If you cook for your baby do not forget that there are some types of pastas which contain egg. Check when shopping and be careful with the egg. Use durum wheat.

This soup is not the best diet for your baby as it contains sugar. You can minimize the intake of refined sugar by using birch sugar which is perfectly fine for your baby.

About cleaning

I know, I know. We were talking about cooking and not cleaning. But, these two things go together. You must clean before cooking and after... not a fairy tale.

Before cooking always make sure that the tools you use are clean. I am very serious. Have you ever been to a very low level diner's kitchen? Find one on the road somewhere (maybe not in your country) and ask them for you to have a look at the kitchen. Even from the door...it will be enough for you to make sure that you keep your kitchen clean. Always.

End of story.

Some tips for cleaning:

• Use lemon to clean the cutting board, simply scour it. Especially, when you must remove the raw meat. Be careful with raw meat and eggs, do not risk salmonella.
• Lemon is great to clean your fingers after a nice portion of BBQ chicken wings eaten by hand
• Vinegar is great to disinfect your kitchen countertop, it removes limescale from the sink. Put water to a spray bottle and add some vinegar. Spray it, wait, wipe dry it. Easy, isn't it.
• Before cleaning the oven put water to a oven-safe pot and let it boil in there for several minutes. Be careful with the heat and the hot metal, though, you just wipe dry the most of the grease and dirt.
• Do not leave the dishes for the next day...you may collect more and more....and more...and just one more... NO, do not let your kitchen live its own life. It takes 5 minutes to tidy up after each meal, so it is easier to keep it clean.

I am manic cleanliness, a neat freak. You do not have to follow me in that. But there are basics. And these should be normal standard to everyone. 

How to organise your kitchen?

The best if you are lucky enough to have a kitchen on your own. 

If not...well...either you convince your mom/dad/boyfriend/girlfriend/neighbour to let you change things, to let you reorganise their kitchen. They will not like it...but you can try. Or just be selfish and temporary use the reorganised order of things. Don't be bothered; they will put things back if they don't like them in their new place. :D

You need space to prepare things between the sink and the hob. If it is possible. Best scenario is that you can wash your hand/the veggie/spoon as many times as you need, you can add water easily to your food boiling on the hob. We will talk about the oven soon, as well. For now it is good enough if check how to use it. That can be tricky. :D

What you need:

• a very good, sharp knife to chop, one to clean veggies and one to cut them.
• cut board
• kitchen spoon and at least one table spoon
• pots, pans
• kitchen towel
• spices
• oil, spread, butter, etc.
• herbs
• bowls

These are the basics.

What I do is that I have the knifes between the hob and sink, spices on the right side of the hob. Spoons, other tools under the hob. I do not really have to move more than a meter while cooking, no matter how big the kitchen is. 

When you want to do something prepare every ingredients and line them to see whether you have everything. What must be cleaned, cut, goes to the sink-side. What are additions, like flour, goes to the right side of the hob.

And yes, if you feel cutting the veggies too tiring you are free to sit on the floor with your bowl and knife or get a chair...maybe a bar chair. If you decide to peel and cut things on the floor be careful that it does not harm others (kids eg.) or you do not leave water on the floor as it can be slippery.

But if you cook every day and you do not have time for laziness, you learn how to do these things efficiently, quick and easy AND standing. For example if you clean all the veggies, you just need to cut them quickly. It can go directly to the pot, no additional dirty bowls. The messy thing comes when you work with meat, especially mince. Or you bake. 

We will get there....For now, get the chair and open a bottle of wine if that makes you relaxed. :) Where to place your wine glass? I know. Not easy, heh? Definitely to the right side where no dirt can get in there.

Vegetable soup - the kick off

Let's pretend that this is your first time in a kitchen. Don't think that you are alone with that. There are others out there who try it first time today. 

How I make vegetable soup

Chicken soup

The first photo I have taken is of a chicken soup with vegetables. It is a very nice Hungarian soup, basically it is a broth. I cook this soup - really a large amount of soup - and put the liquid to plastic containers. I normally keep three containers from one soup. When I want to have a vegetable soup quickly during the week, I just defrost the liquid with some additional water, put some carrot and potato in it. I already have the flavour, the richness, the love in it. I also add some pasta. The one I used on the second photo is a special Hungarian pasta. Any pasta would be fine which is small enough.

Vegetable soup

How you make vegetable soup

Ingredients:

carrot

potato

tomato

onion (some don't like it because difficult to digest - cut it to really small pieces or leave it as a whole and remove it from the soup at the end)

garlic (same as onion, leave it as a whole, only make a cut on it and remove it when the soup is ready to be served)

any additional vegetable you like

pasta

water

salt 

pepper

olive oil

the basic herbs: lovage, parsley, celery

you can add anything you like and feel would fit

Clean and slice every vegetable in a form you like and put it in a pot. Add water. The minimum amount of water is that it should cover the ingredients. And let's go! Turn on the fire!

Basically, we are almost done. You do not have to stay and stare at the water to boil. Cover it and give it time to warm up. When it reaches the boiling temperature remove the lid. Don't worry, you will hear and see when this happens. Adjust the heat to the minimum or as low that the soup can keep boiling but not running away from your hob. If you see that the water is getting low refill it.

Normally after 30 min the vegetables should be good. It depends on the vegetable's age, the temperature you use on the hob, etc. Keep trying to check whether the potato is soft enough. I would suggest that you use fresh vegetables, especially the carrot can be disappointing when it is old.

Add now the cut herbs. I was told once that the herbs should never be cut by scissors or knife, only torn by hand. Anyway, add the herbs and after cca. five minutes taste it. You will feel that it is sweet but watery. You add the salt and pepper now. Keep tasting. We still need to put the pasta which will soak up the salt, so don't worry if you put some more than needed.

Why do we add the herbs and salt&pepper at the end? Because then you will feel the real taste of the vegetables and not only the spices, yet the herbs can add their own aroma.

Once you feel it is done, add one teaspoon of olive oil. I use virgin oils because of my son. And before putting much salt in the food, I separate his portion. 

Add the pasta now and check back in five minutes. Actually on the bag of the pasta it is written how long it must be cooked. It can be al-dente or ready cooked. You decide.

While you are waiting for the soup to be boiled, the vegetables to be cooked, you have plenty of time to clean the kitchen or have a nice chat with your guests. Once the pasta is done we are ready to serve our first creation. 

What do you think? Was that too complicated? What did we do?

We cleaned and cut the vegetables. Put them in a pot. Keep waiting. Add spices and pasta. Done.

You maybe noticed that I did not add any indication of how much you should use from the ingredients. This is where the art begins. You use your own instinct. This is why I do not write recipe books. I don't want to tell you what to do or how. I just would like to give you a guide to find the artist in you.

Enjoy your soup and the compliments.

What to consider - recipes good for babies, too

I cook every day. In England, where we live, lunch is normally a sandwich and people have dinner in the evening. Well, not in my country! Lunch is a three-course dinner every day and me and my husband hardly eat anything in the evening. My husband needed to take lunch with him to the office, I must have lunch and then there is our baby.

When my son decided that he does not want to eat pureed baby food any more he was only 8 months old. He only wanted to what mom and dad do. My sweet little grown up baby. :)

The challenge to feed him made me be even more creative in the kitchen. I had to find out how to cook that he can also eat with us. Because I did not have the energy and time to cook two or sometimes three different full menu.

When you read my recipes therefore  consider that my foods are more or less suitable for babies from age 8 months old. This is anyway normally the time when complementary feeding should be on demand and you should give up the leadership and let your baby decide how big bite he wants. He also should develop the skill to eat for example a fruit  as a whole, using hands and fingers to be able to pick up food from the plate on his own. But there are so many things that he cannot eat yet.

Today my baby is 10 months old. In the past two months I created so many recipes which are good for babies, healthy and wealthy. :) I am happy to share.

The very first food you should try with

I noticed that many people do not eat soups. Why is that?

Soups are really healthy, they can be rich and filling your tummy. Additionally, it is not possible to fail when you cook soup. It is just water and then you just toss the ingredients. Some spices and herbs and let's boil.

I would suggest that try to cook soup.

Ok, what if you are really not a soup-person? You can go ahead with the pasta. No way to fail.

Many asked me what I put to my soups to make them so rich in flavour. They ask which type of bouillon cubes I use. Well, you will not like my answer. I do not use any. I really try to avoid them. Specially when I want my baby to eat the soup too. What do I do then? I build up the flavour harmony on my own.

I grow my herbs. You don't have to. It is possible to buy them dried.

My basic herbs are for vegetable soup:

• lovage
• parsley
• celery

This Friday I share with you how to make a really lovely vegetable soup. Trust me, not a big deal! You will need some herbs, though. 

How to start?

I am telling you that the cooking books are just great! Unfortunate, that they only help you if you already cook well. Otherwise you will not understand a word. I noticed that they treat you as if you knew everything. But then why would you use a book to learn? Open the book only if have no idea of what to cook. Read the labels and the ingredients and that's it. Do not go into the details because you will be lost in two sentences. Anyway, if you feel that it's time to cook something and you are into it, you should not be discouraged by a book. Just go into the kitchen and let's see what you have at home.

Do not ever think that you cannot make it. Because you can!

Does not matter how old you are, where you are from. What matters is that you want to do something here.

Let's then check what are the basics you should keep at home to be able to create something.

It always depends on what type you are. I am a pasta type. There are people who prefer Asian food, ones like the vegan staff, others would eat everything with meat.

It is also important to see the level of your knowledge. This is going to be your first? Have you ever boiled water before? Did you happen to cook and it was just not what you expected?

Anyway, find your favourite ingredients.

I always have at home:

pasta: my husband likes penne, I prefer spagetti. I always have two, three types of pasta at home.

rice: brown rice is healthy, good to eat it sometimes. We do not like it that much, though. So we keep it to the minimum. Normal rice is always welcomed.

chicken breast: in the freezer. Do not store it in one piece, slice it before putting to the freezer and put them into separate bags. Defrost only the portion you need.

Herbs, spices.

You need to know them to be able to use them. Start to read the labels of the food you buy from stores. Find out what they are made of and from. Be cautious what you eat and whether you like them.

Until next week figure out your favourite ones and let's cook something together.

Motivation

Does not matter what your motivation is. When you go to the kitchen just leave your thoughts behind and start listening to your divination. Nobody cares what you do in there. Only you. Nobody cares how you feel about it. Only you. Do it for yourself.

I will guide you. Read my blog and I will post something to inspire you every Friday to be ready for the weekend cooking!

Just a quick side note:

When my husband proposed me one of his reasons was that I am the perfect housewife he wished for. It is important for men to be treated well down there...(not that down...or at least it's not what I mean now).

What I think of cooking...

Cook with me tonight

I am not telling you that the homemade food will be much better than the one from the store or restaurant.  I cannot guarantee that what you cook is more delicious. What I can guarantee is that you will feel proud. You will be receiving compliments. And you will be really not happy returning to the kitchen after the nice moments spent with your lovely creation and see the piles of dishes around.

Ready-to-eat food is great. I eat them, too. Rarely, but I do. I eat pizza, I eat cookies and drink coke. I am not trying to show up as if I was someone to show you how to live better life, how to eat more healthy,etc. The only thing I thought to share is the moment when you see the happiness spread on the face of your beloved husband - or the person you chose to test your cooking skills on – while he tastes one of your new creation.

Cooking is art. It is a way to express yourself, to show your feelings. And trust me, the ones who eat your food will feel how much you care. It will be very much appreciated. That is what I want to share with you. It is a gift I give you.

So, why not cooking with me tonight?

Intro

Hi, I am Mariann. 

Since my son was born I am a full time mummy and enjoying every moment of it. Yes, even the dirty diapers. Many times I thought that being at home and taking care of my son is not satisfying me fully. Then I look at the gorgeous smile of my son and I do not care about the world anymore. 

Yet, I have thoughts, I have skills, I did not stop being me. I need to share my thoughts, I must improve my skills. I must be me.

This is the reason why I decided to write. Any time my son sleeps I run to my fantasy world. This time, on this blog, I run to the kitchen to show you how to be more creative and how to collect compliments from your family.

If you feel that you have your own recipe, send it to me and we share it. You can publish with me.

The most important is that you find your own style. Do not try to cook Italian or Mexican. Cook pasta in your own way. Find your favorite Mexican food and spice it up and make it a’ la YOU.

Cooking is all about you. It’s your art, your masterpiece. Enjoy!

ps.: Please bear with me and my English... I am not native speaker. Cheers!