Italian Sausage & Vegetable Soup

This recipe is one of those that just has to do be in my blog. I have always loved Italian sausage soup since I lived in the USA. This recipe is perfect and not hard.

INGREDIENTS:

-6 medium sausages.
-2 carrots.
-1 zuchinni.
-1 medium onion.
-3 celery stalks.
-1 clove of garlic.
-1,5 litres of water.
-1/2 of vegetable stock.
-1 tspoon of thyme.
-400 grams of diced tomatoes.
-a bundle of some frozen spinach.
-pepper and salt.
-optional: some pasta/potatoes.
-optional: white beans.

STEPS:

1. Brown the sausages in a pot and set apart. I use the same one for the entire recipe.
2. Dice up the vegetables, including the garlic in little squares and sautee in the pot in which you have just fried the sausages a bit. Sautee them for 10 minutes until they soften up a little.
3. Now add the pepper and salt and add the can of diced tomatoes the thyme and the water and stock.
4. Add the sausage that you have sliced up and bring everything to a boil. 
5. Now reduce heat and let it simmer to medium fire. 
6. After another 10 minute add the pasta, spinach and beans.
7. After 10-15 minutes pasta should be done and it will all have come together nicely.

Yum, serve with bread, crisps, etc. I add the beans and the pasta to make it a complete meal and forget about it all. 

Rhubarb & Apple Crumble

Yum!
One of the best thing of living in other countries is the different fruits and classics you can do. Another classic, rhubarb crumble, rhubarb does not even exist in Spain.

I followed another BBC recipe and worked out great. 

INGREDIENTS:

For the fruit mix:
-500 grms of rhubarb.
-500 grms of apples.
-180 grms of sugar (aprox).

For the crumble:
(this crumble is for 2 pies, and you can freeze it)
-250 grms of flour.
-160 grms of cold butter.
-80 grms of oats
-100 grms of brown sugar.

STEPS:

1.  Cut up the fruit (rhubarb and apples into pieces) and coat it in sugar. 
2. Stick in oven for 20 minutes and roast, turning it every once in a while. It will caramelize a little....yes drooling. The fruit will soften and roast. 
3. Now in the meantime, make the crumble. Add the ingredients above together and dissolve with hands. The butter has to be COLD and hard. Stick in the freezer if it isn't.
4. Now transfer the cooked fruit to your pretty dish that you will use. The fruit will have shrunk so you need a smaller dish. Now add the crumble on top and be generous.
5. Stick in oven again for 20 minutes or until the crumble is golden. 

Ready! 
I find that the proportion of sugar to the sourness is the tricky part in these desserts. In my opinion the British recipes are better than American ones, which contain so much sugar you'd be running marathons, every single day to burn off. I read MANY recipes to understand that this is a pretty good proportion. Let me know what you think.

Toad in the Hole

A super British classic now that we are in the Lake District. Wow this area is sooooo spectacular. Highly recommend it. I NEEDED to do this one being here and it came out pretty great! I'm doing this one back in Spain for sure. A comforting pub dish, pretty decently healthy, original recipe here from BBC.

INGREDIENTS

-300 grms of flour
-4 eggs
-400 ml of milk
-12 sausages.
-oil
-a bunch of fresh rosemary.
-salt&pepper.


STEPS

1. First prepare the sausages. Brown sausages in the oven to 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes and flip them so that they are brown on both sides. Drizzle them with olive oil.
2. In the meantime, prepare the batter for the Yorkshire pudding, which is the yellowy doughy blanket around them. For that you need to put the flour in a big container and make a space in the centre and there put the eggs. Now mix it all gently.
3. You will get a big lump of dough and egg and now add the milk and whisk until it is very smooth, it has to be slightly runny, not too doughy, but more on the liquidy side. 
4. Now add the salt and pepper (1/2 teaspoon of each) and stick in the freezer for a while or oven for an hour (I put it in the freezer because I had no time) until it gets cold.
5. Get the sausages out of the oven and now pour the batter in the container. The sausages should be half covered in the batter ideally. 
6. Now add the rosemary leaves on top. This is a great great touch that adds a lot.
7. Stick in oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees and let the batter rise, do NOT open the door of the oven.
8. Check if the batter is golden and has risen and if that is the case it is ready! At this point you can also turn the temperature down a little so the the dough is fully cooked and leave it for 5 minutes.
9. And that's it. Serve with gravy (granules one will do) and of course Brussels sprouts will make you feel like you are back to 

           

How to Make Butter

 I had no idea butter was so easy to do. I mean who wants to make butter right when you can buy it in the supermarket...but it is so useful to know things like this I find. Just so plain gratifying.  Found it in Bigger Bolder Baking.

All you need to make butter is:

INGREDIENTS:

-200 ml of 36% fat cream 
(nata para montar in Spanish or double cream in UK). 
-a blender.
-some clean cloth.
-salt? if you want.

STEPS:

1. There are basically no steps. Simply put the cream in bowl and mix with the blender for about 6-7 minutes until it becomes butter! It will go through the stages of nice creamy cream for cakes, and then it gets yellowy and then the water separates and you butter left.

2. Now place in a cloth with a spoon and drain as hard as you can. The water is actually buttermilk, so you can save it for cakes, pancakes, etc. 

3. Now scoop it out. Season it with salt and that's it.

            

          

Wow, we need to go back to the basics in this life.