Soup, tart and a roll

Oh dear, I'm a bad blogger - my aim was to post at least once a week, and already I've failed miserably :-(
However I have this one and another one almost ready, so it's a bit like buses - there's none and then two come along at once!

Well weekends mean I have OH on child minding duties, so I usually spend at least one afternoon in the kitchen. 

Before we moved to NZ I was a vegetarian, but having moved and having our own animals to raise and eat, I have lapsed occasionally. But I'm not a real meat lover, and still like to cook a meat free meal

I found a recipe on the BBC Good Food website - Versatile Veg Soup

Do you ever have this problem - I buy ingredients for a certain dish, but only need say half a cauliflower,  and a third of a bag of sprouts, so the remainder grow old in the veg drawer of the fridge until I remember them a week later. By then they look a bit worse for wear. This is the ideal recipe to use these up, as it doesn't matter what goes in, just chop it all up! 

The original recipe used 200g chopped raw veg, and 300g potatoes. I had way more to use up, so put in 1kg chopped veg (swede, carrots, cauliflower, onion and a few Brussels sprouts) and just under 1kg potatoes (just used up what was left in the bag). Basically all you do is chop up all veg quite small, fry in a few tablespoons oil until soft, then add stock (I put in 3 litres for this amount of veg) bring to boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes until soft.  Then blend in processor until smooth. Easy peasy!

It sounded a bit bland, so I also added a few tablespoons tomato purée, and a sprinkle of dried mixed herbs when I added the stock. 

I have to say seeing as it was so quick and easy, it was quite tasty, with just a dash of cream on top, and some olive bread....

I have frozen a load so I don't get bored of having it every day. I might try some with a dash of curry paste stirred in (I have two jars of the stuff to use up, and only me likes curry!) and a drizzle of coconut cream on top. Any other suggestions to spice it up?

The two most time consuming recipes of the day were a Caramelised Onion and Thyme tart and Homemade Yeast Rolls 

So was it worth spending just over three hours in the kitchen?

The tart was OK, I'd give it a 7 out of 10 for taste, but don't think it was worth the time it took to make. Plus although the pastry around the top edge was nice and crisp, the bottom was a bit soggy. I thought it might be, as the pastry wasn't baked blind before adding the filling, it just said roll out pastry into dish, then pop in the freezer. So it was only slightly chilled, before the filling was added. 

The rolls however were a resounding success, getting between 9.5 and 10 out of 10 (The mark down was from OH, who said that you can't give 10/10 - why? I have no idea!). They tasted yummy, looked great, and were deliciously fat and soft - I would definitely make them again. The only downside was that everybody loved them, so they were gone in a few days!

Xx