BROCCOLI AND STILTON SOUP WITH STILTON CROUTONS

A bowl of warm homemade soup, especially on a cold grey day, is a joy.

If you have any left over pieces of Stilton Cheese in the freezer, this recipe is perfect for using them up. The soup doesn't take too long to make, and you are rewarded with a wonderful pan of freshly made soup. I'm not suggesting for one minute you should make the baguette to go with the soup.........

This exceedingly delicious recipe is by Antony Worrall Thompson from his days as presenter of Saturday Kitchen.

Ingredients
350g/12oz broccoli, florets and stalks cut into small pieces
400ml/14fl oz vegetable stock
25g/1oz butter
4 spring onions, finely sliced
50g/1¾oz Stilton, crumbled, or to taste
100ml/3½fl oz double cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
For the croûtons
4 slices French bread
100g/3½oz Stilton, sliced
Method
For the soup, place the pieces of broccoli into a glass bowl. Pour over the vegetable stock.
Cover the bowl with cling film and place in the microwave. Cook on full power for four minutes, or until tender.
Meanwhile, heat a frying pan until hot then add the butter. When it starts to foam, add the spring onions and cook for one minute.
Transfer the cooked broccoli and stock to a food processor. Add the fried spring onions, Stilton and cream and blend until smooth.
Transfer the blended mixture to a pan and bring gently to a simmer.
Meanwhile, for the croûtons, toast the French bread under a grill until golden-brown on each side.
Top the grilled bread with the slices of Stilton and return to the grill until golden-brown and bubbling.
Season the soup with salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
Divide the soup equally among four warm bowls and top each with a Stilton croûton.

VANILLA RICE PUDDING WITH BLACKBERRIES AND PLUMS

Can I tempt you? Forget school rice pudding - this is a classic with a twist.

Half fat creme fraiche is stirred into the cooked rice pudding for extra richness. The original recipe uses full fat milk to cook the rice, it's January and we are supposed to be trying to count calories this month, perhaps it's a good idea to use semi-skimmed milk.

The stewed fruit cuts through the richness of the rice pudding and if you decide the rice pudding is not for you, the plums and blackberries are a wonderful combination of flavours and you can enjoy these instead. Frozen blackberries work perfectly.

Serves: 6

250g caster sugar, 6 ripe halved and stoned plums, 250g blackberries, 1.5 litres full fat milk, 1 vanilla pod (split lengthwise), 200g washed pudding rice, 100ml half fat creme fraiche, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Pour 100g of the sugar into a pan with 300ml water and bring to the boil. When the syrup is boiling, add the plums. Place a piece of greaseproof paper and a small plate on top of the plums to keep them submerged and simmer for about 5 minutes,until they are cooked. Remove the pan from the heat.

2. Remove the plums from the hot syrup and add the blackberries. Remove after 1 minute and allow the syrup to cool, then return all the fruit to the syrup.

3. Boil the milk and vanilla pod in a heavy based pan. Add the rice to the milk in a steady stream. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently. When the rice is tender,remove the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds into the rice. Stir in the remaining sugar, add the creme fraiche and vanilla extract. Serve with the fruit and some of the poaching syrup.

NIGELLA LAWSON'S CHOCOLATE CHIP BREAD PUDDING

I never bought into the idea of chocolate bread and butter pudding, it seemed like one step too far. Nigella's recipe for chocolate chip bread pudding is a half way house for me. I wasn't sure if my husband would like this pudding, he loves bread and butter pudding and doesn't really like it messed about with.

My adapted recipe and uses only a quarter of the chocolate chips used in the original recipe, otherwise my husband wouldn't eat it! I think this pudding is a real winner and has a lot more eye appeal than the usual chocolate bread pudding.

I made a loaf of bread in my bread maker for this recipe, so that I could cut large chunks of bread. To get the best out of this pudding you need a good loaf of unsliced bread and preferably not sliced 'plastic' bread.

The recipe can be found in Nigella's latest book Kitchen.


If you are a bread and butter pudding lover, perhaps you would like to see the others I have posted on this blog, maybe this is the start of the National Collection of Bread and Butter Puddings!

TRAIL MIX

I need something healthy to snack on, because I'm still full from Christmas and New Year's Eve!

There is half a Christmas cake left to eat. In the freezer, a meringue roulade, chocolate roulade, a variety of ice creams, Nigel Slater's Raspberries and Cream Ice, salmon, smoked salmon, sausage rolls, chipolata sausages, bacon, a gammon joint and red cabbage. In the naughty cupboard, a Terry's Chocolate Orange, Cadbury Heroes, meringue nests, a box of shortbread, and this is just to name a few of the things I have yet to get through. It would be too shameful to share with you the full list of leftover goodies, but lets say, I don't think I'll need to shop for treats for a long, long time to come.

Trail Mix

60g walnuts
65g almonds
70g pumpkin seeds
40g sunflower seeds
40g dried cranberries
40g dried papaya

Back soon!

ICED CHRISTMAS TREE CAKE

Yet another Christmas cake! These cakes are now a tradition on Kitchen Delights and show just how easy it is to create your own iced Christmas cake, without having to use royal icing or spend hours and hours creating a masterpiece.

For this cake all I used was a couple of Christmas tree cutters, edible red glitter and stars, all of which are available from sugarcraft shops or online.

I would like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year. I will be back in the new year with lots more recipes and photographs.

Thank you to all readers from around the world who have stopped by and looked at my food blog. Also, a huge thank you for leaving such generous comments.

CHRISTMAS CUPCAKES

I've got the glitter bug! Ask me to make either a cupcake or a cake for Christmas and glitter always makes an appearance. It's something to do with my love of Christmas bling, which is perhaps the only time I can realistically get away with it.


My cupcakes are a vanilla flavoured sponge topped with lemon flavoured royal icing. The cupcakes were baked in gold foil cases and when the cupcakes have cooled down, the peaks are cut off with a knife to give a level cake surface. Smother the cupcakes in icing and leave to set.


Cut out some fondant icing shapes and leave them to dry for a while. Brush with a little water and dust the shapes with glitter. Now brush the underneath of the fondant shapes with water and place onto the cupcakes. Sprinkle with yet more glitter.