Courgette and roasted garlic soup

I have lifted this almost directly from the Painted Garden Cookbook, just adjusting the amount of garlic downwards a little and adding a good splash of white wine.

Ingredients
1 kg of small courgettes
300 g of onions
1 head of roasted garlic
olive oil
1/2 glass of white wine
1 litre of vegetable stock
salt

Method

1. Peel and chop the onion, top and tail the courgettes and chop into small chunks. Put in a large saucepan with plenty of olive oil and gently sautee until done (about 15 minutes).
2. Add the white wine, roasted garlic and stock, bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 15 minutes. Allow to cool a little, whizz with a stick blender, check for salt and add more if necessary.

Warm Arbroath smokie, potato and bacon salad

When I got back from Amsterdam I was in the mood for more herring, and I nipped along to my fishmonger (Something Fishy, on Broughton Street in Edinburgh) expecting to find some nice fat herrings waiting for me. Unfortunately they had all gone, so I bought some Arbroath smokies instead. Smokies are hot-smoked, salted haddock which are a north-east of Scotland speciality, and bear no resemblance to herring, but I thought they would still go well in the warm potato and bacon salad I had planned for the herring. If you can't get hold of smokies then you could substitute them with fresh herring fillets, very lightly fried, or just about any other fish you fancy - mackerel, trout etc.


Ingredients
2 Arbroath smokies
750g new potatoes
6 rashers of smoked back bacon
3 pickled dill cucumbers, thickly sliced
dill
white wine vinegar
Dijon mustard
olive oil
Salt
Black pepper

Method

1. Place the smokies in a large saucepan (cut them in half crosswise if they won't fit), cover with boiling water, add a few sprigs of dill and about 50 ml of white wine vinegar, bring to the boil, turn off heat, cover and leave for 5 minutes. Transfer smokies from pan to a bowl, allow to cool and remove the flesh from the smokies with your fingers.
2. Steam the new potatoes in their skins, allow to cool and then cut into halves or quarters depending on size. Grill or fry the bacon until it is just done, remove from pan, allow to cool, and cut into strips.
3. Combine the fish, potatoes, bacon and pickled cucumbers in a serving bowl, sprinkle plenty of chopped dill over it.
4. Prepare a dressing with the olive oil, some wine vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper, and pour over the salad and mix gently.

Memory lapse
I often forget things when I am cooking, and when I was putting this together the pickled cucumbers slipped my mind, which is why you won't find them in the photo, however hard you search.

Jerusalem artichoke and apple soup

I only realised after I had started making this soup that my blender was on the blink, so I ended up having to use a potato ricer, hence the slightly lumpy appearance of the soup in this photo.

Ingredients
4 small leeks (or 2 large ones)
olive oil or butter
750g Jerusalem artichokes
500g potatoes
2 tart apples
1 litre of vegetable stock
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Slice the leeks and simmer gently in a large pan in some olive oil or butter.
2. Peel and dice the artichokes and potatoes, and add to the pan. Add the hot vegetable stock.
3. Peel, core and dice the apples and add to the pan. Cook for 30 minutes or so, until the artichoke and potato is done.
4. Allow to cool a bit, then blend until smooth. Add the thyme, and salt and pepper to taste.

Kitchen safety
One of the reasons why most kids' cookbooks are so bad is because you aren't allowed to let kids chop things or handle anything hot. As a result, cookbooks for children are stuffed full of recipes for cakes and biscuits (with mum or dad dealing with the oven), and the odd bit of exotic sandwich making and pizza decoration tacked on at the end. All so that in 10 years' time we can complain that our kids are obese and don't know how to cook. Far better to hand your kids a razor sharp knife and a boiling hot kettle and let them get on with it ...