Vegetables of Last Resort

We have to eat vegetables.  Otherwise we’d probably get scurvy, or piles or both. Vegetables of Last Resort are not necessarily unpleasant vegetables, but they are those that are only eaten when you have completely run out of fresh veg and are trying to avoid going shopping again until after pay day.  For me, frozen peas and tinned sweetcorn are my standard vegetables of last resort. Pickled beetroot is the ultimate final resort. It isn’t horrible, it’s just that it wouldn’t occur to me to eat it unless the fresh vegetables had run out.

It's Pancake Day, yes it's pancake day, yes, it's p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-pancake day!

When I was a child, pancake batter was always made with a packet mix and a matyred expression. Imagine your family requesting a simple pudding made entiely from leftovers, as if a mother doesn't have enough to do, don't worry about me though, I'm perfectly happy to be everyone's slave, etc etc...

Then I moved in with my husband and he was amazed that I would waste money on a packet mix for something so simple (and this is a man who once tried to make chips in a frying pan). So I told him that if it was so easy, he could make them. And he did. In fact, I'm not even allowed to fry the pancakes as I get a bit above myself and try to make them ultra thin like French Crepes and then they break. So I'm the last person you should take advice from about the panckes themselves. I'm pretty damn good on ideas for fillings, though:

• banana and Nutella
• jam and icecream (unlikely sounding but probably my favorite)
• dried fruit, honey and greek yoghurt
• marmite and cream cheese
• ham and grated cheddar
• cooked spinach and cream cheese

Broccoli and Stilton Soup

This is one of my very own recipes and was inspired by sweary celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. The playdoh-faced bully was laying to some hapless cook for serving a broccoli soup that contained about 27 different ingredients; Ramsay insisted that it should only have broccoli and water. I thought he was probably right, but I couldn't bear to agree with a professional git like him, so I added Stilton to mine and here it is:

2 heads of broccoli
1 piece supermarket cheapest Stilton or similar blue cheese
some tap water

1. Cut the broccoli into florets and steam in a vegetable steamer* (don't throw the water away).
2. Use a hand blender** to puree the broccoli, adding the water from the steamer until it reaches the desired consistency
3. Crumble in a much or as little Stilton as you like and stir until it melts into the soup.

It's that simple!

The soup is really tasty and can be divided into portions and frozen. I don't recommend that you eat it before any important social occasions, though as it will make you fart like a builder. You've been warned!

* Yes, you can use a normal pan if you don't have one
** and you have my permission to use a potato masher or improvise as necessary if you don't have one of these either.