Carrot and Fennel Soup

Sofia always gets excited when our weekly veg box arrives and quickly unpacks it to see what goodies we have to cook with. This week we had a lovely big bulb of fennel in the box so after a quick rendition of Mr Bloom's theme tune ( Here I go again, I'm a beautiful fennel called Joan......) we decided to make some soup with it. We haven't been eating a lot of soup recently, with the warm weather, but we both felt like a cosy little dinner on a lazy day indoors. Here's our little recipe, if you want to have a bit of fun together in the kitchen, experimenting with new veggies

Ingredients

4 large carrots
1 Fennel bulb
Small pinch of paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 very low salt stock cube ( we use Kallo)
Pint water ( you may need a little more, depending on how thick you like your soup)
Teaspoon of olive oil
Pepper for seasoning

Method

Simply clean and roughly chop the carrots and fennel then pop into a saucepan with a little heated olive oil, and stir until softened slightly. Add the paprika and cumin then the stock cube and water. Simmer for about half an hour, until veggies have fully softened, then blend until smooth.  Add pepper and a big slice of homemade bread to serve.

Enjoy!

Blueberry and oat muffin men

After a rough nights sleep, due to the nightmare that is teething,  and upon looking out of the window at the cold, blustery day ahead, a cosy day inside was the only answer today.  After a lazy morning playing with puzzles and singing along to our story and rhyme CD, Sofia and I got our hands ( very) dirty and made these cute afternoon treats. A simple and very quick recipe will entertain your little ones for 20 minutes and provide a small pick me up in this miserable weather.

Ingredients ( makes 12 men/muffins)

200g self raising flour

50g melted butter

20ml olive oil

150ml semi-skimmed milk

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

100g fresh blueberries

50g porridge oats

Method

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4. Melt your 50g butter and allow to cool
2. In one bowl sift the flour then mix in oats and sugar
3. In a second bowl beat the eggs and add in the milk, oil and melted butter and stir
4. Make a well in the dry mixture and add stir in the wet mixture until combined. Now add in your blueberries and mix together, until you get a thick lumpy mixture
5. Line a muffin tray with muffin cases and top each case 2/3 the way, to allow room for a high rise. Cook for 20 minutes. Allow muffins to cool in the tray for 5 minutes then move to a wire cooling rack until ready to serve