You Lot are Awesome!

In general, people who read and comment on this blog are awesome.  I've had a tough few years and this has been a safe place for me with incredibly supportive comments, good wishes and inspiration.  I am sincerely grateful.

And in particular today I am thanking Bless and Jean from the centre of Canada for their ideas in the comments of the last post.  I had never, ever heard of potato fudge nor had I heard of orange rolls.  I will investigate if I can get my act together this morning as I am feeling meh still.  I am not forgetting either (though I am not sure how safe I am with boiling sugar - it's worth a risk) and I am very grateful for the ideas.

I tried a new recipe last night.  It's supposed to be around fifteen minutes to make.  By the time I had faffed around it took much, much longer, but that is always true of a new recipe.  I had surplus lettuce from a delivery that needed using up so I tried Pea, Lettuce and Bacon soup.

You start by gently softening two large, finely chopped onions and 200g (around half a pound) of bacon.  I thought that sounded a lot.  Then you add 1.5 litres of stock (around three pints).  I thought that sounded a lot.  Then you add 1kg (around two pounds) of defrosted frozen peas and half of the finely shredded 1.2kg (about two and a half pounds) of lettuce.  How much?  I weighed my two lettuces.  It's winter and they were the inexpensive supermarket ones, so they weren't the fattest, but they only came to 365g.  Just around a quarter of what the recipe asked for looks like this.

It is a massive bowl full,  I just tipped it all in.  Then you simmer until the peas are soft, allegedly around five minutes, and then blend.  You add the rest of the the lettuce (I skipped this as I had none left), simmer through and then serve.

There seemed to be oceans of the stuff.  I checked and the recipe said that it served four.  I assume they meant four very large, hardworking men who had been on a starvation diet for a week.  If you look at how much stock alone, one and a half litres between four is 375ml or nearly three quarters of a pint.  We had gallons left (lunch is sorted).

It tasted gorgeous, really nice.  Both bear and DH would like it again, please.  Bear utterly cleared his large bowl full, which was impressive.  I'll do it in half quantities and I may well add a tiny drop of mint sauce and a few croutons.  I may also wait until summer when you get more lettuce to a head.