Roasted Broccoli Soup

I've always wondered what the difference between a vegetable soup and a vegetable purée was.

Well. Wonder no more. Just get your oven, stove and blender of choice ready and prepare yourself for the simplest way to pack as much liquid flavour into broccoli as possible.

This is actually super easy, and doesn't take very long hands on time to do. Especially for the warm hug of flavour you get from it.

Roasted Broccoli Soup

2 heads broccoli
olive oil, for roasting, for frying and adding at the end
4 cloves garlic
500ml broth, plus water

Chop the broccoli into pretty large florets, cover with oil (especially the brushy bits) and pop into a prelined dish. Roast in a preheated oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until tender.

Fry garlic cloves in a large saucepan with some oil in the bottom on low, until slightly brown. Add the broccoli (with the roasting olive oil too, if you like) and fry it a little if you want.
Pour in the broth, and if the water level doesn't reach to nearly the top of the broccoli, add some water until nearly covered.
Heat the water until hot (not boiling - it ruins the gelatine in the broth) and let it go for 10 - 15 minutes.
Purée the contents of the pot. I used a stick blender, which is a lot easier, but feel free to pour it into a normal blender and do it like that. Blend to your consistency liking (I like mine chunky).
Serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top.

Better than Baba Ghanoush

The Middle Easterns have their dips down pat. Just look at tahini. Isn't that a fantastic little spread that's a great creamy addition to a lot of stuff? If I don't put olive oil on something, I'll probably drizzle and dollop some tahini on it. But then there's baba ghanoush, which is fantastic made right (or bought) or bad. Real bad.

Ages ago, I came across another dollopy spready purée thing that hails (or seemed like it would hail) from the Middle Eastern area. It was called avjar (pronounced av-yar), but because the blender and I don't have the best relationship, and I'd just eat it all out of the blender as soon as it was made anyway, I gave it a miss.

Today, I was desperate for food so I strolled into some place called 'deli' and picked up some sliced salami and marinated olives, and as she was slicing up my future taco shells (deli meat is THE best for holding food), I turned around to find red jars of, you guessed it, delectable avjar. Take note that I've never tasted it before today, I already knew it would be a spoon of divine Middle Easternness.

And then I looked around a bit more. And I found another jar called malizzano. There was no way I could leave this shop without both jars. Even with the evil oil (sunflower). Sometimes I think it's better to taste things to know what they taste like, even if it means going against ideals you'd normally not stray from. And the jars are from Macedonia, and it looks like they've been made with love.

I should probably mention what these jars are made of before I tuck in with a spoon. They're very similar; they're both a simple blend of roasted capsicum and roasted eggplant, but obviously the avjar is red capsicum and the malizzano is green. It's quite strange, though, how they taste a lot different to what they're made of. I reckon they'd both taste good mixed with either roasted tomatoes, tahini or maybe paprika or cinnamon or some other spices, or maybe all three. Oh and garlic. It almost tastes like it already has garlic in it. Or some soft white cheese if dairy's your style.

I'm not quite sure what to eat it with, but my options so far are from a spoon, simmer and cook eggs in it like shakshuka, or obviously as a dip with some veggie sticks. I had a google search around and found that it's good for salad dressings, meat marinades and as a lasagna sauce. Can't wait to try it all!

Roasted Grapes

Quick one today!

Ever since I saw this recipe, I've wanted to have a go at roasting grapes. But I never got around to it because I kept forgetting to get grapes so it's just never happened.

And then mum bought a big bunch of grapes.

They weren't red grapes like I'd been picturing to roast with, but since I'd been picking one at a time every time I opened the fridge, I thought I should do something more productive with them than make them waste away like that.

So with my salmony, pumpkiny, radiescheny mess of food I plonked into a roasting dish tonight, I added a bunch of grapes, which I made sure didn't touch my salmon. I don't care what my food looks like, just as long as it doesn't taste so bad.

My oily dish didn't take too long to cook, and I made sure my grapes didn't get too oily (coconut oil, by the way). When it was done, the first thing I tried were these bad boys on top there.

Ignore that orange stuff it's sitting on.