Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2017

Spanish Chorizo & Lentil Soup

I was lucky enough whilst in Amsterdam recently to visit a little restaurant called "Soup En Zo" on Jodenbreestraat - well worth the visit!  I had the above soup, which was fantastic. Upon returning home I attempted to replicate this soup myself and, according to my other half, it might be the best thing I have ever cooked her, so here goes... (Serves 2) Ingredients: Half an onion Hot Smoked Paprika Cumin Seeds Tomato Pasata  1x Red Pepper 100g Green Lentils 50g Chopped Chorizo Vegetable Stock - Roughly half a litre 1x Carrot 1: Heat up olive oil in a saucepan and add in finely chopped onion and   Add cumin seeds and ground pepper and chopped carrot (shop into small 1cm cubes). 2: Add chopped red pepper and lightly fry off the chopped chorizo 3: Add boiling water to vegetable stock (I like the Knorr stock pots) and then add roughly a qtr pint to the onions and peppers. 4

The Garden Saga

We bought our house in July 2016.  It's a  two bedroom Victorian house with a decent sized garden for a house in London.   I began working on the garden in March this year and have developed a passion for working in the garden!  So what needed doing? everything! From the back doors we had standard old decking which had partially rotted through.   Then a step-up patio which looks like it was laid in the 90s - square concrete mock-stone slabs in a god-awful pink.   The lawn we won't mention - that's a whole task in and of itself! At the rear of the garden someone had helpfully poured a very good concrete footing for a garage - roughly 15' wide by 18' deep.  This was the only redeeming feature of the garden after it's size!  This is where the garden saga started.  My grand plan was to have a very large patio from the back door that incorporated and replaced the first patio - this would become a lawn and then a matching