Spinach soup, rawhide, and a comedy of errors

The last few days have seen a series of errors on my part. Some were innocuous enough: turning up to the wrong class at university because I thought I was in Group 2 (like all of last year) and I'm actually in Group 1. Others were marginally more serious: discovering that the reason my company hasn't been receiving mail as promptly as it should is because somebody put the wrong address on the website. And that somebody was me.

Anyway, no lasting harm done. I spent a rainy afternoon in the kitchen, where I promptly made this error:



I was peeling a potato, happily thinking about good it was that we only have a cheap peeler and there's no danger of peeling through half a fingernail like I've seen other people do. I immediately peeled through half of my fingernail.

Once I had jumped around the kitchen, sworn a few times, stuck the nail back down and trussed it up in first aid supplies, I got back to cooking, and made this lovely spinach, nutmeg and potato soup. Souper (sorry) simple, delicious and terribly good for you. There are no photos of the process because I was concentrating on not peeling any more fingernails.



Chunk up one onion, two peeled potatoes (do not peel your fingernail off whilst peeling potatoes), and fry in some oil over medium heat. Add around half a litre of vegetable stock (I like Kallo, it's less salty than others), and let it simmer for about ten minutes to soften the potatoes. Then cram in as much spinach as you can muster. I had a big bag of true spinach - the sort with huge leaves and long stalks, not the baby kind you get in supermarkets - which needed eating, and I just threw all of it in there. It was probably a good 400g, maybe more.

Put the lid on the saucepan for a little bit to get the steam into the spinach to help it wilt. When it's soft enough, stir it into the water with the potato and onion and give it another few minutes. Remove from the heat and blend it up. Season well with lots of black pepper and fresh ground nutmeg, and it will likely need a good amount of salt too. Give it a few tastes and adjust as you like it. The potato bulk makes this soup quite thick, which is how I like soup, but you could make it go further and thin it out with more stock if you wanted to.

I'm trying to cut back on my plastic waste (First World Guilt), so instead of my usual method of freezer bags, I portioned it out into three Kilner jars and stuck these in the freezer. Make sure your soup has cooled completely before you freeze it in glass containers, to prevent cracks. Mine appear to be intact. Phew!



In the meantime, Cowboy has a new project on his grubby hands. This, my friends, is a cow hide:



He's been commissioned to make some custom tack for a few riders in his area, out of braided rawhide, so the first step is to obtain a cow hide from the butcher, and stretch it out somewhere far from where you live to keep the stink away. He's borrowing a friend's barn for the process. I have no idea what you do next.

In other news, the banana oat cookies freeze wonderfully in freezer bags, and defrost nicely inside the plastic bag (guilt). They still taste soft and delicious once thawed. Hurrah!

Banana and oat cookies

I'm useless at eating bananas when they're fresh and ripe and just the way I like them. I leave them too long and as soon as they get a little bit brown and spotty, I have to find an alternative method of using them up. Wasting food gives me guilt.

I had bananas in my vegbox this fortnight, and forgot all about them. Guilt.

I often turn old bananas into cake, but that's usually when they're good and black and have a lot of sweetness and mushiness to them. This time I decided to make a slightly less sinful treat, and combine them with oats, which are my friends (wheat isn't really my friend...). I found this recipe on Pinterest a while back, and I'm still working on tweaks and improvements.



What's even better, is that this recipe is vegan, which means my best friend can also enjoy them. If I decide to share them at all, that is.



They take hardly any time to put together and cook in 10 minutes, and if you make a double batch like I did this time, you end up with a quick and simple glut of 80(ish) calorie goodness...



Mmmm. Hello, darlings...

You will need:

1 cup oats (I use quick cook oats and they are just fine)
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 tsp ground flaxseed (I use the ground flaxseed with extra berries and nuts added for some more flavour - if you don't have any flaxseed, you could substitute with one beaten egg to bind the mixture)
1 cup flour (I use whole wheat self-raising flour, but any other kind would do)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup raisins (if you fancy)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated, please. Unless you don't have any whole nutmeg. In which case I'll forgive you)
1/2 tsp each of salt, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder

Combine ground flaxseed with two tablespoons of water and set aside to thicken.

Combine oats, flour, baking soda, baking power, salt and spices in a large bowl. I adore spice and banana, so I throw in a bit of everything, but if you're not sure about all the spices, go easy on the allspice and nutmeg, or leave it out. They give a lovely warm wintery taste.

If you're adding raisins (or mixed fruit, or chopped nuts), stir them in to the flour and oat mix.

Add maple syrup, lemon juice, vanilla and mashed banana to the flaxseed mixture and combine well.

Pour wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently to combine.

Drop by heaping tablespoons on to greaseproof paper on baking tray and flatten the tops slightly. I usually get 12-15 cookies from a batch.

Bake at 190C/375F for 8-12 minutes until they are just golden around the edges. Set on a cooling rack to cool.

Perfect whilst still warm, with a cup of tea.

I have frozen most of this batch in bags of 6 cookies, in the hope that I won't eat them all at once. I've never frozen them before, so I'll let you know how they turn out once they're thawed...