Stirred (and whisked and baked)

I don't use this community enough. These days I'm lazy about cooking. When I lost the girlfriend, I also lost the house and all those cookbooks. Eventually I gained a boyfriend who takes me out more often than not, or cooks for me so I don't have to.

Today I miss the cookbooks - we had hundreds and before I moved, I photographed all the dear favourites I had bookmarked, all the things I'd made multiple times, because I knew one day I'd want to make them again. Winter is here for the second time, and I finally do want to make that wonderful pumpkin soup I perfected. Navigating a thousand photos requires rather too much effort to track down a recipe though, so here's my deal to myself: every time I make one of those old beloveds, it goes here. Tagged, so that I can find it easily next time the urge comes on. One day I will write these down, in a thick-sheeted, brown-leaved book, with a fountain pen. Today is not the day to morph into Nigel Slater, however.

( Soup. D'jour. :D )

Heavily adapted from one of Donna Hay's ideas, this is perfect for very hot days when you cannot be bothered cooking, and is equally delicious with chicken, beef, or on its own.

YOU WILL NEED

2 lebanese cucumbers
1/2 red onion
1 red chilli
1 carrot
2 celery stalks
1 cup sprouts (your choice; we used snow-pea)

2 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp shredded kaffir lime leaves
1/2 tsp soy sauce (optional)

( Directions )

I love summer fruits - berries, peaches, plums. Anything with a stone in the middle. I'm not such a fan of the winter fare. For six months, all our fruit stores carry are apples, bananas, oranges and mandarins. Around September, you start seeing grapes as well, but the stone fruits are never here much before December. And the trouble with all those fruits is, no matter how quickly I try and eat them, they invariably end up with wrinkly skins that put me off any further attempts to enjoy them.

Today I worked out a way to use them up. It has the added bonus of giving my arm muscles a work out. Presenting pulp free juice, using only a traditional blender and the leftover piece of cheesecloth from my misadventures in jam-making (that's for another entry, kids).

YOU WILL NEED

4 mandarins
1/2kg grapes
1/2kg melon (I used watermelon)

( Directions )

When I made this community, Treehugger's response was "You can teach me to cook!" I don't know about teaching, but I can share with you my favourite recipes, styles and techniques in the kitchen. I'm not a chef and I don't do everything the proper way. I can be alternately lazy and adventurous in my kitchen; sometimes it works, sometimes it's a disaster. It is a journey though, and one I'd welcome fellow travellers on.

Introductions done; there is no better time like the present to actually start. This morning I woke up at the (decidedly early) stroke of 8am, to make pancakes. Pancackes are one of the easiest things ever, so easy that the recipe I used made it into 'The Beginner's Cookbook', a delightful Family Circle volume that sits in our cupboard and doesn't do much. With basic quantities in mind, I threw a chocolate spin onto things.

( You will need )

A note on serving: I am a traditional girl and quite like my pancakes with simple sugar and lemon juice. I had flirted with the idea of doing an orange cream sauce and candied peel; alas, we had no oranges. In the end I caved, and am happy to say lemon and sugar work just as well on chocolate pancakes as normal ones (orange and sugar would probably be better). Kim can also testify to a good berry jam and a smear of cream. Bellissima.