"Get Well Soon" Chicken Soup

I'm stuck at home with a gastro-enteritis, or as they call it here, "stomach flu".

Unfortunately this is something I tend to get quite a bit (at least once every 2 years, so probably every time there's an epidemic!).

The silver lining is that by now I know how to deal with it! The formula is: lots of rest, lots of water, and only light and "safe" food. That means nothing with fat, too much fibre or spice, basically nothing that can irritate your digestive system further...

The best thing being a nice homemade chicken soup (alternating with some good natural yoghurt for breakfast or tea time).

The soup in the picture above has (for a big pot):

4 carrots 

2 leeks

5 small potatoes

about 600g chicken

about 2l water

2 stock cubes

thyme

The only trick here is to add the ingredients according to their cooking time: so first the carrots while you chop the rest of the veggies, then the potatoes, then a bit afterwards the leeks then the chicken.

Note: I'm going for the chicken being tender because it's cooked but not over cooked, as opposed to boiling the heck out of it then simmering for hours to get it tender again. If you want to do that, obviously put in the chicken first then the veggies a good bit later, otherwise they'll be very very limp...

Note 2: If you're worried about not being sure the chicken is cooked through, split the biggest chicken piece to confirm it is, then leave it on another couple of minutes anyway for good measure (if the fire is low and it's only a few minutes extra it won't toughen up too much).

So that was Chicken Soup #1, here's Chicken Soup #2:

This one has:

4 carrots 

2 leeks

100g baby corn

about 600g chicken

a few black Asian mushrooms (didn't see the type on the packaging)

300g rice vermicelli

about 1cm ginger root

about 2l water

2 stock cubes

a small splash of soy sauce

It was also yummy and comforting (and Kristof was happy I had to skip the chilli  peppers this time!).

Of course this all supposes you are not too sick to cook. If you are, maybe you can point your nearest loved one to this page so they can make it for you?:)

And if they need a little bribe, maybe you can promise to make them some muffins or a strawberry tart later in return...

Delicious Pumpkin Soup

This is by far my favourite soup... soft and creamy and comforting... 

It requires a bit of work peeling and cutting the pumpkin, but I think it's really worth it, and the rest is dead easy.

Ingredients

1 small pumpkin or 1/4 of a big pumpkin (jack 'o lantern type)

3 carrots

2 onions

200ml cream

2 stock cubes (or amount needed for 1l of water)

Preparation

1. Peel the pumpkin, remove the seeds and dice it in rough chunks (you're already over the hard part!), add the carrots and onions.

2. Crumble the stock cubes on top of it, add 1 liter of water, and cook until the vegetables are softened (especially the carrots).

3. Add the cream and blend into a soup.

(Optional: decorate with herbes de Provence, seeds, Parmesan, or whatever takes your fancy!)

A cereal/seeds bread is nice to have with it...

Pan-fried sardines with fennel, courgette and green pepper

More easy and yummy food!! :)

For 2 people, you will need:

- 2 or 3 sardines

- 1 courgette 

- half a fennel

- a green bell pepper

- oil and spices and/or herbs (I used mild pepper flavoured oil that little peppers stuffed with cheese came in -we ate those before dinner, and the oil tasted too good not to use in something- and ras-el-hanout, a traditional Moroccan spice mix)

Preparation

1. Cut up the veggies and toss them with the oil and spices/herbs.

2. Bake at 230 degrees for 35 min. 

You'll probably want to stir it a bit halfway so it doesn't end up a bit too brown at the top and just about cooked at the bottom like mine...

3. Pan fry the sardines, with a bit of herbs and spices (I added the fennel tops).

Done!

Easy and Yummy Strawberry Tart

Kristof's team takes turns to make cakes for their Show and Tell meeting, every two weeks (a great habit if you ask me!).

This week was his turn, and since I wasn't around to help (Girls' Night!), I gave him some pointers for an easy strawberry tart I made a few years ago for my birthday. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 pie crust (puff pastry or shortbread)

1 basket of strawberries (about 500g)

1kg of mascarpone

vanilla sugar, to taste

Preparation

1. Unroll the crust in a pie dish, prick it all over with a fork and bake it "blind" according to the packaging's directions (in his case, that was 35min at 210 degrees Celsius).

2. Whisk the vanilla sugar into the mascarpone (Kristof used 4 packs, about 45g, but if you have more of a sweet tooth you might want to add more).

3. When the pie crust has cooled down, fill it with the mascarpone mixture and top it with strawberries.

Ta Dah!

It was yummy and disappeared quite quickly;) 

His colleagues complained that it was bad for their figure (apparently software developers are watching their figure these days!) but still went for seconds and thirds...

And here's the proud cook with his creation: