Midweek has become a bit of a soup time for us. It’s my feeble try to support husband in his quest for a flatter tummy. I think a real man has a bit of a tummy that's lovely and comforting to hug, none of that silly six pack business. But he has ordered me not to give him lots of food late in the evening and since he rarely orders me around (wise man), I am trying to obey.

It's hard though because he is perfect feeding material. He loves his (my) food and is willing to break his own rules at the tiniest suggestion of a little plate of something homemade. If I bring him a small portion, he asks if I think he is a girl. Which of course I don't and rush to bring him more food.

Although he does use a lot of moisturiser. LOL.

But I must try to restrain myself. My own derriere could do with a bit of streamlining as well to be completely honest.

That brings me of something I have meant to share as great advice for husbands all over the world: Do no ask your wife why her thighs are bumpy. Just don't.

Unless you want to tell your wife she looks a bit too skinny, don't tell her anything weight related. Don't tell you like a bit of curve or that no one likes a bone bag. And that you like her just the way she is. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU! It's about your wife and her inability to eat banoffee pie all day and be effortlessly skinny like Gwyneth Paltrow or Keira bloody Knightley.

Anyways,  just theoretically sharing some free marital advice there.

So here’s a healthy, but really tasty mushroom soup. It is super mushroomy particularly because I added some chanterelle fond and truffle oil. You can do without if you are after a milder mushroom taste. And if you have no issue with bulging bellies and rubenesque hips chuck in some more cream for God's sakes. Or sneak in some Stilton. Or goat cheese. Or both.

Mushroom soup with thyme and sour cream

1 large (or two small) yellow onions
600g mushrooms (I had brown and white chestnut)
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Salt
Black pepper
1 chicken stock pot (or veggie for veggies)
1-2 tbsp chanterelle fond (optional)
850 ml  water
1/2 tsp truffle oil
2-3 heaped tbsp of sour cream

Chop the onion roughly. Slice the mushroom and chop the herbs.

Heat oil in a non-stick deep lidded sauce pan. Add the onion, mushrooms, herbs and some salt (be careful with salt at this stage if you are going to use fond) and pepper. Cook gently until onions and mushroom are soft. Remove about a half cup of the mushroom at this stage and set aside.

Add the chicken stock pot, water and fond if using and leave to simmer for 20 minutes. Blend with a hand blender until smooth, add water if the soup is too thick.

Add the truffle oil and sour cream. Check seasoning. Mix some of the preserved mushrooms into the soup, ladle into bowls and decorate with the rest of the preserved mushrooms and some fresh chopped parsley.

Here's a quick and super delicious chicken recipe that I made up last night. It's not exactly health food with the amount of cream and parmesan, but not as bad a a takeaway or a stop at a junk food joint which might have been an easy choice last night after our afternoon cinema trip.

Eventually we got home quite late. I didn't realise everyone and their mother would be going to cinema on Easter Sunday, but of course they were because the shops are not open and the weather is shite, so what else are you supposed to do. Craft farm animals out of lichen and pine cones?

So the viewing we'd aimed for at the local cinema was sold out apart from a couple of sad lonely seats in the front row which we or rather I (Husband and kids are unable to make these kinds of decisions, they would probably still be hovering in that queue trying to decide what to do) turned down because I remembered that the same film was on in an other cinema just around the corner starting in 20 minutes. Well it wasn't, and after a little discussion with the ticket guy about misleading websites and tapping on my phone to find the misleading website while husband was trying to tell me I didn't always have to try to prove I was right. What's that supposed to mean? Does he not know me at all? Of course I have to.

Anyway deciding to be magnanimous (found the website and it didn't have wrong info, must have checked another cinema) I decided to abandon the argument and look for and found another theatre  we could get to in time for the start.

Still all of this took some time so we were all simultaneously feeling slighty hungry and sick with all the popcorn and Coke, when we finally got home after London had fallen and the president of the United States had once again been saved by a Scotsman, God bless America, Commonwealth and Scotland, and Morgan Freeman, he really should run for president, the times he's played president and vice president.

So okey, I didn't completely come up with the recipe. I had read about this creamy sun-dried tomato chicken sauce earlier and then just kind of recreated it based on what I remembered was in it. No time for checking the recipe, just chop chop chop and fry and cook and bish bash bosh on the table.

Chicken and sundered tomato cream pasta sauce (serves 6)

Oil
1-1.2 kg skinless and boneless chicken thigh (or any other part you like to use)
1 small yellow onion
3 spring onions
2 garlic cloves
1 red pepper
12 sundried tomatoes in oil
red pepper flakes
1 bunch of fresh basil
1 tsp of dried (or 1tbsp fresh) oregano
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup of cream (I had single, but go double if you dare)
1/2 cup of parmesan
(1-2 tbsp butter 1-2 tbsp flour - optional for Beurre Manie)

Cut the chicken thighs into two or if they are big into three. You can leave them whole if you like the look better that way, but cutting them makes them cook quicker. Season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large pan and add the chicken pieces, you can do this in batches if you have time and your pan is not big enough. Once chicken is nice and brown all over (doesn't need to be cooked through at this stage) remove to a plate.

Chop the onion, red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes and basil. Mince the garlic. Add the onions to the pan and sauté for a few minutes, add the garlic, red pepper and sun-dried tomatoes and continue cooking for a few minutes. Add the red pepper flakes, basil, chicken stock, cream and parmesan. Leave to cook on low heat. If your sauce looks thin you can either thicken if with plain flour or corn flour mixed to cold water before adding, or make a beurre manie by mixing equal amounts of soft butter and flour together and add to the sauce.

Leave to cook on low heat until the chicken is done - check the seasoning and serve with rice, potatoes or pasta of your choice and a fresh green salad.

My main event for Easter is always a slow cooked leg of lamb. This year we did this on Saturday, because we were going to be out on Sunday and I don't want to leave the lamb in the oven while we are out. I know you are supposed to pop the leg in the oven, then put on a colourful jumper and find some dogs from somewhere and go frolic on a frosty meadow with a large family to come back all rosy cheeked a few hours later to feast with those same people and dogs. I don't watch Jamie Oliver for nothing.

But I can't do it, I don't have any colourful jumpers or dogs, my small family would not frolic, Husband might, but the two teenagers would just slouch around the meadow fiddling with their smartphones looking bored and complaining because there was no WiFi. But mainly I just don't trust the lamb not to catch fire or do something else catastrophic on it's own. So I only make it on the days I am staying home or possibly just quickly popping in the corner shop.


I made my 4-7 hour leg of lamb ( 6 hours this time) with garlic, mint and rosemary. It was soft enough to serve with a spoon and maybe the best lamb I have had in my life. I served it with herb and garlic roast potatoes, a fresh minty chickpea, pomeganate and feta salad and garlic ciabatta. After a little break we finished the meal off with tea, my Easter cake, a Victoria sponge with vanilla icing and Daim chocolate chip cookies.

Chickpea and herb salad with feta and pomegranate

This is a lovely fresh and a bit different salad to serve as a side to any dish, but goes particularly well with lamb. The secret is to marinade the chickpeas ahead of time, so they soak all the flavours of the vinaigrette and herbs.


1 cup chickpeas (either soaked and boiled or canned)
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 garlic clove
3 spring onions
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1/3 - 1/2 cucumber
75g salad leaves (rocket, spinach etc)
Handful of crumbled feta (100g)
Seeds of half a pomegranate

Drain the chickpeas and put them in a bowl. Add the zest and juice of a lemon, a minced garlic clove, the chopped spring onions and herbs, vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Mix well and leave to marinade for an hour or two,

Slice or halve the cherry tomatoes, cube the cucumber and mix with the salad leaves. Pour on top the chickpeas and mix so that the marinade also flavours the salad vegetables. Decorate with the pomegranate seeds and feta and toss lightly.

Thank God for Easter. It comes at the perfect time every year. Just when you're completely fed up with the spring / summer not arriving ever and having not seen the sun for 6 months, you get this one glorious weekend of colourful flowers, shiny chocolates and two extra days off work. Weather's still as shit as ever or often even worse, but you just unwrap another chocolate egg and laugh at the face of the rain and the wind.

For me this year it couldn't have come at a better time. The product that has consumed my life for the last couple of months is launched and it all went well apart from a couple of misses which were fixed last minute and which no one ever needs to find out about.

Thursday was an exciting day at work. The local BBC crew came to do a piece about the launch. Getting ready for work in the morning I asked husband if I looked nice. He slapped me on the bum (he's quite excited that I have put on some weight during the last couple of months not having enough time to exercise, so he might not have seen the wife a lot but when he has, there has been more of her to see) and said that I did look nice and maybe they'd give me my own show and I would become famous. I told him that it was somewhat unlikely and that he shouldn't hold his breath.

So the BBC guy turned up and did a little interview. Then one of our finance colleagues (bribed with chocolate) went to bed using the new product. She doesn't actually need a lot of persuading, she's our go-to person in these situations, an unfulfilled actress stuck in accounts receivable. Last time we did some filming we also had one of our warehouse lads in bed with her. We manufacture medical devices for sleep disordered breathing not sex toys. Just to clarify.

They then wanted to shoot some footage in the warehouse and all of a sudden it all went a bit off the rails. The BBC dude saw all the local football club paraphernalia in the warehouse. You can't not see it. It's everywhere, stickers on the trolleys and tape guns, newspaper clippings on the walls, one of the guys has a motorcycle helmet in the team design, there are tea mugs, scarfs, tattoos, you name it. Apparently the BBC guy had been asked to do a feature on crazy local football fans. Why, I do not know, but I'm glad our licence money goes to such good use. So anyway in no time the warehouse guys were all queuing to be interviewed in front of the wall covered with newspaper cuts about this 2nd league team which I'd never even heard about.

Soon they were telephoning around the building to find a fan of an other team to bring more "depth" to the piece and found a volunteer Swindon fan in customer services who came down to help out. He offered to put on his mankini, you know, Borat style. He had a choice of a pink or a leopard print one, as you do. We said no, please don't. Ever. He was then interviewed and also entered a bit of a staged banter session with the other guys over who's team was better. Because that's what men do. Apparently preferably in mankinis.

Me and my media trained colleague watched in awe as these guys completely stole our show and owned the camera as if that was all they'd ever done. We then tried to gently steer the budding Spielberg back to his original mission to film us and our amazing new innovation.

A fun and intense week, so now I'm happy in my kitchen for the rest of the week with lots of lovely Easter cooking planned. I started Easter prep with a batch of biscuits. Husband's kids are spending the weekend with us, so I can't be an evil step-mum and not bake biscuits for them. After all I promised that on my speech on our Wedding day. Dad remembers this and sent me some of mum's trusted biscuit recipes with a note saying "Bake biscuits for boys. Dad" He's a man on few words, but usually they are wise.

So I made these Daim biscuits. You know Daim, the fantastic Swedish crunchy butter and almond caramel covered with milk chocolate. You can buy it in most bigger supermarkets and definitely in IKEA, Scandinavian Kitchen and Ocado.

My biscuits look different from what mum used to make, I think I might have been a bit tight-fisted with my flour and oats. Anyway these are delish and I know it won't take long for the kids to eat through the batch.

Daim chocolate chip cookies (makes about 30 large ones)

200 g butter (room temperature)
200 ml sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp golden syrup
1 tl vanilla paste or extract
400 ml flour
150 ml rolled oats (or 100 ml oat bran)
2 tsp baking powder
200-250 g Daim pieces (you can use the pieces and in the picture or chop a couple of bars)

Preheat your oven to 180C.

Mix the butter and sugar well until light. Add the egg, golden syrup and vanilla and mix well. Mix all the rest of the ingredients together and add to the dough. Blend until everything is incorporated. Take a generous tablespoon of the mix and form into a ball, then flatten it and place on a baking tray covered with non-stick grease-proof paper. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

The weekend started on Saturday morning with some light plumbing duty at the back garden. Two of the gutter drains were blocked and the water was overflowing to the stone patio. I also noticed the shed back wall had collapsed, but I decided to save that piece of information for a better day.

Husband is always in charge in these situations. On goes the kettle (?) and a pair of plastic gloves left over from his beard colouring kit. I assist by handing him tools, fetching things, obviously looking decorative and giving valuable advice which is always gratefully received and never does he tell me to go back in the house with my advice and close the door behind me.

I will be glad when this launch that I have been working on is over next week. Particularly if it goes well of course. It's been fun but very intense. I had a dream last night that I was launching French sausages and it was the night before the launch when I realized there was no English text on the packaging. Merde. Luckily I am not launching saucissons and the packaging definitely has English text.

We've also been doing some media training in case we get opportunities. It's been a while since I have done any media interviews. I used to do quite a few early in my career when I was looking after the Easter egg range for a large confectionery company. It was a shitty product category, seasonal products, Christmas and stuff. No one wanted to do it. Imagine you get your timings wrong and miss your dates by a week. Not good. Anyway, I was often interviewed around Easter about the latest trends in Easter egg toys etc. I even once made it to the national TV, they wanted me to present our latest brainwave, finger puppets! Proud moment.

There were some tricky interviews as well. I remember one from a religious magazine about a little plastic raccoon sitting next to a barrel seemingly happily drunk. Apparently not appropriate for children. But ingeniously I turned the question around. Maybe the inappropriateness was in the eyes of the beholder, because clearly looking at it with the innocent eyes of a child it was a barrel of honey and the raccoon had just overindulged a little. Ever heard of Winnie the Pooh you dirty old bigot. I didn't say that last bit. Because I had been rigorously media trained, you see. Lesson one - don't call the journalist names.

So last night I was very glad to wind down and make husband proper dinner. I haven't been a completely useless wife this week, I made him really lovely chickpea and courgette burgers one evening, I might even blog the recipe at some point. And one evening I followed a recipe that promised to be the best ever lentil soup. It was really good, but I didn't realise that yellow lentils expand quite so much more than red lentils. I had to keep adding water. It reminded me of the story that dad told about the time he cooked rice for the first time in his student days. Had no idea that they would expand, ended up with enough to feed a Chinese village. Anyway lentil soup was nice and fed us for several nights and there is a good portion in the freezer.

The b(igg)est ever lentil soup

Our Friday dinner is a special thing and often I opt for fish. This time I had some lovely slightly smoked salmon fillets which I baked and made this orzo, basil, pesto, tomato and mozzarella bake. It's a tasty little side dish that I invented. I'm sure some one has thought of chucking these same ingredients together before me. It's not the most out there combination, the ingredients kind of all belong together naturally. There is nothing stopping you having it as a main. Side or main, or just cold from the fridge the following morning while waiting for your husband to wake up for breakfast - very yummy.

Beautiful heirloom toamatoes, the big green one was tough as old boots, but doesn't it look lovely.

Red pesto, tomato and mozzarella orzo bake (serves 2)

Oil
200g orzo
3-4 spring onions
1 small clove of garlic
2 large or 10-15 small tomatoes (heirloom for extra pretension)
2 tbsp of red pesto (or green)
Bunch of fresh basil (about 1/3 cup chopped)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
Salt and pepper
Ball of mozzarella (about 125g)

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Cook the orzo in salted water until almost done, but still slightly al dente. In the meanwhile chop the spring onions and tomatoes and mince the garlic, Heat oil in a frying pan and saute the vegetables for a couple of minutes until the tomatoes have softened a little.

Drain the pasta. Add the vegetable mix, pesto, parmesan, salt (not too much because there is salt in the pesto and parmesan), black pepper and chopped fresh basil (leave some for garnish) to the pasta. Mix well and check the seasoning, add salt and pepper, if necessary. Pour the mix into a baking dish. Slice the mozzarella and place the slices on top.

Bake uncovered for about 15 minutes until the mozzarella has melted and the top has got some colour. Garnish with basil.

                                                             

I didn't get to cook for us last night. Kids asked if we could go for Chinese food. They love a Chinese buffet. Husband and I are not huge fans, but they don't ask often, so of course we went. I remember how much I liked going out to eat when I was a kid.

Back then in the tiny town were we lived there weren't that many options of different cuisines. We used to go most Sundays for lunch to the same restaurant on top of a cliff with beautiful views to a big lake. Mum and dad had wiener schnitzels or something equally 70s. My older brothers had Frankfurters and fries and I had a mushroom omelette. Not hugely adventurous perhaps, but we were happy with our choices. My younger sister and brother were still on baby food, so they just sat in their baby chairs at the end of the table having no clue and chewing their toys. My brother had a squeaky plastic teddy bear wearing green overalls that he loved and would probably still be hugging and chewing it if it was socially acceptable.

And afterwards dad gave us some change and me and my older brothers ran to the bar to buy some spearmint chewing gum. About 12 years later on many a Saturday night I was standing at the same bar with my older brother and some friends downing Tequila Sunrises, Tom Collinses and Cuba Libres. Happy times, both the mushroom omelette days and the disco nights.

So to Chinese buffet we went. We tried to avoid the pretty horrible Dragon King near where we live. It's always too busy and noisy, but everywhere else we tried either didn't have a buffet, were permanently closed, or just closed at the time, because we were kind of between lunch and dinner. But if you advertise an all day buffet, then you have a buffet all day. A buffet that is closed for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner is not an all day buffet, I had to tell the guy at the Hungry Yeti. I don't think he took my feedback very seriously, there was much too much shoulder shrugging and not enough apologies for my liking.

So after driving around West London for over an hour, we finally ended up at the dreaded Dragon King. It was as bad as we remembered, maybe slightly less busy because we were still quite early. But everything including the drinks was deep fried. I managed to find some non-deep-fried vegetables and rice. The kids loved it at least.

So today I wanted to demonstrate how much nicer and more satisfying a fresh home cooked healthy meal can be. There really is no need to ever deep fry anything, if you ask me. I stuck to the Far Eastern theme and made a soy and honey glazed side of salmon with egg-fried rice and king prawns. Very pretty and colourful. And tasty. I'm not sure if the kids were thinking "OMG, why did I ever eat KFC, I must have been out of my teenage mind" or that they are any less likely to ask for the occasional fast food treat, but my food went down well. We finished the whole 1kg side of salmon and all that was left over was a spoonful of rice.

Egg fried rice with peas and prawns (serves 4)

2 1/2 cups of basmati rice
Oil
2 garlic cloves
4 spring onions
1 cup of peas
3 eggs
Salt
Pepper
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp butter
350g raw king prawns
garlic oil
1/2 lime, zest and juice

In the meanwhile devein the shrimp and season with salt and pepper, drizzle with garlic oil, add the lime zest and juice. Mix and leave to one side.

Wash the rice in a sieve under running water and soak at least 30 minutes in cold water and a sprinkle of salt. Drain and cook in plenty of water until just done. Drain.

Mince the garlic and chop the spring onion. Crack the eggs in a bowl and whisk lightly with a fork.

Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan or wok. Fry the garlic on medium heat for a couple of minutes, add the spring onion, peas and rice. Move the rice to one side and pour in the eggs. Scramble the eggs and just as they start to set mix everything together.

In a separate pan melt the butter. Add the shrimps and fry on medium heat until they turn pink. Add the shrimps to the rice and mix everything together making sure it hot.

Soy, honey and lime glazed salmon (serves 4)

1 kg side of salmon
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp oil
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 lime, zest and juice

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Make sure salmon has no bones. Oil the bottom of an oven dish lightly and place the salmon in the dish. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Don't go overboard with the salt, because the soy sauce adds sals to the dish.

Mix oil, honey, soy and the lime zest and juice. Pour over the fish. Bake for 20-25 minutes until done basting with the juices a couple of times during cooking.

Another busy week done. There was a moment of last minute high drama when IT came to confiscate my laptop because apparently I had a virus on it. Don't you hate that. No time to clean your browsing history and shut the non-workrelated windows like Fuck you Friday or the halibut en papillote recipe.

While hoping the virus was not related to that time I accidentally clicked a traffic source link from my blog which took me to a Russian porn site (I seem to get more traffic from Russian porn sites than anyone interested in cooking) and trying to remember if it was on my work laptop that I googled "Leonardo di Caprio raped by a bear" (trying to prove to husband that he really wasn't) I was feeling very lonely without my laptop and not really sure what I should do.

Go talk to a colleague. But they would think it's strange someone loitering around purposelessly. Maybe call someone, but that would also be weird, you don't just call people nowadays without scheduling it in outlook with them, or at least dropping a warning email that you're going to give them a call. Pondering on this sad state of modern work communications the nice fresh faced young man from IT came back with my laptop and didn't say anything about Russian porn sites, just confirmed that it was clean now. He didn't even smirk or anything so I think maybe he's seen worse or has better things to do that check up on people's browsing history.

If he had checked though he might have anticipated that there was going to be basa served in our house sometime soon. I think I've only had basa once before. My sister cooked it for me. She dusted them with rye flour and shallow fried them. They were really good. I think it's such a mild flavoured fish that it needs something to make it a bit more interesting. I decided to modify my Finn-Crisp and pesto salmon recipe and it worked beautifully.

Basa fillets with red pesto, basil and olives (serves 2)

4 basa fillets (or you can use cod)
Oil
Salt
Pepper
4 tsp red pesto
4 tbsp breadcrumbs (panko or crushed Finn-Crisps)
Handful of fresh basil leaves
Handful of pitted black olives
1 spring onion
Handful of cherry tomatoes

Preheat oven to 200C.

Season the fillets lightly with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil on top and place in an oven dish. Spread 1 heaped teaspoon of pesto on each fillet and sprinkle on top the chopped fresh basil, breadcrumbs, olives, chopped spring onion and halved cherry tomatoes.

I used crushed Finn-Crisps for breadbrumbs, but you could use panko or normal breadcrumbs, just something to give the dish a bit of crunch.

Bake for about 10-12 minutes until fish is done and flakes easily.

Lately husband has been on freezer food. Last night stuck on M4 behind an accident I texted him to defrost some moose samosas from the top shelf of freezer. He got it a bit wrong somehow in the microwave and you could have used them as murder weapons and then eaten them, so there would be no evidence. Except you actually couldn't eat them. And there'd still be the body.

Overall there's been too much time spent in the car recently and it's so wet and my driver's side wind screen wiper is tired. And do you know what really annoys me? People who don't know how to do the zipper thing. Two lanes merge, we all nicely take our turns, one from one lane, one from the other. Not that difficult if you can count to ONE!

Mostly it works, but every once in a while there is someone who will just push their nose in when it's not their turn. Well, not in front of me! If I have learned nothing else from my father, I have learned this. After all what will it come to if we abandon all rules and laws and order.

Tonight I wasn't home that much earlier, but just in time to do a quick healthy soup out of the scraps I found in the fridge veg compartment and the cupboards. Husband likes to eat reasonably light on week nights although sometimes I despair when after a super healthy and carefully prepared meal he finds my chocolate stash (there for surprise coffee guests etc.) and comes and proudly announces he just had six Lindor Strawberries and Cream Special Edition balls (= probably at least third of his intended daily calorie intake).

But I forgive him for his chocolatey trespasses because he brings me  thoughtful little presents every once in a while. Like tonight a lovely package from Halfords - a windscreen wiper!

No time for shopping - feel almost like a post-war ration superwife feeding the family with this.

Chickpea, potato and coconut soup (serves 2), ready in less than 20 min.

Oil
1/2 onion
1 celery stalk (small)
1 carrot
1 potato (large)
1 1/2 cup water
1 vegetable stock pot (or cube)
Salt
Pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
215g can of chickpeas (drained)
125g coconut cream

Spoonful of natural yoghurt, fresh parsley and chickpeas to decorate (optional)

Chop the onion, carrot, celery and potato. If you need to cook quickly chop the carrot and potato quite finely. Heat a splash of vegetable oil in a soup pan. Add the chopped vegetables and saute on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add 2/3 of the chickpeas, thyme, water and stock cube, salt and pepper. Let cook until all vegetables are soft.

Blend with a hand blender until smooth. Add the coconut cream and the rest of the chickpeas reserving some for decoration. Add some water mixing the soup until required thickness. Bring to boil. Ladle into bowls and decorate with the rest of the chickpeas, spoonful of natural yoghurt and fresh parsley.



I used a pretty tired looking stalk of celery and the carrot and potato had seen better days, so I am linking this recipe to Credit Crunch Munch hosted this month by Travels for Taste and run by Fab food for all, and Fuss free flavours.