French Onion Soup and a Return to Cooking

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Onion soup hiding beneath giant cheese croutons
Flu between Christmas and the return to work robbed me of the culinary fun I had planned. My wife picked up the slack, cooking through until the 5th when I made my return to the chef's role. Sea bass, roasted with garlic and lemon, and served with an uncomplicated tomato pasta.

Saturday continued the revival, and a delicious but simple Onion Soup. 6 onions, sliced and sautéed in butter for 30 minutes. A pint of stock and a pint of cider. Slow simmering and reduction for 2 hours. The cheese croutons soak up most of the juice, and boiling hot from the broth and the molten cheese are somewhat tricky to eat first.


  
Raspberry lemon sauce pudding
No weekend would be complete without a roast, and a delicious leg of lamb from Denstone Hall Farm Shop didn't disappoint. Enough left over for a curry.

Pudding was the wonderful Raspberry Lemon Sauce Pudding. One of the many in the repertoire of my mother-in-law, and a family favourite. It's a self saucing pudding, that splits during the cooking to give a raspberry and lemon sauce base with a light soufflé-like top. The recipe isn't mine to give away, but you can find many like it on the net, just add some raspberries (fresh or frozen) and top with a lemon self-saucing pudding like this. Goes best with single cream, but we made to with vanilla ice-cream.

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