Andalusian chicken-noodle soup with chickpeas

You wouldn't know it from the past couple of balmy days, but fall really is here, and that means soup weather!

This soup is the very definition of a meal in a bowl, and it would be the perfect thing to warm you up after a few hours of leaf raking, which is what I forsee in my future this weekend. I've made this soup twice now, and neither time did I have the required sherry. I think the first time I tried to cheat a bit with some red wine vinegar, but it was a poor substitute I'm sure. So go on and splurge for some sherry if you give this a try.

Start by poaching your chicken in the stock and herbs. I used bone on chicken breasts both time, because I think they have more flavour. I did remove the skin prior to poaching though.

Then cook your sausage and add in the veggies. One time I used a fresh chiorizo sausgage, which I removed from the casing and cooked just like ground meat. The second attempt at this soup used some of the chopped chured sausage. Can't say I had a preference, as both were pretty good.

While the vegetables are softening, you shred your chicken. This recipe yields a lot of meat, which helps to make it hearty.

Then add the broth back to the pot, cook your noodles, and toss in the meat, chickpeas and parsley. Almost ready to serve!

Serve in a warm bowl alongside some homemade biscuits and you've got yourself a pretty satisfying dinner.

Andalusian chicken-noodle soup with chickpeas (From Food & Drink Autumn 2010)

8 cups homemade or low sodium chicken stock
2 bone in chicken breasts, skin removed
2 bay leaves
1 leafy spring of flat leaf parsley
2 tbsp olive oil
4 oz (125g) cooked sweet or hot chorizo sausage, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, diced
1 medium potato, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
½ c dry sherry
2 oz spaghetti, broken into 2-inch pieces
½ tsp each salt and freshly ground pepper
1 can (540 ml) chickpeas drained and rinsed
½ c finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1. In large saucepan, combine stock, chicken breasts, bay leaves and parsley sprig. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes or until chicken breasts are no longer pink inside. With a slotted spoon, remove chicken breasts from stock and set aside to cool slightly.

2. When chicken breasts are cool enough to handle, remove meat from bones and shred meat finely. Set aside.

3. In large Dutch oven, heat oil over medium heat. Add chorizo and cook stirring for 3 to 5 minutes or until chorizo starts to brown and renders some of its fat. Add onion, carrot and potato. Cook, stirring for 5 to 7 minutes or until onion is softened but not brown. Add garlic and paprika. Cook stirring for one minute or until fragrant.

4. Add sherry. Bring to a boil, stirring to scrape up any browned bits from bottom of pot. Boil for 2 minutes or until sherry has almost evaporated.

5. Strain stock into Dutch oven, bring to a boil over high heat. Add spaghetti, salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low, simmer partially covered for 8 to 10 minutes or until potato and spaghetti are tender.

6. Stir in reserved chicken meat and chickpeas. Simmer, uncovered, over medium-high heat for 2 minutes for flavours to blend; stir in parsley. Taste and add more salt and pepper if necessary. Ladle into warm soup bowls.

Serves 6 to 8

Chocolate Guinness birthday cake

I like birthday cakes. I like making them and I like getting them. I can still remember a butterfly cake my mum made for one of my birthdays years ago (I don’t remember the age, but I’m sure we’re talking single digits). It may have required a special pan, or just some fancy cutting, but the cake was complete with butterfly body and wings, which were colourfully decorated in candy and icing. I think there were licorice antennae too. It may not have won any Martha Stewart awards for finesse, but it was pretty fancy for Lakefield in the seventies. And hey, that was the era before Martha Stewart, so her opinion didn’t matter anyway.

There’s something cheering about a homemade birthday cake, even if it has a sloping top and the icing isn’t quite perfectly spread. Cakes made from scratch don’t look as pretty as their bakery-shop cousins, but that’s kind of the point, right? When someone goes to the trouble to mix up carefully selected ingredients, gently pours batter into pans, then frets as the cake rises and the edges brown, it means they’ve thought about you, and they’ve put time and effort into creating something that’s essentially meant to celebrate you.

That’s why I was happy to be able to make a birthday cake for my dad in September. I chose a Guinness chocolate cake for the occasion. The cake is a nice combination of chocolate — and yes beer — that results in a dense and damp concoction. This is not your light and fluffy Duncan Hines cake. And best of all, it’s remarkably simple to make. Or is the best part the leftover Guinness? Either way, win win.

Crack open a can and get started...

Melt the beer and butter in a pan.

And measure out your cocoa.

Mix up the eggs and sour cream (or yoghurt as I substituted).

Mix all together until you get this gooey mess.

And here's the baked cake. It's really moist -- and quite heavy too!

And here's the birthday guy enjoying the cake, with the world's most pathetic candle ever on top!

But this slice is looking a bit better with some raspberries and cream. Bake one for your next birthday!

Chocolate Guinness cake
from Nigella Lawson's Feast

•250ml Guinness
•250g unsalted butter
•75g cocoa
•400g caster sugar
•1 x 142ml pot sour cream
•2 eggs
•1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
•275g plain flour
•2 1/2teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1.Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line a 23cm springform tin.

2.Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter - in spoons or slices - and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.

3.Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.

Memories of the Danube

I know, I know. I've been a terrible, lousy blogger of late. And it's not that I haven't been cooking either, because I have. It's just the writing about it part that I need to improve on.

So there are some cooking updates to come, I promise. But in the meantime, I'm so sad to hear about the toxic spill in Hungary. Apparently all that red sludge is making its way to the Danube. I was in Hungary exactly a year ago, and got to see the Danube in all its shimmering glory. It's heartbreaking to think of it in a less than pristine state.

Here's how the river looked this time last year. Nice, huh?

In other news, here's a story I wrote recently about the rules of engagement in social media, and another about the business of blogging. Because you know I'm getting rich from this one!