the Poor Man Purple Soup

Or the complimentary colour soup....

Try it. Sounds strange, looks strange, tastes... good for purple soup!

Chop an onion in chunks, dash in a splash of olive oil in a pot, throw in the onions and simmer until translucent. Chop two large carrots into thick slices and japanese purple sweet potato into small chunks. Throw these into the pot too and sweat on medium heat for 5 - 10 minutes - stirring occasionally. Once they have softened up a bit, throw in a cup of mixed frozen veg - including corn, peas and more carrots! Sweat 'em some more.

After all those veggies have sweated enough, pour in 500ml of hot all vegetable stock and continue to cook everything on medium heat for 15 minutes. Sprinkle in some oregano and salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy the odd colours ... and remember green and purple are complimentary!

the Fat Salmon Pasta

Ingredients:

400g conchiglie pasta

250g crème fraîche

200g cream cheese

250g frozen peas

100g Gruyère cheese

100g smoked salmon

zest of lemon

Cook the conchiglie pasta and set aside. Mix the crème fraîche, zest of lemon and cream cheese on medium heat in a small pan. Make sure it doesn't bubble! Once the mixture is a thick sauce, add the frozen peas and keep stirring for 3 minutes. Stir in the Gruyère cheese and cook until melted. Season with pepper.

Pour the sauce over the pasta, scatter the torn smoked salmon and sprinkle with some extra Gruyère cheese.

And serve...

the Appetizer

On the dinner table this weekend was a range of new recipes I dared to challenge... starting with baked chocolate cheesecake! Since I had never made cheesecake before, nor did I even eat chocolate cheesecake before I thought I would just see how easy (or difficult it could be). The result - WOW!

However, the best part was making and trying what I now call the fat salmon pasta because everything about it screams heavy! Yet, with just the right serving size it is actually the perfect pasta I have tried at home. Finally, a fast pasta that can be added to the one pot pesto list. Recipe for the pasta will be posted shortly.... but the chocolate cheesecake will remain a secret for now!

And last but not least the classic insalata caprese ... which is no doubtedly the summer appetizer. This was not my first time making it but thought I would remind everyone that a challenge may be different, big, new and exciting but nothing is more challenging than consistency.