Carrot and Coriander Soup

Following on from Jay Leno‘s quote about soup not being considered a real meal, I decided I had to put it to the test by following this BBC Good Food recipe for a very traditional Carrot and Coriander Soup.

As the recipe only really contains the most basic of ingredients, (a few carrots, a potato, and an onion), you would expect the soup to end up being really bland and boring but this couldn’t be further from the truth!

Carrot and Coriander Soup

The soup was jam-packed with flavour and it was actually quite filling! I’m not going to lie though, I had to have some garlic bread with it, because like Jay Leno, I’m not a big believer in having just soup for dinner. For a second though, I might have been convinced…

The soup was absolutely delicious but I still think I would have preferred it as a starter before sitting down to a nice full plate of steak and chips. Or something like that.

I promise I’ll keep trying though, watch this space for Butternut Squash Soup, Pea and Mint Soup, Tomato Soup, and many, many more.

PS: If you don’t have a nice big fresh crusty loaf on hand to soak up the goodness, you should try this last-minute tip on how to make your own garlic bread:

If you know of any other wholesome soups that might tempt me away from “real” dinners, please tweet them @FongtasticFood

Banana Cashew Cake

The ultimate form of procrastination: baking.

Instead of choosing to get on with my ever-growing workload, I decided to bake a banana cake.

With almost 200 5-star ratings, I thought this step-by-step guide from AllRecipes would surely do the trick.

Banana Cashew Cake

I’m going to start this recipe review by calling xuthus1972, in the nicest sense of the word, a liar. From my experience, the banana cake took just over double the suggested cooking time, but boy was it worth the wait!

The cake came out looking absolutely mouthwatering, it was perfectly golden and slipped out of the loaf tin and onto a cooling rack as easy as pie (no pun intended). I’m not even going to get into how good it made my kitchen smell…

Unlike most banana cakes, this one wasn’t too heavy and had a lovely crumbly texture. My decision to also add some chopped cashew nuts really made it something special. With each individual bite, I could taste the creaminess of the banana and the nutty flavour of the cashews. The two flavours just complimented each other beautifully.

But now that I’ve finished my slice, I better get back to work … at least until dinner.