I’ve already eaten some pretty great chowder here on the island, both at the Compass Rose where it comes with a spoonful of butter and a view of seals and at Gallaway’s with Winifred (pictured above), my 1^st cousin thrice removed.  Both were delicious, but there’s just enough time to make a pot of my own before we go. Especially since we have such a well equipped kitchen here at our little rented creekside cottage in North Head.

We’ve actually had a hard time getting the fish this visit.  The main reason is that most of the fish caught here is “exported” to mainland and the residents are not really big fish buyers as they generally catch what they need (or their neighbours do) and have a deep freezer full.  Also this is a very small place without many shops, our fish typically comes from the back of this clothing store.  That said although most of the seafood here is farmed or trapped, there are rumblings of past over fishing and trawling and normally we would have found a nice piece of haddock or halibut on day two, not day 5 of our visit. All in all, grocery shopping on an isolated island has its challenges.

Boiling water
Corn 1 cob or ½ cup of frozen

Chop your fish up into inch cubes. Throw it in on top of your onions.  We’re using 3 pieces of gorgeous fresh Haddock from Newton’s in Grand Harbour.

Add a bit of chopped parlsey and a handful of chopped dulse! (more to come about dulse soon) turn off the heat and wait 5 minutes and you’re done. 

So many good soups!  I am actually eating this one as I type this great veggie soup recipe out for you.
Rebecca too, but her’s has some brown rice baby cereal mixed into it to make it easier to eat.

Poppy’s Curried Carrot & Apple Soup

2 tsp sunflower oil
1tbsp curry powder
11/4lb (500g) chopped carrots
1 large chopped onion
1 large chopped apple
4 cups (1L) vegetable stock
salt & pepper
chopped parsley

Heat oil in a large, heavy pan and gently fry curry powder for 2-3 minutes.

Add chopped carrots, onion, and apple.  Stir until well coated with the curry powder, then cover the pan.

Cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes, until softened.

Spoon the vegetables into food processor or blender.  Add half the stock and blend until smooth.

Return to pan and pour in remaining stock.  Bring soup to a boil and adjust seasoning to taste.  Garnish with parsley.

So Delicious!

Here’s another one of my talented friend’s delicious Soup Recipe. We are trying to name them as we eat them and Mmm Mmm Marla’s Mushroom Mash! is certainly fitting. The exclamation point is part of the title.

So straight from Marla, how to make one of the best soups I’ve ever tasted:

First, I took enough of the garlic cloves you get in the big bags from Chinatown to cover the bottom of a 9″ pie plate, and roasted them slowly covered in olive oil until they were gorgeous and smushy and sweet.

That went in the bottom of my soup pot, to which I added a little more olive oil, a good hunk of butter, three medium onions, coarsely chopped. I simmered that for 10 – 15 minutes, until the onions were golden and there were starting to be lovely little browned crusty bits of garlic skating around the bottom.

While that was happening, I took four large sweet peppers, sliced and roasted them under the broiler until the skins were black and easy to peel off.

Then, I chopped about a grocery bag full of various mushrooms, plus about six large Portobello mushrooms and added them to the pot, and liberally salted, peppered and added a handful of Emeril’s Rustic Rub (you can google the recipe for that, or choose your own spices). At that time I added the peeled roasted peppers.

This simmered, with occasional stirring, for about 50 minutes until it cooked down quite a bit.

Now, here is where I would normally have added vegetable stock – but since I didn’t have any but PC Organic (which has wheat and soy ingredients), I tried water.

But you should add vegetable stock, and let it simmer another ten minutes at least.

Use a stick blender, or transfer to to a regular blender, and puree until as smoooth or as chunky as you like, and cook a little longer.

Add cream and more butter to taste, and more rub to taste.

Now, because we had to be gluten-free for the swap, it still tasted too thin with the water, and I panicked. So, I cooked down another big bag of mushrooms, more onions, butter, rub, roasted and fresh garlic and added extra garlic powder, plus a whole bunch of chopped parsley and the rinds from some Parmesano Reggiano, and added that in and mixed it all with the stick blender, added it in and re-mixed it all together. That made it better – but veg stock is what I needed.