You can't eat soup every day!

The cold I caught just before my birthday managed to get the best of me last week too. Only really did the most essential stuff so that I'd have some energy left for the girly lunch I had planned at my place on Friday. Which of course meant I didn't manage to take photos or post here. During the weekend the rest of the family followed my lead and so we have spent it convalescing. Around lunchtime on Saturday I put the little one to sleep and left the other two in each others' company watching a movie in bed, grabbed a quick lunch and my new cookbooks for an hour of exhilarating inspiration. See, I am so easy to please! 

The soup was left-over from Friday's lunch and I've had it for lunch both Saturday and Sunday to the point where my oldest said "Mummy, you can't have soup every day!" She probably thought it was some sort of treat, like the Saturday sweets she is used to, as I made these aaahs and ooohs every time I tasted a spoonful. Parsnip and coconut soup with ginger and lime. Today I had it with a toasty of my homemade sourdough fruit and nut bread full of delicious gruyere cheese, then a latte and my healthy muesli biscuits baked from one of my newly acquired cookbooks. 

I've just put all the food shopping away for next week's dinners. We are starting off with a Swedish dish called Kalops, a beef stew with succulent meat and allspice served with beetroots. 

Tuesday: favourite salmon teriyaki

Wednesday: Lamb shanks with couscous and peaches

Thursday: Pasta with tuna and tomato sauce

Friday: Adobo on chicken

By end of this week, you'll have these recipes and then I'll put together a shopping list for you so if you want, you can just copy paste the dinner recipes from this week to the next including the shopping list. 

Hope you've had a good weekend! 

Parsnip and coconut soup 

Original recipe Parsnip and coconut soup

Ingredients for 4 

3 parsnips

1 large leek

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp vegetable stock (I use liquid)

400 ml tinned coconut milk

2 lime

1/2 thumb of fresh ginger

green chili 

fish sauce to taste

Preparation

Peel the parsnips and chop into 2 cm pieces, slice the leek and garlic. Place in a large pan, cover with water, add 2 tbsp of vegetable stock. (I added half a small medium hot green chili too since the kids were not eating this). Cook until the parsnips are soft. 

When cooked, whiz into a smooth texture with a hand mixer. Add the coconut milk, add water to thin if necessary. 

Grate the zest of the lime. Peel and grate the ginger then squeeze out the juice and discard the fibrous left-overs. Add the ginger juice and lime zest, add a bit of lime juice and season to taste with fish sauce, salt and pepper.

Girly lunch!