Lettuce & Pea Soup

The boy and I love a bowl of soup on a cold evening. Our organic delivery is a salad box, but we’re more in the mood for a soup than a salad.

25g butter

300g peas

1 head lettuce. Torn into pieces

3 spring onions, finely sliced

2tbsp parsley, finely chopped

2tbsp coriander, finely chopped

650ml vegetable stock

100ml single cream

Most of this is sourced from the veg box, though we should be having this in early summer. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the peas, spring onions and lettuce. Cook gently until the lettuce is wilted. The boy will not be convinced this is a good idea. As far as he is concerned, a salad is a salad.

Add the herbs and cook for another minute. Add the stock and cook for another 3 minutes. We like Knorr stock pots or Swiss Marigold.

Set aside two ladles of the broth and blend the rest. Combine the two and add the cream, reheating gently. Season to taste.

We’re having this with a big pile of garlic bread. It’s important that it’s both garlicky and crunchy. The boy is surprised that what he thought would be a side salad makes such a good soup. He doesn’t know that I’ve added a tiny dab of harissa to each slice of garlic bread to wake it up and compliment the soup.

Pork Sesame Metaballs

The boy loves any kind of meatballs with noodles. Who doesn’t?

500g pork mince

4 spring onions, sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 egg, beaten

3tbsp dark soy sauce

5tbsp sesame seeds

1tbsp oil

450g Pak Choi, cut into 1.5cm slices

3 x 150g packs of ‘ready to wok’ noodles

160g pack of ‘sweet chilli’ stir fry sauce.

This is an after work recipe that uses a few short cuts – notably the noodles and the stir fry sauce, If you can’t find ‘sweet chilli’, use a Sichuan sauce instead. If you can’t see anything that looks like this, feel free to use what you can find. It will not taste the same but will probably be just as good. I’m sure the boy would be just as happy with chow-mein or sweet & sour sauce.

 ‘Ready to wok’ noodles are pre-cooked, oiled noodles. If you can’t find them, just cook regular noodles and dress them in oil so they don’t stick, while you’re waiting to use them.

Put the pork mince, spring onions, egg and 1bsp soy sauce in a bowl and mix well with your hands. Make around 30 balls and put them on plate. Refrigerate for 30 mins so they firm up.

Put the sesame seeds on another plate and then roll the balls over the seeds so they pick up plenty. It’s easy to become obsessed with how evenly they do this. Don’t – just make sure they pick up plenty.

Heat the oil and cook the meatballs, stirring frequently for about 12 minutes or until cooked through. They will look nicely browned. Remove and keep warm.

Wipe the pan with kitchen paper and add a little more oil. Stir fry the pak choi for about 2 minutes, or until it wilts. Add the noodles and the stir fry sauce. Toss it well for about 3 minutes. Add the rest of the soy sauce. Give it a stir and introduce the meatballs to their new friends.

The boy loves Polpette with spaghetti so he should like this. He’d remarkably adept with chopsticks, which is surprising given how clumsy he is generally.

Two and a half bean salad

The boy has made us a bean salad for packed lunch tomorrow. It’s made from what he found in the cupboard and the remnants of the organic veg box. It’s good.

1 can cannellini beans

1 can borlotti beans

1 small can sweet corn

½ green pepper

½ cucumber

1 stick celery

1 large tomato

½ red onion

Handful coriander

Dressing

Equal parts olive oil & white vinegar

Mustard powder

Rock salt & white pepper

Dried oregano

The boy is making the salad, I'm doing the dressing. He rinses the beans and cleans the cans so they are ready for recycling. The Sunday play is on Radio 3 and he seems interested in it. He dices all of the vegetables and places half of them, along with half the bean mix, in two Tupperware boxes. Once mixed he adds the other half so he can keep it even without breaking the beans up.

He tears the coriander and adds it to our boxes, tossing gently.

I’d be tempted not to add the dressing until tomorrow morning, except that the beans will soak it up overnight. We both like our dressing on the sharp side and it will go well with the chalkiness of the beans. So ½ cup each of oil and vinegar with a heaped tsp of English mustard and ½ tsp dried oregano. Lots of salt as you want to keep it sharp and a sprinkle of pepper.

The boy is proud he’s made both our lunches, and so he should be – it will be really good. Filling from the beans and mouth-watering from the dressing.