M and I love soups and mushrooms. In the past, when I went to restaurants, I tend to ignore the rest of the starters and go straight for soups. I have since managed to grow out of my obsession with soups and realised how wonderfully delicious the other appetisers could be. One of them is the classic baked mushrooms with bacon and cheese. I have seen this starter in almost all the franchise restaurants in England, eg Cafe Rouge, Bella pasta, Zizzi. Anyway, I chanced upon portobello mushrooms in ASDA, such mushrooms are incredibly expensive in Singapore and it was there at a corner, selling for 80p per pack. So of course I bought it. For this dish, all you need is to place some chopped bacon and minced garlic on the mushrooms. Lots of cheese on top and bake it till the cheese is melted and brown.
Since I am the cook, i decided to have both soup and mushrooms for dinner. I make it a point to cook soup at least once a week and I happened to buy two packets of carrots, buy 1 get 1 free and all. I needed to get rid of them before they started rotting and so I decided to make carrot soup. I used to dislike carrot soup although I suspect thats because I have never tried it before. During my Phd years, the school cafe served carrot soup once every week and without any other hot food to eat (only hot food is soup at the cafe) I tried the soup and I have fallen in love with it ever since. Chop up potatoes, onions and carrots and fry them with olive oil till softened. Add chicken stock, a pinch of nutmeg, lots of paprika if you like the kick, bay leaf and the juice of an orange. Simmer for around 40 minutes and puree the vegetables. Return the puree to the pan and the remaining liquid and reheat. To make this a proper meal, I added Orzo pasta to it.
M: We had cream cheese bagels to go with our soup and mushrooms. Oddly enough to finish them off before they went bad too.
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