Here is day 2 of our cook-along. We are cooking through Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook, and the recipes for today are:
- Spring Vegetable and Bean Soup, pg 128
- Fruit Scones, pg 331
I don’t know why Jamie Oliver calls this soup “spring vegetable”. I thought broccoli and cauliflower were winter veggies. Either way, it is a very tasty soup. I added the canned tomato and pasta that he suggests to give it an Italian feel. And it went together very quickly, which is great. I added the spinach to the bowls before serving to keep it a bit crunchy and to control the amount in the kids bowls. They thought it was very tasty too!
As for the scones…this is a natural early recipe to try for our family, we love scones! These have a very British taste and feel. They are not like the sweet, cake-like scones you find here. I have actually made these scones twice and never just as the recipe stated. The first time I tried to substitute the self rising flour for regular flour with added baking powder and salt and the result was way too salty! So this second time I used the self rising flour and didn’t add any salt, and the result was much better. I used just cherries, dices up to spread them more though the batter.
The other major change I made was to make them totally dairy free. Our 5 year old is very sensitive to milk so I am always trying to find ways to make things taste good without milk. It worked great in this case, you can’t tell any difference. I used a vegan butter designed for baking and canned coconut milk instead of regular milk. I have just recently discovered that coconut milk is a really great substitute for milk in baked things. It is nice and thick and creamy and has a very mild flavor. I did need more than double the amount of coconut milk as the regular milk called for in the recipe to achieve the correct consistency. To add a bit more sweetness, I sprinkled the tops with sugar after brushing on coconut milk. I baked them at 425 rather than 400, but we live over 5000 feet and baked things seem to need to be cooked at a higher temperature to achieve the same result. They are really good served with whipped cream or butter or just by themselves. They are nice and crisp coming out of the oven, they will dry out if left on the counter or get pretty soft if stored in a bag. I have not tried freezing them, as Jamie Oliver suggests, there haven’t been any left to freeze!
Remember we will be entering everyone who cooks with us and leaves a comment about your experience into a drawing to win a free 1 year subscription to Plan to Eat. We will do this each week, so get the book and cook with us and let us know what you think!
