Pantry Soup

This recipe was in a Delicious magazine as Pasta e Fagioli (Pasta and Beans) but by the time I was finished with it, it much more resembles Minestrone (hearty, pantry soup).

My cousin Erica is up in Brisbane at the moment for a training course with her new job so on Sunday we picked her up from the airport and high-tailed it to The Farm for arvo tea with Julie, the boys and Grandad. Then we spent an hour or so trying to display the wedding photos from the other weekend on the TV so that everyone could see them but without the cables to do the job easily we didn’t get very far.

In planning dinner for Sunday night I had to take into plan the Pesco-vegetarian preference of Erica and the red meat carnivore that is my younger brother, who whilst he likes fish would rather eat his own leg before he had prawns or other shell fish. That threw my idea of actually cooking seafood paella in my paella pan which thus far has only been used to make curries out the window. As I was flicking through magazines I had out from the library I came across a recipe for Pasta e Fagioli in the May 2005 issue of Delicious. That looks good I thought and hopefully the men in my family won’t kick up too much of a fuss about the lack of meat in it.

I come from a culinary upbringing (doesn’t that sound swish) where the recipe mostly serves as a starting point and by the time you are eating the meal you are quite a few steps removed from the start. This is mainly due to the addition of extra vegetables in recipes. “What! The only vegetable called for is for a small onion and a stalk of celery? That is not much of a meal. Add some shallots as well and whatever else you can find is in the freezer/fridge/pantry.” Our freezer is a sight to see as it contains many Tupperware containers of chopped celery, shallots, capsicum, mushrooms etc that at a moments notice can be dumped into a saucepan to beef up the nutritional and taste content of a meal. Consequently, my ability to give you an accurate measure of what went into the soup is about as likely as seeing pigs fly. Unless you can follow the measure of half a tightly packed medium Tupperware container? No? I didn’t think so.

Minestrone soup

Pantry Soup or Minestrone

Garlic – a couple of cloves, minced. (I mince up garlic and freeze it in teaspoon sized foil packets)
Onion – diced
Carrot – diced
Celery – thinly sliced
Shallots
Capsicum – diced
Pasta – soup pasta is good, or any small pasta – 150g or so
Beans – cannelloni and borlotti (3x400g tins or so serves 6 easily, drained)
Passata di Pomodoro – tablespoon or two
Tomatoes – 1x400g tin, whole and roughly chopped
Baby spinach – a handful or two
Vegetable stock – how much depends on how much soup you are making (9/10 times we used powder, it is easy)

Either on the stove top or microwave cook the pasta till it is about 7/8 cooked.
Meanwhile heat some olive oil in a large saucepan and soften the onion. Add the garlic and whatever other veggies you are using and cook for a couple of minutes till the veggies start to soften.
Roughly mash one of the tins of beans and add to the saucepan along with the other tins of beans,tomatoes and a little bit of Passata.
In the empty tins pour in some boiling water and a little bit of stock powder and pour into the soup (you get your money’s worth this way, you won’t be throwing out any little bit of flavour). How much stock you add really is up to you as it depends on a) how much liquid you want in the soup and b) what quantities of vegetables you have used initially.
Bring this to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes and then add the cooked pasta, simmer for a couple more minutes and then stir through a couple of handfuls of baby spinach (basil could also work nicely here I think) allowing it to wilt a bit in the hot soup and serve with some crusty bread.

In the batch I made today I also added a couple of slices of roast capsicum that I had cut into thin strips to give add some more texture and flavour.

Grandad was wolfing it down and I can’t remember he if only had seconds or had thirds as well. The Palsson men didn’t complain too much about the lack of meat in it and the rest of it also quite enjoyed it. For dessert we had a chocolate self-saucing pudding but that will have wait till next time as I have no photo.

All in the details

Do we want another wedding post? It was quite a nice w/e and I haven’t done that many exciting things since then or not that I have photos of and really it is all about the photos isn’t it?

How about details. There was so many pretty things at the reception that just made it that little bit more special.

Michelle’s Bouquet. Can you see the Paua (Abalone) shells? NZ is famous for Paua shells and they really are quite pretty shells, sort of like opals of the sea. Can you see the spiral shell? It actually has a finger sized hole at the bottom and that is what Shawn proposed with 🙂
The Bride's Bouquet

Aunty Susan and Lisa went out to the reception site on the morning of the wedding and they created a masterpiece. The tables were decorated with “white” and black sand, tumble weed, Paua shell, seaweed, shells and candles. They truly outdid themselves, the tables were gorgeous.
20070217_2236 20070217_2234 20070217_2232 20070217_2230

Hiding beneath those layers of icing were a white chocolate and a chocolate mud cake from The Cheesecake Shop. Mmm Mmm.
The Cake

This was a photo I grabbed as I walked past the wedding car. I only had my 50mm lens on and I couldn’t walk back any further or I would have crashed through the wall of the marquee.
Wedding Chevy

We are about to go pick up Erica, another cousin who is up in Brisbane for a couple of days for job training. It will be nice to see her as we haven’t seen her since we were in Tasmania last year.

The Man

It is pretty well known in these parts that my grandfather (herein after referred to as Grandad) is the coolest man around. He walks the walk, speaks the speak and has the ladies to the left and right sighing as he walks past and he is also a bit of a comedian as well.

Now imagine Grandad looking oh so suave in a cream shirt and trousers with his signature blue hat on a beach surrounded by a group of adoring fans.

This is the man of the hourcentury, throwing back a glass of bubbly at the beach at Raglan. See that man to the right, looking down at the sand? That is the undercover NZ police officer who was in charge of Grandad’s security detail. You can’t take him out anywhere in public these days without a security detail.
Grandad throwing back a glass of bubbly

When he is spotted by various grandchildren/children with bubbly in hand after a certain grandchild who very much adores her grandfather squeals something along the lines of “look, Grandad has a glass of bubbly”, the paparazzi set their focus on him and the adoring fans look on in admiration.

Lisa taking a photo of Grandad and his bubbly

I had ladies coming up to me left, right and centre at the reception asking me “Is that your grandfather? I was chatting to him before, he is pretty cool. I wish my grandfather was like him”. Ok so I might have made that last little bit up but I am sure people think that after meeting Grandad. He is Grandad after all. In the end, the girls and guys just couldn’t give him a little space and he had to leave the reception with his entourage shortly after the gifts were opened.

This is a photo of one lady who had a chat to Grandad at the reception. The lady is Michelle, of course (you know, the bride) checking in with her new grandfather in law, making sure that he wasn’t been crowded by all the fans wanting autographs and that security was looking after his wants and needs. The pressures of having such a high profile celebrity at the reception. You’ld almost think Shane Warne was at the reception or something…
Grandfather and Grandaughter-in-Law

On the beach.

“How many photos did you take Helen?” asks any number of assorted relatives.
“Aw you know, just a few” I reply.

Out of that just a few photos I took during the wedding itself, this photo is without a doubt my favourite, both emotionally and technically. I just feel quite strong about it. The beach, the people, the composition, the feeling. This is the wedding. This is Shawn and Michelle on their day that they shared with 60 odd people who traveled from not only within Kiwi Land but England and Australia to be at Raglan for the wedding on the beach.

newlyweds

Landed.

Well I got back from Kiwi Land this morning, I have caught up on some of my emails, had a shower, unpacked a bit and had a quiet look at my photos. I am about to have a nap since I have to go to work tonight and since I woke up this morning at 1:30am Brissie time I would be buggered at work without a nap.

Here is one photo from the weekend which shows the groom’s side of the family. Looking at my photos I don’t think there was one taken of both the families together. The Stephenson’s are on the left, the Howie’s are on the right with Shawn and Michelle in the middle.

extended howie/stephenson family

It really was a gorgeous wedding. Low key, laid back and a lot of fun. It was a wedding that was very much an illustration of who Shawn and Michelle are. Anyway of course there are more photos to come 🙂

All my bags are packed

I’m ready to go
…cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.
John Denver.

I am heading to New Zealand for a long weekend as one of cousins is getting married. I arrive in Hamilton at midnight tonight and arrive back in Brisbane about 7am on Tuesday morning.

Mum, Pabbi, Grandad, Aunty Margaret and Uncle Max leave in the morning and fly back on Sunday arvo as they all that thing called work. I don’t have that thing yet. I am also flying on a different airline, which means I am about to go pack some snacks as I am not going to pay the prices for snacks on the plane.

Not only will this be my first adult wedding, it will also be the first time that I have been to NZ since I went with my grandparents in 1994 (over half a life ago). I will also not only get to meet my cousin’s bride to be but also his brother’s wife as I was in Germany when they got married in 2003.

I have also made my aunt two little m’henchas, one the traditional almond and orange blossom water and the other pistachio and rose water. They look so cute. I was pretty close to breaking off a bit for arvo tea yesterday as they just smelled so gorgeous.

Well my time is up and now I must head off to the airport.