I got a pasta maker for my birthday and we seem to be eating nothing but pasta since! Though the every first attempt was far from successful, I quickly sussed it out. The fact that I naturally tend to start with the most complex things, didn't help here, either. Instead of taking baby steps and making simple spaghetti or tagliatelle first, I had a go at making ravioli :-) Well, I ate my humble pie and next time I made simple soup pasta. Successfully! :-) It reminded my of the childhood days when my gran would make a delicious soup with home-made pasta when I stayed with her. Of course, I keep hearing questions, like: why bother making something you can buy in every single shop? Well, I bother as the home-made pasta is incomparably better! :-P To make basic pasta dough you need: 1 cup of flour 1 egg a pinch of salt a dash of olive oil water if the dough is to dry more flour - if the dough is to sticky, also to sprinkle on the worktop The proportions above are enough fo...

 Although it is the simplest soup of all (I don't count the instant Chinese noodle soups or canned ready-made ones here), it's been my favourite since I can remember. Back when I was a child, it was an absolute must for a Sunday lunch. When I was old enough to try to make my own one, I was so sure of myself that I nearly forgot to add half of the ingredients :-) Luckily, I sussed out something was wrong early enough to salvage the soup! It still astounds me how could one cock up such a simple thing, but as they as "impossible is nothing " ;-) To make the soup you need: chicken meat (it may be 1 whole chicken, or parts - I usually use 4 legs and 3-4 wings) 4-5 carrots 3 parsnips half a small celeriac a bit of parsley 1 garlic clove 3 bay leaves 3-4 allspice grains 3-4 black pepper grains 1 chicken stock cube salt and ground pepper a pinch of dried lovage (optional) 1 tbsp dried veg mix  Preparation: There are two ways of cooking the soup, depending...

My husband surprised me yesterday bringing me a present, a cookbook based on a TV series that I've been watching recently. The programme is situated in a restaurant and generally features the so-called "trendy cooking", rather than traditional recipes, thus I was a bit surprised to find a recipe for tomato soup. When it comes to soups, it's not a secret that they are rather easy to prepare, yet I didn't quite expected a recipe that doesn't require either chicken or vegetable stock! I knew I had to alter the recipe a little, as following the proportions given in the book we would obtain water mixture with a faint tomato flavour - not exactly what we want :) To make the soup I used: 10 large, ripe tomatoes 1 litre of water 3 bay leaves 4-5 allspice berries a pinch of dried dill 1 tablespoon of dried vegetables 1 table spoon of butter salt and pepper to taste cream or yoghurt a handful of pasta (farfale or other) Put tomatoes into a bowl o...