May 2008 - Homestyle Minestrone

Belinda Jeffery's Roast Lemon Chicken with Sicilian Olives on the front of issue #71 looks really good. It is quite a simple recipe using thigh cutlets. Sicilian olives are quite nice, even though I am not normally a fan of green olives. I have bought them previously in one of the local supermarkets however they were sold out when I went looking.

I was then going to make Jamie Oliver's Spaghetti with pan-fried prawns and tomatoes. It sounded nice and different since I don't normally eat prawns I thought that it would be something different. The supermarkets here do have prawns, sometimes though you cannot get green prawns and the night I wanted to make this I could only get already cooked prawns. I have used already cooked prawns in meals previously but they always end up tough so I just decided to make something else.

Since it has started to get cold here I had been wanting to make soup to have for quick meals and lunches. To this end I decided to make Valli Little's Homestyle Minestrone. The recipe said that it made 6 serves so I decided to make half the recipe but I still ended up with a huge amount of soup. It was very nice though so I was not overly concerned. I didn't have any small tubular pasta so I just used risoni in it. It was a nice filling soup. I serve with some slices of garlic bread for a nice meal.