The soup - a review, and how not to make melba toast.

I had the Clear-the-decks soup for lunch today. It worked quite well, though it was much, much too thick to eat as it was - more of a root vegetable puree. I split the puree in half and boxed some of it up to freeze - no point in taking up extra freezer space by thinning it beforehand. 

The second half was thinned with yet another half litre of vegetable stock. In retrospect, milk might have worked, but I wasn't convinced that milk would work with the kale, and also I'm pretty lactose intolerant, and I'm still not too well, so it might have been a bridge too far. 

Once I'd thinned it, I split it in half again. Half went back in the fridge, half went into a pan with a handful of shredded kale. I heated it through quite hard while I made a poor effort at some melba toast (see below). Once it was hot through and my toast was as ready to go as it was going to be, I gave it a try. 

The first thing to say is that it was salty enough to make it taste like a canned soup, which was a shame - the stock I had used the second time was too concentrated. 

It was thick and spicy and warm, and the kale had a tiny bit of a bite to it with that dark, sylvan green cutting through the brownish-orange of the soup itself. The flavour wasn't strong, but the mild bitter iron taste really cut the heaviness of the soup. Perhaps a squeeze of lemon juice would have made even more of a difference, but the soup is eaten and I am too full to try a taste test on another batch just now. 

It was a good meal, and one that I feel far better for having eaten, though I am drinking copious amounts of water to counter the saltiness of the stock - I am reminded here, however, that I rarely add salt to food unless the flavour specifically demands it, as we do not eat extra salt in my family home for medical reasons (note: this goes out of the window whenever I am cooking chicken pieces with cherry tomatoes, which I shall do sometime next week -- I never cook this for anyone but myself and friends I know are not at risk from overdoing salty foods). Perhaps the soup would be fine if you're a human halophile.

Anyway: the melba toast disaster. 

I love melba toast - when I can be bothered and have the right bread, it's a serious treat. Today I tried doing it a little differently. 

Here is how I would do it normally for two people (and probably overdoing it at that): 

- Lightly toast four slices of cheap sliced bread (granary, wholemeal or white are fine, but fruity would burn - the cheapness means that the water content is quite high so the bake is crisp and quick). 

- Once out of the toaster, as soon as you're able to handle the toast without hurting yourself, cut it carefully into two identical halves through the edge of the bread. This can be done either by very carefully bisecting the crust width-wise, or by cutting the crusts off and using the soft non-toasted centre as an easy way in. You should have two thin sheets of toast the same shape as your original bread.

- Cut the half-toasts (which should be crispy on one side and fluffy on the cut side) into triangles and lay on a baking sheet, fluffy-side up. Do not pick off the little hummocks of balled-up dough that are made in the cutting process - they add pleasing texture. 

- Put the baking sheet into a low oven for 10 minutes, or until the slices are golden brown, light and crispy to the touch and curling up at the corners. 

- Eat immediately. 

I really, really love melba toast. It spins a loaf out brilliantly, and is a great use for cheap bread. 

What I did today was not so successful. Last week, when I knew that my finances were going south what with becoming one of Britain's ranks of unemployed (complex story - not up for discussion at present), I started thinking about ways to save money and to work even harder at preventing waste. There was a very cheap going-off-in-the-morning loaf of hovis sliced white in the supermarket, so I bought it and froze most of it. I've been pulling off slices to shove in the oven to heat through before toasting since then, and it's spun out really well. 

What I did today was to try to cut out the 'middle-man' of toasting. I simply heated and slightly dried the bread in the oven, then attempted to cut it edge-wise. Did not work. The bread needs toasting to get the broad sides crispy enough to act as a barrier to the knife. Normally when I'm slicing melba toast, I can feel the difference in texture where I'm cutting and know if I'm getting too close to the surface. No such luck here. What I got was frankly a mess. I melba'd it anyway. Still tasted all right but as you'll see, looked a bit of a sight and was a bit too uneven for my liking. Nevermind. It hasn't killed me, I've thought about the process - learning is good. And I'm still full of soup and toast at the end of it all, and that was really my primary goal. All is well.