Fennel Bread

I'd been wanting to make some bread for a while and the idea of fennel bread, really got my tastebuds going. The bread started off nicely, but the loaves didn't rise very well the second time, going out rather than up. So while they didn't turn out looking great, they did taste very nice.

Fennel Bread (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie's Fennel Seed Breadsticks, pg 438
makes 2 small loaves

tiny pinch saffron
1 cup warm water
2 tsp dried yeast
2 tsp salt
250g plain flour
125g semolina flour
2 tsp fennel seeds

Sweet Corn Soup

Whenever hubby is sent to the supermarket unsupervised, there are a few things he always 'accidentally' comes home with... chocolate, berries, toy yoghurts (those chilled custardy treats for kids) and sweet corn if it's summer. Seeing as we had a few cobs in the fridge, I thought I'd do something different with them, so went through Stephanie and found a recipe for Sweet Corn Soup. It sounded nice and simple and I was interested to see how it would taste as the only corn soup I've ever had has always been the Chinese version.

This soup was easy enough to whip up, although passing it through a sieve did take a little while, but was definitely worth the effort as the soup was beautifully silky. The ingredient list is quite short, so you really do need to use the best produce for this one; It's not a recipe for canned corn.

Sweet Corn Soup (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie's Sweetcorn Soup with Spiced Butter, pg 350
serves 4 as a starter

40g butter
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 litre water
kernels from 4 corn cobs
salt