Bread Pudding, Asparagus Soup 

(Brunch 23 June)

Bread pudding, asparagus pottage soup, cabbage salad, tea

2/3 of budget was left from our steak date happened two days ago. Two apples were also left for a month and started to shrink. Bread pudding is one of the best way to recycle old bread and apple in tasty way.

In the previous night, I made caramel with dark muscovado sugar and powered it on the bottom of a baking pan (lightly greased with olive oil) and left it in the freezer. In Japan, muscovado sugar is one of popular healthy foods since  it contains high amount of mineral and vitamin B. It offers richer flavour and taste than that of caster sugar. I love using muscovado sugar for my daily cooking. 

Making caramel with muscovado sugar

One egg, 1 cup of milk and 2 tablespoonful caster sugar were mixed into a bowl  for soaking old budget sliced in 1cm

Old apples 

Old apples were peeled and caramelised with 1 tablespoonful caster sugar with a teaspoonful butter

While caramelising apples, heat up the oven into 160C. Place the soaked budget on the baking pan and put pieces of apples on the top with some dry fruits and nuts. Bake it for 40 mints.

While baking the pudding I prepared asparagus soup. I found a tiny piece of fennel left in the bottom of our fridge. Pottage soup is also nice way to use up old veggies.

Asparagus pottage

1. Cut off the hard part in the bottom and peel the skin of asparagus with peeler
2. Chop 
3. Cut 1/2 spring onion into pieces and fennel and fry in a deep pan with a tablespoonful butter.
4. When onion and fennel became tender or translucent, add a half tablespoonful plain flower and mix all the ingredient for another 2 mints
5. Add chopped asparagus and water to cover the ingredients. Allow it to boil and turn the heat weak, add S&P and leave it another 2 mints
6. When the asparagus became tender, turn off the heat and load everything into the jar of mixer (or star to  blend with a handy blender) for 3 mints.
7. Put the neat on the pan and drain the soup

When everything was nearly ready, I got a message from my family in Japan and chatted with them through skype... then, I burnt the pudding!!

Whenever I burned something in oven, I swore to remember switching on the timer with alarm before baking.... So did I in this time, again...  
Luckily Mr. Husband enjoyed the burnt part of the pudding and we emptied everything. 
Though slightly brunt, it was a very sweet branch.


Total time to prepare: 50 mints
Total cost: 2 pounds 80p for budget, 1 pounds for asparagus, 20p for other veggies