As Strong As Soup

This oddly-nostalgic recipe might seem a bit strange these days but I was reminded of this savoury soup when I dredged the recipe for  Chicken Liver Pâté with Rum and Mango  out of my memory a while ago. Around the late eighties or early nineties, there was a brief trend among some British recipe writers to celebrate cooking with bananas. I remember a number of recipes for banana chutney (often very tasty), banana jam (interesting but usually ludicrously sweet) and soups such as this one. I've made this from memory, so it may not be entirely true to the period. I don't think of this as a hearty, lunchtime soup to satisfy your appetite after a hard morning's work. Rather, I think it's a soup to serve in small bowls as a starter. But what do I know? It's certainly a different way of enjoying bananas that's hopefully not too different for your guests. I seem to remember one restaurant serving a soup something like this with one or two freshly cooked prawns. I'...

Rumour has it that we've started a new year and so there are probably quite a few people making resolutions to be good or, at least, to be careful about what they eat. So it seems a good time to write down my favourite recipe for low-fat cake. Over the years I've tried many variations on this recipe but this very simple version is the one I usually come back to. This loaf cake has no butter or oil and no eggs. It doesn't even have a lot of sugar. Of course, take those ingredients out of a cake mixture and you’ll get a very different sort of texture in the finished cake. This cake has a typical fruit loaf quality – soft but chewy. I must make it very clear that you don’t have to use prunes – you could use other dried fruits such as dates. I know from past experience that many people hate prunes for some reason. Maybe they were force fed prunes as children. But personally I think prunes are deeply misunderstood and seriously delicious. This recipe will fill one 500 ...