Soup and Bread

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The Soup

Made this for lunch today with a little help from my daughter.

• In a frying pan with some olive oil cooked half an onion (left over from cooking dinner last night), the last of a cabbage and a rib of celery.

• Added those to a blender with a can of white beans, a can of crushed tomatoes and some home made chicken broth.

• Daughter did the honours blending ingredients 'til mostly smooth.

• Returned soup mixture to the pan and added chopped carrot and some brown rice leftover from last night's dinner plus garlic powder, celery salt, black pepper, basil and oregano.

• Simmered until the carrots were cooked. Served and ate.
  

The Bread

I read at slashfood that it was banana bread day and since I had some over ripe bananas I'd been meaning to bake with I took it as a poke with a sharp stick to get on with it!
I looked at my saved up to try recipes (since I didn't have enough bananas for the banana bread recipe I most often use) and found one for banana gingerbread which sounded good for this time of year.
I made it basically as in the recipe although I did use yoghurt instead of buttermilk, and just ginger, cinnamon and allspice for the spices. I was going to add chopped dates but as I was making the cake and cooking dinner simultaneously I ran out of time, but next time I definitely will.
It comes out with a nice gingeriness, not tasting a lot of banana in my first piece though perhaps I need to make banana jam next...