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Red pepper soup and apple and blackberry cobbler

This week’s recipes are two simple dishes to have as a delicious lunch or a tasty supper. With the abundance of produce on offer at this time of year, it is always best to use this up and cut down on as much food waste as possible.

The red pepper soup recipe makes good use of fresh and what you might call store–cupboard veg and it’s so tasty and simple to make that you’ll return to it again and again.

The apple and blackberry cobbler – a great way of using up blackberries if you’ve been out foraging with the kids in the past week or two – is a real crowd–pleaser. Plus it’s just the thing on these darkening evenings, when the weather gets a bit nippier and you want something warming and wholesome to cheer you up. Summer feels a long way away now…

Red pepper soup (Serves 4)

500g ripe plum tomatoes

5 red peppers(chopped)

6 cloves garlic

1 large onion

Salt and black pepper

Olive oil

500ml vegetable stock

Method:

Preheat an oven to 200C. Mix the tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onion and season with salt and pepper and cover with a good covering of olive oil. Place in a roasting tray and cook for about 30 minutes, then remove from the oven. Place in a pan with the vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Place in a food processor and blend until smooth and serve.


Apple and blackberry cobbler (Serves 4)

For the fruit filling:

1kg cooking apples peeled, cored and cut into small dice approx 2cm in size

250g blackberries

100g Demerara sugar

Icing sugar for dusting



For the topping:

150g self–raising flour

50g cold butter, cut into cubes

50g caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

4 tablesp milk


Method:

You will need a good oven–proof deep pie dish. Start by pre–heating the oven to 180C and greasing your dish. Put the apples, blackberries and sugar into the dish and mix well.

To make the topping, add the flour and the butter into a food processor and mix together until the mixture has a breadcrumb consistency. You can do this by hand as well but it will take a little longer. At that stage, add in the caster sugar, the egg and the milk and mix together again. It should resemble a wet scone mix.

Spoon the dough over the fruit and place in the oven for 30 minutes, until it is brown on top and the fruit is bubbling over the top.

Remove from the oven, dust with caster sugar and serve.

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