wamozart12 had a baby! The wamozart12 family has relied on the kindness of other people to stay fed for the past 4 weeks. wamozart12 enjoys speaking in the 3rd person.
Last night I made dinner for the first time since FC was born. I started the dinner, then FC needed to eat, so Clint finished the dinner, and we cheated and had Pillsbury Grands biscuits instead of homemade biscuits (but boy are those Grands tasty!)
Beef Stew, adapted from a Pioneer Woman recipe
2lbs stew beef
1T olive oil
1T butter
2 onions, chopped into medium-sized pieces
2 cloves garlic (which I skipped, no garlic here)
1t Penzey's northwoods seasoning (supposed to be paprika, we're all out)
1t sugar
1t salt
2T Worcestershire sauce
1 bottle stout (or other dark beer)
2oz tomato paste
4 cups water (beef broth is ideal, I had none)
2 parsnips, cut into chunks
2 carrots, cut into chunks
1 sweet potato, cut into chunks (we left it unpeeled)
mushrooms (we didn't add, but I wish we'd had some to add)
heat up the butter and oil in a large pot or dutch oven, then add the beef and brown a few minutes. Remove the beef and set aside, and saute the onions and garlic for a few minutes, until translucent. Add the spice mix, sugar, salt, Worcestershire and tomato paste and saute for a minute, then add the beef, stout and water (or broth). Bring to a boil and reduce to very low to simmer for 2-2.5hours. Add more broth/water periodically if the liquid boils off too much.
Then add all the veggies and cook for 30-45 min more.
Optional: if you'd like it thicker, place 2-3 ladlefulls of the stew liquid in a small boil and add 2-3T flour. Whisk thoroughly and then add this paste back to the stew, stir and cook for about 15 minutes more. (you can also add the flour directly to the stew pot, but then you're more likely to get lumps.)
Serve with the store-bought biscuits or some crusty bread, or if you don't have a newborn in the living room, get ambitious and make your own biscuits!
Showing posts with label soup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soup. Show all posts
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Pumpkin time!
It's pumpkin time! I've now had 3 pumpkin spice lattes, made pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies. Today was chilly (my husband turned the heat on yesterday) and my schedule was off as I tried to recover from working 4 days in a row at the winery (i.e. I fell asleep at 9:30pm and got up at 10, and had breakfast at 11) so I felt it was a soup kind of day.
I recently came across a mind-blowing blog- The Pumpkin Project: A Year of Pumpkins. AMAZING, right? She has a complete variety of recipes on there, using everything from puree to roasted pumpkins to pepitas to pumpkin pie spice. I love it. She doesn't weed out recipes to only share the good ones and is honest about the results.
The morning after Gal A blessed my inbox with the url to this blog, I practically blew up my pinterest page with all the delicious-looking recipes I wanted to make. (side note: I've been on pinterest since January 2011, and I never really found a use for it... until now.) One recipe that really caught my eye was the pumpkin tomatillo soup, because one of my knitting buddies had brought her tomatillo harvest to knitting one night to share, and I still had a bunch in my fridge, sitting around because I have no idea what to do with them. (after I started making this soup today, Clint was like, ooh are you making posole? duh! Why did I not think of posole before?! We love posole)
Pumpkin Tomatillo Soup
Recipe from Hello Giggles, by way of The Pumpkin Project
with my modifications!
1 and 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
8 tomatillos, quartered
1 roasted poblano pepper (we used 3 mystery peppers from the farmer's market. I should have used one or two)
1 can of light coconut milk
3/4 cup water (or broth/stock)
2t paprika
1/2t cumin
1/2t coriander
1/4t chipotle
1/4t sea salt
1/4t freshly ground black pepper
Did I mention this is really easy?
Combine everything in a blender and puree til smooth. Pour into a pot and boil for a few minutes to heat thoroughly.
Makes 5 cups. Per 1 cup serving (assuming my calorie calculator has the right coconut milk; there was only one option): 77 calories, 2.6g fat, 132g sodium, 13g carbs, 3.8g fiber, 3.2g protein. And 270% of your daily Vitamin A, bam!
I served with a spoonful of low fat sour cream. I'd originally planned to swirl in my chipotle sour cream (1/4cup low fat sour cream, a couple spoonfuls of adobo sauce from a can of chipotles, a small spoonful of lime juice and a tiny pinch of salt), but the mystery peppers were super duper hot, so I used plain sour cream. Next time I will use a pepper I can identify and avoid this little surprise.
That being said, this was perfect for a chilly day like today. The combination of the pumpkin, coconut milk and tomatillos is really unexpected and different, and really really tasty. It's also super quick and convenient. I think I need to rebuild my stock of coconut milk now!
I ate it with 2 pieces (1.25oz) of whole wheat ciabatta bread, each spread with one wedge of Laughing Cow cheese (one original, one sundried tomato basil, my new fave). The LC didn't really go with the soup, but oh well, it was still tasty.
I recently came across a mind-blowing blog- The Pumpkin Project: A Year of Pumpkins. AMAZING, right? She has a complete variety of recipes on there, using everything from puree to roasted pumpkins to pepitas to pumpkin pie spice. I love it. She doesn't weed out recipes to only share the good ones and is honest about the results.
The morning after Gal A blessed my inbox with the url to this blog, I practically blew up my pinterest page with all the delicious-looking recipes I wanted to make. (side note: I've been on pinterest since January 2011, and I never really found a use for it... until now.) One recipe that really caught my eye was the pumpkin tomatillo soup, because one of my knitting buddies had brought her tomatillo harvest to knitting one night to share, and I still had a bunch in my fridge, sitting around because I have no idea what to do with them. (after I started making this soup today, Clint was like, ooh are you making posole? duh! Why did I not think of posole before?! We love posole)
Recipe from Hello Giggles, by way of The Pumpkin Project
with my modifications!
1 and 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
8 tomatillos, quartered
1 roasted poblano pepper (we used 3 mystery peppers from the farmer's market. I should have used one or two)
1 can of light coconut milk
3/4 cup water (or broth/stock)
2t paprika
1/2t cumin
1/2t coriander
1/4t chipotle
1/4t sea salt
1/4t freshly ground black pepper
Did I mention this is really easy?
Combine everything in a blender and puree til smooth. Pour into a pot and boil for a few minutes to heat thoroughly.
Makes 5 cups. Per 1 cup serving (assuming my calorie calculator has the right coconut milk; there was only one option): 77 calories, 2.6g fat, 132g sodium, 13g carbs, 3.8g fiber, 3.2g protein. And 270% of your daily Vitamin A, bam!
I served with a spoonful of low fat sour cream. I'd originally planned to swirl in my chipotle sour cream (1/4cup low fat sour cream, a couple spoonfuls of adobo sauce from a can of chipotles, a small spoonful of lime juice and a tiny pinch of salt), but the mystery peppers were super duper hot, so I used plain sour cream. Next time I will use a pepper I can identify and avoid this little surprise.
That being said, this was perfect for a chilly day like today. The combination of the pumpkin, coconut milk and tomatillos is really unexpected and different, and really really tasty. It's also super quick and convenient. I think I need to rebuild my stock of coconut milk now!
I ate it with 2 pieces (1.25oz) of whole wheat ciabatta bread, each spread with one wedge of Laughing Cow cheese (one original, one sundried tomato basil, my new fave). The LC didn't really go with the soup, but oh well, it was still tasty.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Souper Bowl: Soup for Charity
A couple weeks ago, I heard about a blogger making soup to benefit animals. Branny Boils Over pledged to donate $1 to the ASPCA for every soup recipe submitted to her. I love this idea! I'm dedicating this soup to Pansy, who, as usual, hung out with us in the kitchen while we cooked, and sat with us while she ate.
(here she is with the catnip heart I just made her)
Want do make a charity soup? Just make a soup recipe, blog about it by January 30th, dedicate it to your favorite animal, and email it to Branny. Details and her email are on her blog. Don't like soup? Donate directly to the ASPCA.
This soup had the bonus of making a "going back for seconds" meal- this only happens about every other month. I rate how "good" a meal is by whether my husband goes for seconds. And with this meal, he had seconds... and then thirds.
I made stew and bread. It's been chilly, and I'm kind of in a soup mood. We had some pork in the freezer, and who really makes soup/stew with pork? Well, I found a recipe for pork stew and because it was so unexpected, I had to bookmark it. Good move. It was surprisingly good (i.e., I thought it'd be pretty good, but it was more like "wow... this is good!"). It was also easy- about 20 minutes to assemble everything, then I had a 30 minute work out while it simmered, and then we ate. It would have been a great weeknight meal.
To go with our stew, I made Dorie Greenspan's fougasse. Have you ever had fougasse? She describes it in "Around My French Table" as the provencal cousin of focaccia- honestly, I think it's better than focaccia (although it's possible I've never had real focaccia). The first time I ever saw fougasse was when I was in grad school and made it a point to visit the bakery at King Arthur Flour on a weekly basis. My friend Molly and I would go every Friday and buy a loaf of either rosemary (her) or olive (me) fougasse. Molly was a serious runner, so she'd eat the entire thing in one sitting, but I'd make mine last through Sunday (it's definitely best eaten the day it's baked). KAF didn't keep fougasse on the weekly rotation for very long, which was sad for my mouth, happy for my hips. It's a really simple bread, but something about it has a beautifully pure flavor, it's hard to describe. It's composed of olive oil, flour, yeast, water, salt, rosemary and olives (I omitted the lemon zest, more or less accidentally), and I think some combination of the salty, acidic olives with the blank palate of the rest of the ingredients does something magical. As Clint forcefully stated, "this bread is stupid-good".
Oh, and perhaps the pork stew and olive fougasse aren't the best pairings (sweet potatoes and olives? kinda weird), but it worked pretty darn well at for us. Next time I may make sage fougasse and have it with this soup, or maybe the olive fougasse with minestrone.
Pork, Sweet Potato and Apple Stew
adapted from Our Life in the Kitchen
1-1.5lbs pork (original recipe said pork stew meat, I used a pork tenderoin), cut into chunks
2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2-3 apples, peeled or not peeled (we peeled) and cut into large chunks
2 leeks, cut into 1 inch chunks (or 1-2 onions, roughly chopped)
2-3T olive oil or butter
1t cumin
1t dried sage or rosemary
black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup flour
6-8 cups chicken stock (or a mix of chicken stock and water)
In a large pot/dutch oven over medium heat, heat the oil. Add the pork and brown for a few minutes. Add the leeks and cook for 2 minutes, then add the cumin, sage and black pepper and cook a few minutes until fragrant. Sprinkle in the flour and stir until it soaks up the fat in the pan, and add the stock, sweet potatoes and apples. Simmer over medium-low or low heat for about 30 minutes.
Note that there's no salt in this: surprisingly, we didn't need any. I used 1.5 cups of homemade salt-free chicken stock, 1.5 cups of canned low sodium chicken broth, and 4 cups of water, and we didn't need to add salt at all. Of course, salt your own to taste before serving.
Olive Fougasse
from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table" (if look it up on amazon.com, you can read the recipe page 48) on "look inside this book")
Note: Dorie recommends letting the dough sit in the fridge overnight before baking. I'm sure it'll be delicious if you just let it sit a few hours, though, but I haven't tried that yet (I will this week, I'll report back).
2/3 cup warm water (in my opinion, 95-100F)
2t yeast
1t sugar
4T (1/4 cup) olive oil (I used extra light, but EVOO would be the normal one)
1 cup warm water
4 cups AP flour
1.5t salt
1T fresh, chopped rosemary
1 cup pitted, chopped dates (I used kalamata)
zest of 1 lemon or orange
1T olive oil
2t water
salt
Combine the 2/3 cup water with yeast and sugar, stir and let sit for about 10 minutes, until the yeast wakes up and is frothy.
Stir in the 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 cup of water. Meanwhile, in the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together the flour and salt. Pour in the liquids, and stir to combine with your dough hook for a few minutes on low. Knead in medium for 10 minutes. This dough is very soft and sticky, so my KA could handle 10 minutes on medium.
Now add in the olives, rosemary and zest and stir to combine (I kneaded with my hands for this part). Let the dough sit in a cool spot/refrigerator (I left it in the mudroom area, which we've recently discovered is uninsulated and averages about 50-55F) at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, or up to 3 days. I left it overnight.
On the day of baking, divide the dough in half (I left one half in the bowl to bake the next day). Roll out the dough to a flat-ish oval, and with a sharp knife, cut slashes in the dough, kind of in a leaf shape (traditional) or another shape you like. Let rest about 15 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 450F.
A few minutes before baking, whisk together the 1T oil and 2t water and brush over the top of the dough. Sprinkle with salt. Bake on the medium or lower rack in your oven for 10 minutes, then rotate and bake another 8-10, until lightly golden. (If you bake 2 loaves at once, put one on the medium rack and one on the low, and swap them after the first 10 min of baking).
Best eaten fresh from the oven, and accompaniments are totally unnecessary, this is a bread worth eating completely plain.
I only ever post recipes I think are worth sharing (unless there's some hilarious story or lesson to be learned from a fail), but I think these two recipes are more worth trying than other things I've shared. I'm telling you: go make these. And then make them again. I'm baking the second loaf of fougasse today, and then making more to bake later this week, and I think I'll be bringing this stew to our ski weekend in VT in March.
(here she is with the catnip heart I just made her)Want do make a charity soup? Just make a soup recipe, blog about it by January 30th, dedicate it to your favorite animal, and email it to Branny. Details and her email are on her blog. Don't like soup? Donate directly to the ASPCA.
This soup had the bonus of making a "going back for seconds" meal- this only happens about every other month. I rate how "good" a meal is by whether my husband goes for seconds. And with this meal, he had seconds... and then thirds.
I made stew and bread. It's been chilly, and I'm kind of in a soup mood. We had some pork in the freezer, and who really makes soup/stew with pork? Well, I found a recipe for pork stew and because it was so unexpected, I had to bookmark it. Good move. It was surprisingly good (i.e., I thought it'd be pretty good, but it was more like "wow... this is good!"). It was also easy- about 20 minutes to assemble everything, then I had a 30 minute work out while it simmered, and then we ate. It would have been a great weeknight meal.
To go with our stew, I made Dorie Greenspan's fougasse. Have you ever had fougasse? She describes it in "Around My French Table" as the provencal cousin of focaccia- honestly, I think it's better than focaccia (although it's possible I've never had real focaccia). The first time I ever saw fougasse was when I was in grad school and made it a point to visit the bakery at King Arthur Flour on a weekly basis. My friend Molly and I would go every Friday and buy a loaf of either rosemary (her) or olive (me) fougasse. Molly was a serious runner, so she'd eat the entire thing in one sitting, but I'd make mine last through Sunday (it's definitely best eaten the day it's baked). KAF didn't keep fougasse on the weekly rotation for very long, which was sad for my mouth, happy for my hips. It's a really simple bread, but something about it has a beautifully pure flavor, it's hard to describe. It's composed of olive oil, flour, yeast, water, salt, rosemary and olives (I omitted the lemon zest, more or less accidentally), and I think some combination of the salty, acidic olives with the blank palate of the rest of the ingredients does something magical. As Clint forcefully stated, "this bread is stupid-good".
Oh, and perhaps the pork stew and olive fougasse aren't the best pairings (sweet potatoes and olives? kinda weird), but it worked pretty darn well at for us. Next time I may make sage fougasse and have it with this soup, or maybe the olive fougasse with minestrone.
Pork, Sweet Potato and Apple Stew
adapted from Our Life in the Kitchen
1-1.5lbs pork (original recipe said pork stew meat, I used a pork tenderoin), cut into chunks
2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2-3 apples, peeled or not peeled (we peeled) and cut into large chunks
2 leeks, cut into 1 inch chunks (or 1-2 onions, roughly chopped)
2-3T olive oil or butter
1t cumin
1t dried sage or rosemary
black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup flour
6-8 cups chicken stock (or a mix of chicken stock and water)
In a large pot/dutch oven over medium heat, heat the oil. Add the pork and brown for a few minutes. Add the leeks and cook for 2 minutes, then add the cumin, sage and black pepper and cook a few minutes until fragrant. Sprinkle in the flour and stir until it soaks up the fat in the pan, and add the stock, sweet potatoes and apples. Simmer over medium-low or low heat for about 30 minutes.
Note that there's no salt in this: surprisingly, we didn't need any. I used 1.5 cups of homemade salt-free chicken stock, 1.5 cups of canned low sodium chicken broth, and 4 cups of water, and we didn't need to add salt at all. Of course, salt your own to taste before serving.
Olive Fougasse
from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table" (if look it up on amazon.com, you can read the recipe page 48) on "look inside this book")
Note: Dorie recommends letting the dough sit in the fridge overnight before baking. I'm sure it'll be delicious if you just let it sit a few hours, though, but I haven't tried that yet (I will this week, I'll report back).
2/3 cup warm water (in my opinion, 95-100F)
2t yeast
1t sugar
4T (1/4 cup) olive oil (I used extra light, but EVOO would be the normal one)
1 cup warm water
4 cups AP flour
1.5t salt
1T fresh, chopped rosemary
1 cup pitted, chopped dates (I used kalamata)
zest of 1 lemon or orange
1T olive oil
2t water
salt
Combine the 2/3 cup water with yeast and sugar, stir and let sit for about 10 minutes, until the yeast wakes up and is frothy.
Stir in the 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 cup of water. Meanwhile, in the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together the flour and salt. Pour in the liquids, and stir to combine with your dough hook for a few minutes on low. Knead in medium for 10 minutes. This dough is very soft and sticky, so my KA could handle 10 minutes on medium.
Now add in the olives, rosemary and zest and stir to combine (I kneaded with my hands for this part). Let the dough sit in a cool spot/refrigerator (I left it in the mudroom area, which we've recently discovered is uninsulated and averages about 50-55F) at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, or up to 3 days. I left it overnight.
On the day of baking, divide the dough in half (I left one half in the bowl to bake the next day). Roll out the dough to a flat-ish oval, and with a sharp knife, cut slashes in the dough, kind of in a leaf shape (traditional) or another shape you like. Let rest about 15 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 450F.
A few minutes before baking, whisk together the 1T oil and 2t water and brush over the top of the dough. Sprinkle with salt. Bake on the medium or lower rack in your oven for 10 minutes, then rotate and bake another 8-10, until lightly golden. (If you bake 2 loaves at once, put one on the medium rack and one on the low, and swap them after the first 10 min of baking).
Best eaten fresh from the oven, and accompaniments are totally unnecessary, this is a bread worth eating completely plain.
I only ever post recipes I think are worth sharing (unless there's some hilarious story or lesson to be learned from a fail), but I think these two recipes are more worth trying than other things I've shared. I'm telling you: go make these. And then make them again. I'm baking the second loaf of fougasse today, and then making more to bake later this week, and I think I'll be bringing this stew to our ski weekend in VT in March.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Pumpkin Party: Main dishes, part 1
I'm only 3 weeks behind on posting.
You may have guessed, but yes, stuff is going on in real life. Stuff interferes with blogging, with baking, even with exercising (sigh!). Hopefully stuff will improve soon, but in the meantime, we all have to eat, and I have plenty of recipes saved up to try (I know, that doesn't help you at all).
Back to the pumpkin party. November, and even December, is still pumpkin season, so these are still good for making now.
At the pumpkin party, I served pumpkin chili with pumpkin cornbread, as well as pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin pizza, and my favorite, pumpkin, spinach and leek quiche.
Let's quickly start with the gnocchi.
Oh, man. This was my first time making gnocchi- even my first time eating gnocchi. So I didn't quite know what I was doing. I followed this recipe, which I found on taste spotting and chose because the blogger is Italian, and of course, an Italian would undoubtedly know how to make gnocchi. I think the Italian knew more than I did and either lost info in translation, or makes assumptions I don't know about, but this was a huge recipe fail. I wish I'd used Lidia Bastianich's recipe from a recent issues (October 2010, perhaps) of Bon Appetit- next time.
However, we do have a silver lining: the cinnamon walnut cream sauce (inspired by the suggestions of a Nestie) was delicious and almost saved the dish. The cream sauce was made by making a roux of 1T butter and 1T flour (melt the butter in a saucepan, then whisk in the flour and cook a couple minutes), then slowly adding about 3/4 cup of fat free 1/2&1/2, cooking til thickened (a few minutes- I really wasn't paying full attention) and then sprinkling in about 1/2t cinnamon and 1/4 cup crushed toasted walnuts.
Moving on.
The pumpkin chili was a huge success in comparison. It was like a standard chili of ground turkey and beans and the standard spices (lots of cumin, oregano, cilantro and chili or chipotle powder), but had a nice subtle pumpkin undertone. Love, love, love.
Pumpkin Chili,
adapted from The Family Kitchen
1-1.5 lb ground turkey
2 15oz cans beans- I used red kidney and black beans
4 cups pumpkin puree (canned or fresh, I used 2 15oz cans)
56oz tomatoes (the original recipe calls for 2 large cans of diced tomatoes, but I used 1 14oz can and 48oz peeled tomatoes that I'd frozen over the summer)
4 cups chicken broth (if using canned, choose low sodium- you know I used my homemade stock)
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1T cumin
1t chipotle powder
1t salt
1t black pepper
small handful of fresh cilantro, or 2t dried
2t dried oregano
In a large pan/pot, brown the meat. When it's about half cooked, add the diced onion. Transfer to your crock pot (or, alternatively, you can leave everything in the large pot and cook on the stove top). Add in all the rest of the ingredients. Cook on low for 6-7 hours, or high for 4 hours. (or on the stove top, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook 2 hours).
Serve! Garnish with cheese and sour cream, and whatever else you like on your chili.
To pair with your chili, make some pumpkin cornbread. Now, I have to admit, this wasn't as huge a success as the chili itself- mostly because the cornbread was simply too sweet. It was more like cornmeal cake for dessert than something to have with chili, so next time I will reduce the brown sugar by half or more.
Pumpkin Cornbread,
taken from Recipe Girl
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1T baking powder
1t salt
1/2t ground cinnamon
1/4t ground nutmeg
1 cup cornmeal
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cup brown sugar (I'd go 1/3 cup or less, maybe even just 2-3T)
¼ cup canola oil
1T molasses
Combine dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, salt, spices, cornmeal). In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, then add the pumpkin, brown sugar, oil and molasses, whisk together and then add to the dry ingredients- stir just until combined, don't overmix. Pour batter into a greased 8x8 pan, and bake for 30-35 min at 400F.
You may have guessed, but yes, stuff is going on in real life. Stuff interferes with blogging, with baking, even with exercising (sigh!). Hopefully stuff will improve soon, but in the meantime, we all have to eat, and I have plenty of recipes saved up to try (I know, that doesn't help you at all).
Back to the pumpkin party. November, and even December, is still pumpkin season, so these are still good for making now.
At the pumpkin party, I served pumpkin chili with pumpkin cornbread, as well as pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin pizza, and my favorite, pumpkin, spinach and leek quiche.
Let's quickly start with the gnocchi.
Oh, man. This was my first time making gnocchi- even my first time eating gnocchi. So I didn't quite know what I was doing. I followed this recipe, which I found on taste spotting and chose because the blogger is Italian, and of course, an Italian would undoubtedly know how to make gnocchi. I think the Italian knew more than I did and either lost info in translation, or makes assumptions I don't know about, but this was a huge recipe fail. I wish I'd used Lidia Bastianich's recipe from a recent issues (October 2010, perhaps) of Bon Appetit- next time.However, we do have a silver lining: the cinnamon walnut cream sauce (inspired by the suggestions of a Nestie) was delicious and almost saved the dish. The cream sauce was made by making a roux of 1T butter and 1T flour (melt the butter in a saucepan, then whisk in the flour and cook a couple minutes), then slowly adding about 3/4 cup of fat free 1/2&1/2, cooking til thickened (a few minutes- I really wasn't paying full attention) and then sprinkling in about 1/2t cinnamon and 1/4 cup crushed toasted walnuts.
Moving on.
The pumpkin chili was a huge success in comparison. It was like a standard chili of ground turkey and beans and the standard spices (lots of cumin, oregano, cilantro and chili or chipotle powder), but had a nice subtle pumpkin undertone. Love, love, love.
Pumpkin Chili,adapted from The Family Kitchen
1-1.5 lb ground turkey
2 15oz cans beans- I used red kidney and black beans
4 cups pumpkin puree (canned or fresh, I used 2 15oz cans)
56oz tomatoes (the original recipe calls for 2 large cans of diced tomatoes, but I used 1 14oz can and 48oz peeled tomatoes that I'd frozen over the summer)
4 cups chicken broth (if using canned, choose low sodium- you know I used my homemade stock)
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1T cumin
1t chipotle powder
1t salt
1t black pepper
small handful of fresh cilantro, or 2t dried
2t dried oregano
In a large pan/pot, brown the meat. When it's about half cooked, add the diced onion. Transfer to your crock pot (or, alternatively, you can leave everything in the large pot and cook on the stove top). Add in all the rest of the ingredients. Cook on low for 6-7 hours, or high for 4 hours. (or on the stove top, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook 2 hours).
Serve! Garnish with cheese and sour cream, and whatever else you like on your chili.
To pair with your chili, make some pumpkin cornbread. Now, I have to admit, this wasn't as huge a success as the chili itself- mostly because the cornbread was simply too sweet. It was more like cornmeal cake for dessert than something to have with chili, so next time I will reduce the brown sugar by half or more.
Pumpkin Cornbread,
taken from Recipe Girl
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1T baking powder
1t salt
1/2t ground cinnamon
1/4t ground nutmeg
1 cup cornmeal
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cup brown sugar (I'd go 1/3 cup or less, maybe even just 2-3T)
¼ cup canola oil
1T molasses
Combine dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, salt, spices, cornmeal). In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, then add the pumpkin, brown sugar, oil and molasses, whisk together and then add to the dry ingredients- stir just until combined, don't overmix. Pour batter into a greased 8x8 pan, and bake for 30-35 min at 400F.
Monday, September 27, 2010
How many chipotles does it take...
...to make posole?
Less than I used. gah, hot!
Hot, yet delicious. Just drink with milk (or be clever and use the recipe's suggested amount of chipotles)
For some reason, I have posole on my mind. I don't quite know why: I've never eaten it, I'd never even heard of it until it was in Cooking Light a month or two ago. But I read the CL recipe and immediately went out and bought hominy- another thing I'd never had (I tried to buy tomatillos too, but they didn't have any- they didn't even have an empty spot on the shelf where they might be). However, as luck would have it, a recipe for pork posole was featured in the newspaper's (otherwise meager) food section on this weekend. And we had all the ingredients on hand. So we decided that's what'd be for dinner the next night.
First, a note: lest you all get turned off by the spiciness of my first batch of posole, I must explain. I used over twice as much chipotles in adobo as the recipe said. Why? I apparently think I'm a little more macho than I really am. Well, and when I tried to transfer the rest of the can of chipotles to a tupperware container, they didn't all fit, so I decided to just add more to the soup. This was dumb. If this happens to you, just get a second container for the chipotles. Finding room for yet another container in your fridge is a better option than an overly fiery soup.
Chipotle Pork Posole
from the newspaper, originally from Fresh Flavor Fast, the new Everyday Food cookbook
makes 6 meal-sized bowls of soup
1T olive oil
1 pork tenderloin, about 1.5 lbs
salt and pepper
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1T chipotles in adobo, minced (or, you know, adjust according to your taste. 2T is pretty darn spicy)
3 cups homemade chicken stock (recipe follows)
3 cups water
2 cans hominy, rinsed and drained
1lb tomatoes, peeled (or 1 can of diced tomatoes)
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
Trim the pork of fat and the silver membrane thing. Season with salt and pepper, and heat 1T olive oil in a pot. Add the pork, brown on all sides (about 8min total). It will still be raw inside. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Add the onion and garlic to the pot, cooked for 3-4 minutes, until softened. Add the chipotles in adobo, and stand back! The recipe said to cook for a minute, until it became fragrant, but what they really mean is that your eyes will water and you'll start sneezing. Your cat will go in the other room, and your sneezing husband will follow. However, it does smell amazing.
Then add the chicken stock, water, hominy, tomatoes to the pan, and the pork. Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. (I wish at this point I'd added a dash of cumin)
Check that the pork has reached 150F, then remove the pork and begin to shred it (I just used 2 forks to pull it apart). Transfer the shredded meat back to the pot, mix around, and serve. Garnish with cilantro.
I've mentioned it's hot, but this soup is also really tasty. You can see from the instructions that it's very straightforward, and it doesn't take much time. I'm definitely making this again, possibly with chicken instead of pork (Clint likes to hoard all the pork so I can make the honey cumin chipotle glazed pork) and I will definitely use the recommended amount of chipotle instead of going crazy with the stuff.
Ok, a note on the chicken stock.
I made some! I froze it! I thawed and used it!
It was exciting.
Someone online mentioned crock pot chicken stock a while ago, and I was instantly intrigued. What was this? Why was it better than on the stove top? You wanna know why? Because it tastes amazing. My stove top chicken stock puts the canned stuff to shame, but the first batch I made in the crock pot makes my stove top stock look like greasy water. You must make this.
Even more exciting, I realized I can make chicken stock out of any chicken meat! I can get the "buy more, save more!" packs at Big Y!
Crock Pot Chicken Stock
adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles
4lbs chicken- I used legs and thighs, and took the skin off of all but 2 legs
1 large onion, quartered
2 carrots, cut into big chunks
2 stalks celery, cut into big chunks (I unfortunately omitted)
4 cloves garlic, peeled
3 bay leaves
enough water to fill the crock pot (and really fill it, it won't bubble crazily, and the water will evaporate over time)- about 12 cups for me
(I didn't add any salt- I figured I'd add that when it came time to use the stock)
Combine everything in the crock pot (mine's the standard large size). Cook on high for 2 hours, then turn to low and cook for another 20 hours.
Once cooking is done, remove all the solid bits. Save the meat of the chicken for something else (2 nights of chicken tacos, and 2 nights of chicken pizza for us). Discard the bones and veggies. Strain the liquid in a mesh strainer, transferring into Tupperware. Refrigerate overnight.
The next day, skim off all the fat (which has floated to the top and solidified). Now either keep the stock in the fridge for use in the near future, or (what I did) transfer 1 or 2 cup aliquots into smaller containers, and freeze to use as needed.
*When I use this stock in recipes, I dilute it: one part stock, one part water. It's not necessary, but the stock is so rich that I can stretch it this way without taking away any flavor. (I could probably dilute it 1:8 and it'd still be more flavorful than College Inn). This dilution is not mentioned in the posole recipe, so really I used 1.5 cups stock and 4.5 cups water.
Unlike stove top stocks, this stock did not became gelatinous, but it had a much darker, richer flavor and color than any stock I've made before. I highly recommend this recipe. The only drawback is that anyone home during the cooking portion will be hungry the entire time, after smelling the deliciousness.
Less than I used. gah, hot!
Hot, yet delicious. Just drink with milk (or be clever and use the recipe's suggested amount of chipotles)For some reason, I have posole on my mind. I don't quite know why: I've never eaten it, I'd never even heard of it until it was in Cooking Light a month or two ago. But I read the CL recipe and immediately went out and bought hominy- another thing I'd never had (I tried to buy tomatillos too, but they didn't have any- they didn't even have an empty spot on the shelf where they might be). However, as luck would have it, a recipe for pork posole was featured in the newspaper's (otherwise meager) food section on this weekend. And we had all the ingredients on hand. So we decided that's what'd be for dinner the next night.
First, a note: lest you all get turned off by the spiciness of my first batch of posole, I must explain. I used over twice as much chipotles in adobo as the recipe said. Why? I apparently think I'm a little more macho than I really am. Well, and when I tried to transfer the rest of the can of chipotles to a tupperware container, they didn't all fit, so I decided to just add more to the soup. This was dumb. If this happens to you, just get a second container for the chipotles. Finding room for yet another container in your fridge is a better option than an overly fiery soup.
Chipotle Pork Posole
from the newspaper, originally from Fresh Flavor Fast, the new Everyday Food cookbook
makes 6 meal-sized bowls of soup
1T olive oil
1 pork tenderloin, about 1.5 lbs
salt and pepper
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1T chipotles in adobo, minced (or, you know, adjust according to your taste. 2T is pretty darn spicy)
3 cups homemade chicken stock (recipe follows)
3 cups water
2 cans hominy, rinsed and drained
1lb tomatoes, peeled (or 1 can of diced tomatoes)
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
Trim the pork of fat and the silver membrane thing. Season with salt and pepper, and heat 1T olive oil in a pot. Add the pork, brown on all sides (about 8min total). It will still be raw inside. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Add the onion and garlic to the pot, cooked for 3-4 minutes, until softened. Add the chipotles in adobo, and stand back! The recipe said to cook for a minute, until it became fragrant, but what they really mean is that your eyes will water and you'll start sneezing. Your cat will go in the other room, and your sneezing husband will follow. However, it does smell amazing.
Then add the chicken stock, water, hominy, tomatoes to the pan, and the pork. Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. (I wish at this point I'd added a dash of cumin)
Check that the pork has reached 150F, then remove the pork and begin to shred it (I just used 2 forks to pull it apart). Transfer the shredded meat back to the pot, mix around, and serve. Garnish with cilantro.
I've mentioned it's hot, but this soup is also really tasty. You can see from the instructions that it's very straightforward, and it doesn't take much time. I'm definitely making this again, possibly with chicken instead of pork (Clint likes to hoard all the pork so I can make the honey cumin chipotle glazed pork) and I will definitely use the recommended amount of chipotle instead of going crazy with the stuff.
Ok, a note on the chicken stock.
I made some! I froze it! I thawed and used it!
It was exciting.Someone online mentioned crock pot chicken stock a while ago, and I was instantly intrigued. What was this? Why was it better than on the stove top? You wanna know why? Because it tastes amazing. My stove top chicken stock puts the canned stuff to shame, but the first batch I made in the crock pot makes my stove top stock look like greasy water. You must make this.
Even more exciting, I realized I can make chicken stock out of any chicken meat! I can get the "buy more, save more!" packs at Big Y!
Crock Pot Chicken Stock
adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles
4lbs chicken- I used legs and thighs, and took the skin off of all but 2 legs
1 large onion, quartered
2 carrots, cut into big chunks
2 stalks celery, cut into big chunks (I unfortunately omitted)
4 cloves garlic, peeled
3 bay leaves
enough water to fill the crock pot (and really fill it, it won't bubble crazily, and the water will evaporate over time)- about 12 cups for me
(I didn't add any salt- I figured I'd add that when it came time to use the stock)
Combine everything in the crock pot (mine's the standard large size). Cook on high for 2 hours, then turn to low and cook for another 20 hours.
Once cooking is done, remove all the solid bits. Save the meat of the chicken for something else (2 nights of chicken tacos, and 2 nights of chicken pizza for us). Discard the bones and veggies. Strain the liquid in a mesh strainer, transferring into Tupperware. Refrigerate overnight.
The next day, skim off all the fat (which has floated to the top and solidified). Now either keep the stock in the fridge for use in the near future, or (what I did) transfer 1 or 2 cup aliquots into smaller containers, and freeze to use as needed.
*When I use this stock in recipes, I dilute it: one part stock, one part water. It's not necessary, but the stock is so rich that I can stretch it this way without taking away any flavor. (I could probably dilute it 1:8 and it'd still be more flavorful than College Inn). This dilution is not mentioned in the posole recipe, so really I used 1.5 cups stock and 4.5 cups water.
Unlike stove top stocks, this stock did not became gelatinous, but it had a much darker, richer flavor and color than any stock I've made before. I highly recommend this recipe. The only drawback is that anyone home during the cooking portion will be hungry the entire time, after smelling the deliciousness.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Soup on a hot day
When we have those really hot days, I always start craving gazpacho, a lovely cold soup full of fresh veggies. I don't even necessarily need to see that tomatoes are ripe in my area to decide I must acquire some and dice and puree to have gazpacho.
Gazpacho is a Spanish soup (Andalusian, to be exact), and I was surprised to discover that it was not a tomato soup until recently. It was originally a soup of stale bread, water, garlic, and eventually, vinegar. When tomatoes were brought back from the new world, they were incorporated into this soup. These days, gazpacho usually contains tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumber, cilantro, as well as the traditional ingredients. Fruit gazpachos are also quite delicious (such as the watermelon gazpacho I made over and over and over during the summer of 2001, much to my mother's delight).
I recently came into possession of 20lbs of tomatoes (thanks to my parents) from Hurricane Flats in South Royalton, VT. This farm always sells ridiculous quantities of tomatoes at the end of summer at the Norwich Farmer's Market, and when my parents were there, they got me a big box. I actually had other plans for these tomatoes that I'll tell you about tomorrow (ah, it was such a long and arduous process, that recipe is not for the faint of heart, but I'll tell you about it anyway), but I decided to turn some of them into gazpacho (a much easier tomato recipe).
Then I polished off that batch of gazpacho and made another.
First gazpacho:
I was excited about this gazpacho. It's from one of my favorite restaurants, Simon Pearce, although I don't recall ever trying their gazpacho. I expected it to be delicious. One note about gazpacho and its many variations: some soups are full of veggies only, some add the traditional stale bread, and some cheat and use tomato juice. SP cheated. It was a good gazpacho, but the tomato juice adds a texture I'd prefer in dishes that are not gazpacho. But it was still tasty.
Did I mention gazpacho is easy? There's just one step.
Simon Pearce's Gazpacho
acquired from their e-newsletter and modified slightly
Ingredients:
(I garnished with a small scoop of nonfat plain Greek yogurt)
Gazpacho Recipe #2, "Traditional" Gazpacho
adapted from Martha Stewart (my biggest alteration was to sub peach in for the cucumber- I was out of cucumber)
Ingredients:
2 cups stale bread, cubed (I used sourdough and left the crusts on- if your bread isn't stale, just toast it lightly)
cold water
2 cloves garlic
2lbs tomatoes, diced
2 medium peaches, peeled and diced
1T red wine vinegar
1T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
small handful of basil (my addition)
1. Soak the bread in the cold water (enough water to cover the bread), set aside for 15 minutes. Squeeze the water out of the bread (without pulverizing the bread, though)
2. In a small saucepan, combine the garlic cloves and enough cold water to cover. Bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. Drain the garlic.
3. Combine bread, garlic and the rest of the ingredients in a blender. Puree briefly- chunks of veggies are nice, you don't necessarily want the gazpacho completely smooth.
4. I garnished with homemade croutons. Yum!
Note: apparently not self-respecting Andalusian housewife would ever, ever add basil to her gazpacho. I'd prefer cilantro, but I like basil, and I have lots of CSA basil right now. So that's why I added it. I think I can live with the shame.
Gazpacho is a Spanish soup (Andalusian, to be exact), and I was surprised to discover that it was not a tomato soup until recently. It was originally a soup of stale bread, water, garlic, and eventually, vinegar. When tomatoes were brought back from the new world, they were incorporated into this soup. These days, gazpacho usually contains tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumber, cilantro, as well as the traditional ingredients. Fruit gazpachos are also quite delicious (such as the watermelon gazpacho I made over and over and over during the summer of 2001, much to my mother's delight).
I recently came into possession of 20lbs of tomatoes (thanks to my parents) from Hurricane Flats in South Royalton, VT. This farm always sells ridiculous quantities of tomatoes at the end of summer at the Norwich Farmer's Market, and when my parents were there, they got me a big box. I actually had other plans for these tomatoes that I'll tell you about tomorrow (ah, it was such a long and arduous process, that recipe is not for the faint of heart, but I'll tell you about it anyway), but I decided to turn some of them into gazpacho (a much easier tomato recipe).
Then I polished off that batch of gazpacho and made another.
First gazpacho:
I was excited about this gazpacho. It's from one of my favorite restaurants, Simon Pearce, although I don't recall ever trying their gazpacho. I expected it to be delicious. One note about gazpacho and its many variations: some soups are full of veggies only, some add the traditional stale bread, and some cheat and use tomato juice. SP cheated. It was a good gazpacho, but the tomato juice adds a texture I'd prefer in dishes that are not gazpacho. But it was still tasty.
Did I mention gazpacho is easy? There's just one step.
Simon Pearce's Gazpacho
acquired from their e-newsletter and modified slightly
Ingredients:
Peach Gazpacho
1 cups ripe diced peaches (originally 2 cups)
1 cups large vine ripened tomatoes diced (originally 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup diced cucumbers
1/4 cup diced red onions
1/4 cup diced sweet peppers (I omitted)
1 jalapeno pepper diced (I omitted)
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/4 bunch chopped cilantro
1/4 bunch chopped parsley
24oz/3 cups of V-8 juice (originally 48oz)
juice of one large lemon
1 T red wine vinegar
1 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a blender, puree. Pour into a bowl, serve.
(I garnished with a small scoop of nonfat plain Greek yogurt)Gazpacho Recipe #2, "Traditional" Gazpacho
adapted from Martha Stewart (my biggest alteration was to sub peach in for the cucumber- I was out of cucumber)
Ingredients:
2 cups stale bread, cubed (I used sourdough and left the crusts on- if your bread isn't stale, just toast it lightly)
cold water
2 cloves garlic
2lbs tomatoes, diced
2 medium peaches, peeled and diced
1T red wine vinegar
1T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
small handful of basil (my addition)
1. Soak the bread in the cold water (enough water to cover the bread), set aside for 15 minutes. Squeeze the water out of the bread (without pulverizing the bread, though)
2. In a small saucepan, combine the garlic cloves and enough cold water to cover. Bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. Drain the garlic.
3. Combine bread, garlic and the rest of the ingredients in a blender. Puree briefly- chunks of veggies are nice, you don't necessarily want the gazpacho completely smooth.
4. I garnished with homemade croutons. Yum!
Note: apparently not self-respecting Andalusian housewife would ever, ever add basil to her gazpacho. I'd prefer cilantro, but I like basil, and I have lots of CSA basil right now. So that's why I added it. I think I can live with the shame.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
CSA #8
Can you believe it? CSA #8!
And along those lines, how is it August already? I'm glad I'm not on the school schedule anymore, I don't have to mourn the loss of summer, just celebrate the return of cooler weather (although parking at work in the summer is so much easier).
With CSA #8, I must admit a sad truth: I threw food away. :(
Let's begin:
Clint picked up the share (as usual), and I came home to this sight
and said, whoa! These were some big flowers.
We got more beets, more lettuce, some parsley, 3 small cabbages, 2 small summer squashes, a zucchini, and a cucumber, another tiny garlic,
another kind of squash, 3 tiny plums, a single peach, more dirty potatoes (love the dirt!), some kind of green, pink and cream beans,
and green beans.
What did I do with all of it? I gave some of the cabbage away. I hope to grill the last head. I gave the beets away and cooked and froze the greens (because the person I was giving them to told me to just cut the greens off so they'd fit in the veggie drawer better. What, waste food?!? Never!). I will tell you the tale of the peach tomorrow (he joined some friends from PA in a big pot, they had a lot fun together) and we ate the plums. The lettuce and cucumber became salad, the potatoes are waiting, some of the squashes were steamed and added to shrimp red curry leftovers (love the steamed zucchini in there, it really improved an otherwise mediocre dish), and some other squashes and the garlic were used in the recipe below.
What about the beans?
The beans had a sad tale. I planned to make zydeco beans with them, I bought jars and lids and vinegar, and I had all the herbs and spices I needed. The only thing I lacked was time. So- I put them in the cooler on Friday, took them to my parents' house, and planned to can them on Sunday. On Sunday, however, they were all a big mess of mold. I thought they'd be fine in the fridge, they were only 4-6 days old (depending on when they were picked), and certainly grocery store beans are that old when they get put into my cart. Perhaps I should not have left them in their plastic bags. Sigh.
I will redeem myself, though, we expect more beans, and I'll can them promptly.
On a happier note, the squash.
I made squash soup! Incidentally, squash soup-making occured on the same evening as strawberry sauce-making, lemon meringue pie-making, and peach cobbler-heating-up, and this particular evening was about 90F outside and rather humid. I should consider the weather before embarking on an all-night cooking spree. But you know what? This food was completely worth it. And the lemon meringue pie was for my dad's birthday.
Summer Squash Soup
adapted from Naturally Ella, thanks to TasteSpotting
Ingredients:
Heat the oil in a large pot, add the onion and garlic and saute for a few minutes. Add squash, carrots and potatoes and cook til softened, 7-10 minutes. Add the spices and then white wine to deglaze the pan. Add broth and simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender, or carefully add soup to a regular blender and puree in batches. Return to pot, place back on the burner to reheat, and stir in coconut milk.
To serve, top with a dollop of coconut milk and some homemade croutons.
Homemade Croutons
Have you made croutons before? No? You should- they're easy and fun, and a great way to use up bread that might otherwise go stale.
Ingredients:
bread, cut into cubes
olive oil
herbs and spices
Toss the bread with a few T of olive oil (enough to coat) and herbs/spices of your choice. Make sure oil and herbs evenly coat the bread. Transfer to a cookie sheet, bake at 350F for 10-25 minutes, until they're as crisp as you want, and depending on the size of the cubes. Store in a ziploc bag.
I like to use herb blends or garlic salt. Penzey's Sunny Paris or Sunny Spain blends make good croutons. The croutons served with the soup are coated in a Stonewall Kitchens herb blend for poultry.
And along those lines, how is it August already? I'm glad I'm not on the school schedule anymore, I don't have to mourn the loss of summer, just celebrate the return of cooler weather (although parking at work in the summer is so much easier).
With CSA #8, I must admit a sad truth: I threw food away. :(
Let's begin:
Clint picked up the share (as usual), and I came home to this sight
and said, whoa! These were some big flowers.
We got more beets, more lettuce, some parsley, 3 small cabbages, 2 small summer squashes, a zucchini, and a cucumber, another tiny garlic,
another kind of squash, 3 tiny plums, a single peach, more dirty potatoes (love the dirt!), some kind of green, pink and cream beans,
and green beans.What did I do with all of it? I gave some of the cabbage away. I hope to grill the last head. I gave the beets away and cooked and froze the greens (because the person I was giving them to told me to just cut the greens off so they'd fit in the veggie drawer better. What, waste food?!? Never!). I will tell you the tale of the peach tomorrow (he joined some friends from PA in a big pot, they had a lot fun together) and we ate the plums. The lettuce and cucumber became salad, the potatoes are waiting, some of the squashes were steamed and added to shrimp red curry leftovers (love the steamed zucchini in there, it really improved an otherwise mediocre dish), and some other squashes and the garlic were used in the recipe below.
What about the beans?
The beans had a sad tale. I planned to make zydeco beans with them, I bought jars and lids and vinegar, and I had all the herbs and spices I needed. The only thing I lacked was time. So- I put them in the cooler on Friday, took them to my parents' house, and planned to can them on Sunday. On Sunday, however, they were all a big mess of mold. I thought they'd be fine in the fridge, they were only 4-6 days old (depending on when they were picked), and certainly grocery store beans are that old when they get put into my cart. Perhaps I should not have left them in their plastic bags. Sigh.
I will redeem myself, though, we expect more beans, and I'll can them promptly.
On a happier note, the squash.
I made squash soup! Incidentally, squash soup-making occured on the same evening as strawberry sauce-making, lemon meringue pie-making, and peach cobbler-heating-up, and this particular evening was about 90F outside and rather humid. I should consider the weather before embarking on an all-night cooking spree. But you know what? This food was completely worth it. And the lemon meringue pie was for my dad's birthday.
Summer Squash Soup
adapted from Naturally Ella, thanks to TasteSpotting
Ingredients:
- 1T olive oil
- 3 small summer squash
- 1 onion, diced
- 2-3 carrots, diced
- 1-2 cloves garlic
- 2-3 small potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 3 cups broth (I used chicken)
- 1/4t coriander
- 1/4t tumeric
- 1/4t paprika
- 1/8 teaspoon cumin (the original recipe also used mustard powder and cinnamon, but, um, I forgot)
- pinch chipotle pepper
- 1/3 cup coconut milk
Heat the oil in a large pot, add the onion and garlic and saute for a few minutes. Add squash, carrots and potatoes and cook til softened, 7-10 minutes. Add the spices and then white wine to deglaze the pan. Add broth and simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender, or carefully add soup to a regular blender and puree in batches. Return to pot, place back on the burner to reheat, and stir in coconut milk.To serve, top with a dollop of coconut milk and some homemade croutons.
Homemade CroutonsHave you made croutons before? No? You should- they're easy and fun, and a great way to use up bread that might otherwise go stale.
Ingredients:
bread, cut into cubes
olive oil
herbs and spices
Toss the bread with a few T of olive oil (enough to coat) and herbs/spices of your choice. Make sure oil and herbs evenly coat the bread. Transfer to a cookie sheet, bake at 350F for 10-25 minutes, until they're as crisp as you want, and depending on the size of the cubes. Store in a ziploc bag.
I like to use herb blends or garlic salt. Penzey's Sunny Paris or Sunny Spain blends make good croutons. The croutons served with the soup are coated in a Stonewall Kitchens herb blend for poultry.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Pho!
We have a butcher. Our butcher sells all sorts of meat things, and I have dreams of going in there and chatting, Alton Brown style, about different cuts of meat and learning what's best for what and how to cook it.
So far I've never been to the butcher, Clint likes to walk over at lunchtime on nice days, so he takes care of all our meat needs.
But one day, Clint mentioned our butcher has "soup bones" (beef shanks).
Do you know what you can do with soup bones? Make broth! This happened during the height of my chicken soup making days this winter, so I got pretty excited. Unfortunately, the soup bones appear to be one of the most popular items our butcher sells and he only gets them on Tuesdays, so it took us a while to actually get some for ourselves. Once we did, I took advantage of a recipe I'd found online recently.
Pho tai (vietname beef noodle soup), adapted from koko cooks.
Beef Stock (best made a day ahead, so the fat can solidify and be easily removed):
2 lbs of beef shinbones (a combination of bones and oxtails would also have been good)
10 cups water
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 inch chunk of ginger, peeled and sliced
4 star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
Combine all ingredients in a large stockpot, bring to a boil and simmer for 1hr, uncovered.
Remove from heat and when cool enough (around 2 hours for me), refrigerate overnight. The next day, remove the thick layer of solidied fat and discard. 
(it was quite a thick layer of fat)
Strain the beef stock and discard solid parts (i.e. bones, spices, shallots, bits of fat). Because this is simmered uncovered, much of the liquid boils off. I was left with about 6 cups of broth.
Other ingredients:
¼ c fish sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
6 oz thin rice noodles, softened in hot water, cooked according to the package directions, and drained
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 jalepeno pepper, thinly sliced into rings
½ lb boneless beef sirloin, trimmed of fat and gristle, and cut into very thin slices
2 c bean sprouts, rinsed and drained
¼ c minced scallions, green part only
¼ c minced fresh cilantro
1 c Thai basil leaves, or sweet basil leaves
To make the soup, combine the beef broth with 3T fish sauce in a saucepan over medium heat.
Meanwhile, cook rice noodles according to the box's directions (generally, boil water, pour over rice noodles and let soften for a few minutes- rice noodles don't need to be cooked, like pasta). Thinly slice the beef, and add to the broth. Cook for 2-3min, until beef is cooked through (which is why slicing thinly is important, it helps it cook faster).
Divide rice noodles among 4 bowls, add about bean sprouts (which I cooked in boiling water for 3 minutes, then drained, because I've heard bad things about bean sprouts), chopped scallions, cilantro and thai or sweet basil (which I omitted, basil's really expensive lately!). Divide beef in broth among the bowls, and serve with lime wedges and jalapeno on the side.
What I like best about this recipe is that even though it's super easy (really- dump some stuff in a pot, cook it for a while, chill it, slice some stuff and put things in a soup bowl), it's rather delicious, and if you're used to American food, it seems pretty exotic. I'm not lucky enough to live in an area where there's $3 bowls of pho on every corner, so I either have to drive a while to find a restaurant (where pho is rather more than $3) or make it myself. And now making it myself is kind of the obvious choice.
And I now have an additional 4 lbs of beef bones in my freezer, waiting.
So far I've never been to the butcher, Clint likes to walk over at lunchtime on nice days, so he takes care of all our meat needs.
But one day, Clint mentioned our butcher has "soup bones" (beef shanks).
Do you know what you can do with soup bones? Make broth! This happened during the height of my chicken soup making days this winter, so I got pretty excited. Unfortunately, the soup bones appear to be one of the most popular items our butcher sells and he only gets them on Tuesdays, so it took us a while to actually get some for ourselves. Once we did, I took advantage of a recipe I'd found online recently.Pho tai (vietname beef noodle soup), adapted from koko cooks.
Beef Stock (best made a day ahead, so the fat can solidify and be easily removed):
2 lbs of beef shinbones (a combination of bones and oxtails would also have been good)
10 cups water
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 inch chunk of ginger, peeled and sliced
4 star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
Combine all ingredients in a large stockpot, bring to a boil and simmer for 1hr, uncovered.
Remove from heat and when cool enough (around 2 hours for me), refrigerate overnight. The next day, remove the thick layer of solidied fat and discard. 
(it was quite a thick layer of fat)
Strain the beef stock and discard solid parts (i.e. bones, spices, shallots, bits of fat). Because this is simmered uncovered, much of the liquid boils off. I was left with about 6 cups of broth.
Other ingredients:
¼ c fish sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
6 oz thin rice noodles, softened in hot water, cooked according to the package directions, and drained
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 jalepeno pepper, thinly sliced into rings
½ lb boneless beef sirloin, trimmed of fat and gristle, and cut into very thin slices
2 c bean sprouts, rinsed and drained
¼ c minced scallions, green part only
¼ c minced fresh cilantro
1 c Thai basil leaves, or sweet basil leaves
To make the soup, combine the beef broth with 3T fish sauce in a saucepan over medium heat.
Meanwhile, cook rice noodles according to the box's directions (generally, boil water, pour over rice noodles and let soften for a few minutes- rice noodles don't need to be cooked, like pasta). Thinly slice the beef, and add to the broth. Cook for 2-3min, until beef is cooked through (which is why slicing thinly is important, it helps it cook faster).
Divide rice noodles among 4 bowls, add about bean sprouts (which I cooked in boiling water for 3 minutes, then drained, because I've heard bad things about bean sprouts), chopped scallions, cilantro and thai or sweet basil (which I omitted, basil's really expensive lately!). Divide beef in broth among the bowls, and serve with lime wedges and jalapeno on the side.
What I like best about this recipe is that even though it's super easy (really- dump some stuff in a pot, cook it for a while, chill it, slice some stuff and put things in a soup bowl), it's rather delicious, and if you're used to American food, it seems pretty exotic. I'm not lucky enough to live in an area where there's $3 bowls of pho on every corner, so I either have to drive a while to find a restaurant (where pho is rather more than $3) or make it myself. And now making it myself is kind of the obvious choice.
And I now have an additional 4 lbs of beef bones in my freezer, waiting.
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