.roasted corn and avocado soup w/ crab salad.

Have you ever had one of those days...


Scratch that..

Have you ever had one of those months? We've had one of those months. We were in Ohio visiting the inlaws and when I got back home I've been working hard on Pioneer Trek stuff. Apparently, someone at church thinks my cooking is stellar enough to put me in charge of all the food for this year's youth pioneer trek. Fun times. I'm actually very excited to be part of this activity. Fingers crossed the food turns out perfect!


When we got back from Ohio, it was hot. HOT HOT HOT. It was hot in Ohio and well, that heat dun followed us back to New York. So I decided to try an experiment I've been wanting to do for awhile. Make a chilled soup.

This soup is actually two separate ones. The base is a sweet roasted corn soup, then ladled in the center is a roasted avocado soup (YES ROASTED!) and it's topped with a delicious crab salad. Love me some crab!

We'll begin with the soups:

ROASTED CORN SOUP

5 ears sweet corn, husked, grilled, and cut from cob
1-2 jalapeno, seeded, grilled, and chopped
1/2 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 tsp cumin

1 cup cream
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water
salt and pepper
oil

In a small stockpot, heat a little oil. When hot, saute the onion, garlic, and 1/4 tsp cumin until the fragrance is released. Add all of the corn, minus the kernels from one cob (We'll save that corn for the crab salad) and the roasted jalapeno. Heat for a few minutes and then pour into a blender. Blitz until smooth. If the soup is too thick, add a little more water. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the corn soup into a bowl, cover with saran and pop in the fridge.

Now for the avocado soup.

ROASTED AVOCADO SOUP

4 Hass avocados, grilled (or roasted)
1-2 jalapenos, seeded, grilled, and chopped
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 cup cream
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water
salt and pepper
oil

Following the same steps above, heat oil in a pan. Saute the garlic, onion, and 1/4 tsp chili powder. Scoop the flesh from the avocados and put it in a blender along with the jalapenos, sauteed garlic/onion, cream, chicken stock, and water. Blitz until smooth. Add more liquid if it's too thick. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl, cover with saran and chill.


CRAB SALAD
3 crab leg clusters
1/4 cup green onion, sliced
1 avocado, diced
1 ear roasted sweet corn, cut from cob
1 tomato, seeded and diced
1/2 lime, squeezed
cilantro
salt and pepper

Cook the crab in a pot of boiling water. Cool in an ice bath and crack the crab, removing all meat. Put in a bowl with the remaining ingredients and mix together.


A delicious soup perfect for a hot Summer night! Enjoy!

.curried carrot soup.

Back in November, my mom and sister were here from Seattle. Their visit coincided with a cooking class I was having here at the house. The topic for the class was "Soups, Stews, and Sauces". Nothing fancy, mind you, but I wanted to teach the ladies how to make a proper roux which is the root knowledge for making things like clam chowder, gravy, and alfredo!

I always try to offer a vegetarian dish too because I usually have a couple non-meat-eaters in the group. So I made a roasted carrot soup and added a dash of curry to it for a middle eastern taste and it was delicious! So delicious, that I decided to make it again for a church function yesterday.

**Note: Not only is this soup delicious and meat-free, it's VEGAN!

1. Begin by making vegetable broth. In a small soup pot, put water, carrots, celery, bay leaf, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat. Leave uncovered so the liquid can reduce. After it simmers on the cooktop for 1 hour, strain and reserve the liquid.

This stock can be made ahead of time and held in the fridge, or even put in the freezer!

2. Peel about 10 carrots and cutting them into 2-3 pieces. I use only organic carrots when I make this soup, but I can only imagine how delicious it would be with carrots grown from your own garden. I'm sure it would be so sweet!

3. Put the carrots on a baking sheet and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Pop carrots into a 350* oven and roast until they're fork tender (approximately 30 minutes). emove from the oven and put into a blender with 1 can coconut milk, 1/2 tsp curry powder and 1 tsp ground coriander seed toasted.

4. To toast the coriander seed, spoon into a small saute pan and put over medium high heat. Swirl the pan around so the seeds don't burn. The heat will draw out the oil and fragrance from the coriander and it smells slightly lemony. Remove from the pan after toasting 2 minutes and put in a spice grinder and pulse until fine.

5. I pulsed the blender for a minute, but found it too thick to really puree adequately, so I spooned in ladles full of the vegetable broth to thin it down. Once you get the desired consistency, taste and re-season with salt and pepper.

Serve hot or cold. I topped each bowl with some pine nuts and chopped cilantro.

Makes 6-8 servings

.beef stew.

Happy New Year! I'm embarrassed that I haven't updated in so long but truth be told, I have been so busy the past few months. I'm hoping for a reprieve once we get settled into our new house next month.


I trust you all had a good holiday season? Ours was wonderful. During the time my husband had off work, we watched the movie Julie & Julia. Have you seen it? It's such a great movie and it helped to inspire me all over again! One of the recipes the main character makes is Boeuf Bourguignon and it had me craving (craving!) a rich beefy stock with cooked vegetables.


Growing up, my mom would make stew quite a lot trying to use up the odds and ends of vegetables in the freezer (She can make a mean soup!) and I would have used her method, but I was looking to do something richer... something better (sorry mom!).


I remembered back to when I made Shepherd's Pie. The rich sauce from that dish was exactly what I wanted so I took a little from that recipe and a little from my mom's and went from there.


Something about stew, is you can't rush it. The beef needs to be seared and then braised in liquid until it's so fork tender it literally melts in your mouth. This pot sat on the stove to simmer for at least 2 hours. Trust me... if you give it the proper time it needs, the results will be well worth it!



Begin by taking a package of beef stew chunks, found in any grocery meat department and cutting off as much fat and sinew as possible. Sinew is that muscle layer that sticks to the meat and makes it tough and chewy.

Stew meat is perfect for this. It's rather cheap since it's pieces of meat that are remaining once all the big, regular cuts are made. Since the butcher can't actually sell it as a steak, they sell it for occasions when you need small, bite-sized pieces of meat. The downside is you have to cut off all the undesireable stuff.

Put the cut up stew meat in a bowl or in a large ziploc and sprinkle with flour and salt and pepper. In my case, I used Lawry's seasoned salt. Coat well.




Prep your vegetables. I used one onion (sliced into quarters), 4 carrots (left in their round shape), and 3 white or gold potatoes. You want about 1 1/2 cups of all your vegetables. I also quartered mushrooms to add in later.







Slice up approximately 1/2 cup pancetta. You could use bacon, but the smoky flavor of the bacon is not what we want and will probably overpower the soup. Pancetta is usually found in the deli area of your grocer.






Make your bouquet garni. We want to add a lot of flavor to the stew and this is a great way to do it. In my bouquet, I put thyme, bay leaf, and some flat leaf parsley. In addition to the garni, I minced 1 clove garlic and set it aside.











Heat a soup pot and drizzle in some olive oil. Add a third to half the stew meat. Don't overcrowd the pan. Sear the beef as best you can on all sides. My meat tends to stick together because of the flour so it's difficult browning on all sides. Don't worry about that. Just make sure you get as many sides browned. This will lock in the juices, resulting in tender tender steak! When one half is done, remove from the pan and set aside. Repeat until all meat is seared.





Add the vegetables to the pot with the pancetta and garlic. Saute for a 4-5 minutes. When the onions are nearly translucent, add 2 cups red wine, 4 cups beef stock, and 4 cups chicken stock. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring the soup to a boil and scrape along the bottom of the pan to bring up those baked on bits of delicious goodness. When the liquid begins to boil, add the bouquet garni and mushrooms, and reduce the heat down to low. Cover the top part way with a lid.

There will be a lot of broth, and we want to reduce it down a little so it leaves you with a rich sauce that has a lot of flavor. If you put the lid on all the way, the evaporated moisture won't have a way to escape and your sauce can't reduce down.

After it simmers on the cooktop for 2 hours, it's time for the last step. Remove the bouquet garni and discard. In a bowl, mix together 1 cup milk with 1/4 cup flour. Whisk well to remove all lumps. To ensure I don't have any, I strain with a sieve. While stirring, add the milk/flour mixture to the pot. Turn the heat to high and keep stirring until the sauce thickens a little. Taste and re-season if necessary.

This stew is the perfect dish on a cold winter night. Serve with salad and rolls, if you like. As Julia Child would say.... Bon Appetit!


Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ-Z_fQXybIkZGcydmZqcW1fMTU5MzM1ZG1uZmM&hl=en

.pasta e fagioli.

To me, soup means comfort and I love comfort foods.  This recipe for Pasta e Fagioli was one I found in a new cookbook I bought about a month ago.  I changed it a little and it was so tasty.  If you've ever had this at the Olive Garden, you'll know it's kind of an Italian style chili with pasta and beans and a rich tomato broth.  It's also very easy to make so if you have a child in your home who likes to help in the kitchen, this is the perfect dish to prepare for little hands.

You'll need 3 carrots, cut up, 1 onion, diced, 4 celery stalks cut up, and 1 clove garlic, minced.

The recipe in the cookbook did not call for any meat, but we had to put some in.  I had some spicy italian sausage in the freezer that I thawed and used.  Remove the meat from the casing.  (If you want exacts, I used three sausage links.)

In a soup pot, heat some olive oil.  Saute the garlic and a bay leaf for a minute.  Be careful not to let the garlic burn.

Add the sausage and start breaking it apart as it cooks.  

When the sausage is almost cooked through, add the onion, carrot, and celery.  Stir well and cook until the onions are almost translucent.

Add 5 cups beef broth (you can easily use vegetable broth if you want to keep this vegetarian) and 1 jar spaghetti sauce.

I used a garlic and olive oil flavored sauce from Bertolli.

Without straining either of these, dump in 2 cans Cannellini beans and 1 can diced tomatoes.

Make sure you season at this point with some salt, pepper, and 2 tsp oregano.

Stir everything well and let it come to a boil.  Cover and reduce to low.  Let this cook for about an hour.  The longer you let it simmer, the more those flavors have a chance to marry.

For the pasta, I used ditalini, which is a short macaroni noodle.  It has a nice firm texture that holds up well in the soup.  You can swap this out using orzo or elbow macaroni.

About 30 minutes before serving, cook half the box in it's own pot of boiling water.  The reason why I use a separate pot to cook the pasta it will take away all of the liquid in the soup if you threw it into the main pot.  This way, if you cook to al dente, you'll have cooked pasta that still has room to absorb the flavor of the soup, but it won't take away all that delicious tomato goodness.

Drain the pasta well and add to the soup pot.  Stir well.

Serve and top with some fresh grated parmesan cheese.  Fresh baked italian bread is the perfect companion.  I love using it to sop up the broth in the bowl.

Printable version:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_142dvb53qfz

.beef minestrone soup.

This is the best soup you will ever make. It's rich, full of vitamins, full of vegetables, some meat, protein, iron and it's delicious!

Yesterday I was on the phone with a sister from Church who is very sick. She does so much for everyone, that I thought I would do something for her. So I told her to just relax and I was bringing a big pot of soup over for her and her husband.

My mom is a really good soup maker. I have actually gotten better at making soup the past 5 years or so. This one is my daughter's favorite because she plays a game -- figuring out what I put in the pot. So much fun. If you have kids that might shy away from soup, try this one and let them have a contest to find the most items in the pot!


First, chop up 2 stalks of celery. I left them in nice slices so visually they look good.


Find two skinny carrots.

Peel and chop. Again, I leave them in their round shape -- that's why I pick skinny carrots so they're bite sized.


Peel one big, or two small gold or white potatoes.

Dice into bite sized chunks.


Dice one small onion. I had some red onion that needed using so I used that. It's okay to use white, yellow, or red!


Mince two cloves garlic.


Take 1 lb stew meat or stir fry meat.

The stir fry meat, that I used, was cut into long thin strips. I cut those strips into smaller pieces.


In a soup pot, heat a little olive oil. Put the meat in with one bay leaf and cook.


When it's almost cooked, add all of the vegetables and garlic to the pot. Stir around and cook.


Season well. I used a brand from the Spice Depot. This blend is great on salad, but I used it in my soup because it had all of the herbs I wanted.

In my next entry, I want to share a little bit about this company and their products. Some great stuff. I think you'll be interested in hearing more about them.


When the potatoes start looking glossy, add 3 cans beef broth and 1 can chicken broth.

I always add a can of chicken to my beefy soups because beef broth can often taste very flat.


Then add 1 can diced tomatoes (undrained), and 1 can white beans - either great northern or navy. Do not drain these either. Just dump it all in.

Mix well and re-season with the spice depot spice grinder.

Bring to a boil.


Once the soup starts boiling, reduce heat to low and add 1/2 cup frozen or fresh peas.


Add 1/2 cup corn, fresh or frozen.


And add 1/2 cup green beans cut, fresh or frozen.

**At this stage, I did add about 1 tsp sugar to the pot. This is optional.

Cover the pot and let cook for about 30-40 minutes. Before serving, remove the bay leaf. Serve with rolls, bread, crackers, and salad.

NOTE: If you want to make this in the crockpot, first cook the meat almost to completion on the stove. Spoon into your crockpot and add all of the remaining ingredients. Season well. Cover with the lid and turn on medium or high. Cook until vegetables are cooked through - about 6-8 hours.


Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_119f6hgtqfs

.roasted tomato and steak soup.

I love soup. I can eat it year round. My mom makes great soup and I seem to have always struggled with it up until the past few years. Not sure why. This is one I created one day.. I usually make a roasted tomato soup but I a little flank steak to use up and thought it would work really well together. It was great and even better the next day!


Begin by taking 5-6 vine-ripened tomatoes. Cut them in quarters and remove the seeds and gooey stuff. You want to use really good tomatoes for this soup. Don't use beefsteak. If you can find organic ones or buy them at a farmers market, even better!


Put the tomatoes in a baker with a couple cloves of garlic, a little sea salt, pepper, oregano, and a tiny sprinkle of rosemary.


Drizzle lightly with extra virgin olive oil.

Stir everything around to coat the tomatoes with the seasonings and oil. Put in a 350* oven for 30 minutes.


Pull the tomatoes from the oven. They will be nice and soft and very very fragrant. YUM!


Spoon 2/3 of the tomatoes into a blender. Make sure you put the garlic in the blender too.


Puree until smooth.


Remove the skin from the other tomatoes and chop up. Set aside.


Peel and chop 1-2 carrots.


Chop 3 celery stalks.


Dice a small onion. I used red, but only because I had one in the fridge that needed to be used up. Use whatever kind of onion you like.


Cut 1 lb flank steak into small pieces.

Flank steak is really good to use in this because it's so tender. I highly recommending using this over any other kind of cut.


Heat a little olive oil in a soup pot. Add the steak and 1 bay leaf. Cook over medium to medium high heat.


When the meat has just started browning, add the vegetables. If you want, peel and cut up some white or yukon gold potatoes and add them at this stage too. I'm trying to cut back on carbs and omitted them from my soup.


After the vegetables and meat have cooked for awhile, add 5-6 cups chicken stock.


Add 1 can great northern beans. Do not drain these before hand. Dump everything in. Dump one whole can of kernel corn into the pot too -- juice and all. This will give the soup a lot more flavor.

****I did add some frozen green beans at this stage too, but didn't get a picture of it.


Add the tomato/garlic puree.


And lastly, add the chopped tomatoes.

Season well with salt and pepper. If you want to make this more like a minestrone soup, you can add some pasta to the pot as well. Lower the heat and cover the pot with a lid. Allow this to simmer on the stove for about an hour, if not longer. You could even transfer this to a crock pot and let cook all day while you're at work. Delicious!

To serve, ladle into a bowl and top with some fresh grated parmesan or asiago cheese (I used the latter). Delicious! Enjoy!

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_104gk8jhcfn