The final resting place for any chicken that has been roasted in my house is a pot on the stove. When it would appear that most of the meat has been used up in salads, quesadillas and fried rice, there is always more to be coaxed off by a stint in the hot tub. Yesterday I covered the last of two chickens with water and added a handful of chives from the garden, a few peppercorns, and that was it. (And always add any chicken gel that might be left in the bottom of the roasting pan or container you stored it in in the fridge.) You could add any kind of vegetable trimmings you like - onion skins to make it darker and richer - or roast the carcass in the oven first, which is akin to browning meat; it caramelizes any natural sugars in there, adding flavour to the resulting stock.
Contrary to popular belief, stock does not have to simmer for hours on end, nor must you boil an entire chicken to rubber in order to make stock. A half-hour simmer is fine, then turn the heat off and let it all cool down - sort of like steeping a big pot of chicken tea. When it’s cool enough, pull out the bones and help the bits of meat fall off into the stock - a perfect base for soup.
I’ve had a jar of alphabet noodles on my shelf for at least a year - something I thought I should have when I became a mum, but not the sort of thing I often think of cooking with. W likes to play with them, but I have yet to actually add them to anything. Today I thought I’d reheat my chickeny stock, along with some chopped carrots and alphabet noodles. It seemed boring.
Then I remembered a soup Mike used to be addicted to when he worked in a deli decades ago - it was called Italian wedding soup; a basic chicken soup made with teeny meatballs, greens and tiny pasta stars. (I’m pretty sure Campbell’s makes a version of it in one of their hoity toity varieties.) I had greens. I had meatballs, even if they weren’t teeny. I cut them in half. I did a quick internet search to see if I was missing anything, and noticed Giada makes a version (with endive or escarole) in which she whisks together egg and Parmesan cheese and dribbles it into the hot broth, creating a cloudy soup with ribbons of egg, reminiscent of egg drop soup.
Alphabet Wedding Soup
I’d love to try this with sausage meatballs; squeeze lean Italian sausage out of their casings at about 1/2″ intervals to make small meatball-sized pieces that will hold together as they simmer in the soup.
3-4 cups chicken stock, preferrably with pieces of chicken in it
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1/3 cup alphabet or other small pasta
about a dozen marble-sized meatballs, or small bits of sausage (uncooked)
1-2 eggs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
a couple handfuls of fresh baby spinach, chard or escarole
Bring the stock to a simmer in a pot on the stove. Add the carrot, pasta and meatballs and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through and the pasta is tender.
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and Parmesan cheese; drizzle into the hot soup, stirring gently so that it doesn’t completely blend in, but cooks in strands. Throw in the spinach and cook for another minute or two, until it wilts.
Season with salt and pepper, and serve with extra Parmesan cheese on top.
Normally I would stir up some biscuits to accompany soup, but today it was the other way around. I made a batch of pesto-filled cheese slab scones for CBC this morning, thinking they might be appropriate for our chat about kids and picnicking, but later on, when there was a slab scone to spare, I really couldn’t imagine anything better to accompany a bowl of soup. Since it has been about to rain all day long (like the pause before a sneeze), soup is fitting. Since the scones are filled with pesto, roasted tomato soup made sense. All the stars fell into alignment when I noticed a bunch of tomatoes going wrinkly on top of the breadbox.
But, the scones. Inspired by the mega scones on Heidi’s blog, these are great slabs of cheesy biscuit dough, folded over pesto to enclose it like a letter. Heidi’s version was lemony, slathered with raspberry jam and drizzled with a glaze. I turned mine into cheese biscuits, divided the dough in half and filled one package with sundried tomato pesto (this one was the best - it came to the studio with me this morning) and one with plain basil pesto, as per W’s love for the stuff.
There is so much potential for these scones. I love that you can fill them, easily, with anything; jam, preserves, cinnamon-sugar, ham and cheese, pie filling, even. Most scones take on additions well, but these you can flavor and then fill. The best part is you can slice off pieces as thin or thick as you like; it even made a great base for eggs on toast at lunch.
Pesto & Cheese Slab Scones
If you want a sweet version, omit the cheese and use jam or preserves in place of the pesto. If you like, add grated orange or lemon zest to the dough, brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking.
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar (or more if you make a sweet version)
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces
1 cup grated old cheddar cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, half & half or 2% milk
1/2-2/3 cup sun dried tomato pesto or basil pesto (from a jar)
Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor, combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Blend using a pastry cutter or fork, or pulse the food processor until the mixture is combined but there are still bits of butter no bigger than a pea.
If you’re using a food processor, dump the mixture out into a bowl. Add the cheeses and toss to combine. Add the buttermilk, cream or milk, and stir just until the dough comes together. Divide it in half, and on a floured surface roll each piece into a 10″-12″ square. Spread the pesto in a strip down the middle third, and fold each half over it, overlapping like a letter. If you like, brush the tops with a little extra milk.
Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for about 30 minutes, until golden. Cut into whatever sized pieces you like.
Makes two slab scones.
And the tomato soup. Another easy thing to make, and a great use of tomatoes that have passed their prime. I don’t really bother measuring, although I’ve provided some measurements below for those who crave them; I’ll use about 4 big tomatoes, 6 or so Romas, or a pint of cherry or grape tomatoes. Spread them on a cookie sheet and roast them with as many cloves of garlic as you like, then add stock and a bit of milk or cream, until you have soup with the consistency you like. Puree it until it’s chunky or smooth.
Roasted Tomato Soup
It’s important to use ripe, flavorful tomatoes for this soup, since their flavor is paramount. If you have overripe, wrinkled, or squishy tomatoes around, use them up, so long as they don’t have any bad spots. Roasting them transforms their flavor, making them sweet and smoky. It’s a great way to make tomato sauce for pasta, too - just blend it without adding the stock.
about 3 lb. ripe tomatoes
a good drizzle of canola or olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 head garlic, cloves peeled (or 2 cloves, if you don’t want it too garlicky)
2 cups (500 mL) chicken or vegetable stock
2 tsp. sugar
1/2 cup milk, half and half or whipping cream (optional)
Chopped fresh basil or pesto (optional)
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Cut the tomatoes in chunks (or in half, widthwise, if you’re using Roma tomatoes) and place them on a large rimmed baking sheet or in a roasting pan with the cloves of garlic. Drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for about an hour, until the tomatoes are juicy with dark edges and the garlic is very soft. Set it aside to cool for a bit.
If you have a hand-held immersion blender (I highly recommend one), transfer the tomatoes, garlic and all the juices that have collected in the pan into a
medium saucepan and set it over medium heat. If not, transfer it to a blender or food processor, puree it (add a little stock if you need to get it moving) and then transfer it to a pot. Add the chicken stock and sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes. If you are going to add cream, turn the heat down to low and add it at the last minute, stirring just until the soup is heated through. If you like, stir in a small handful of chopped fresh basil or a spoonful of pesto just before serving.
Let me clarify: chocolate-dipped cheesecake pops are not something I would typically make for dessert on a plain old Monday night. I made them for the Eyeopener because tomorrow I’m going to chat about food blogs. Thinking I’d choose a recipe from one of my favorite sites, I hopped around a few and found that Cream Puffs in Venice, Tartelette, and another blog I stumbled through were all posting cheesecake pops. As I was perusing them my friend S emailed from Whistler, where she is apparently hooked on something from the local chocolate shop called cheesecake bombs. I took this as an unmistakable sign that I should make some. What a hero I’m going to be in the studio tomorrow morning!
The pie was to make use of leftover spaghetti; I did a few segments debunking common cooking myths on BT this morning, and as a result had plenty of leftover cooked pasta that was used to demonstrate the myth that adding oil to the cooking water prevents it from sticking together. (It’s a large volume of water, kept at a rolling boil with space for the spaghetti to move around, that keeps it from sticking. In fact, adding oil to your water will result in an oil slick on your pasta once you drain it, and your sauce won’t stick very well.)
Spaghetti Pie.
I’ve seen many versions of spaghetti pie, some in which the pasta is tossed with the sauce and cheese, then baked, others that have the crust par-baked first to crisp it up, and others with layers of cottage cheese between the noodles and sauce.
So I improvised: tossed the leftover spaghetti with some eggwhite (I had some whose yolks had been used to make lemon curd), a bit of grated Parmesan, a grinding of pepper and a big spoonful of pesto, just because there was some open in the fridge and W is such a fan, then spread the spaghetti into an oiled pie plate, pushing it up the sides a bit.
I had requests for spinach sauce, but had hastily crumbled and cooked a couple lean Italian sausages, a red pepper, a few fresh tomatoes that had gone too wrinkly for anything but cooking with and a can of tomatoes before remembering this, and pureed sausage, I imagine, is not a Good Thing. So I decided to proceed as if it were a lasagna - I crumbled some ricotta and thawed, squeezed-out spinach over the crust,
topped it with the sauce…
and some grated part-skim mozzarella, and baked it at 350F for about half an hour, until all was golden, crsipy-edged and bubbly. Yum.
The cheesecake pops were simple, really, mostly because I didn’t make the cheesecake from scratch like the others did. Some advised making a cheesecake and then scooping up balls of it with your hands, freezing them and then dipping the frozen wads in chocolate. Because I couldn’t envision blaspheming a cheesecake that way, nor attempting to cut one into teeny fancy shapes using a cookie cutter (too thick for any in my collection) I decided to buy one of those small plain frozen Safeway cheeesecakes and cut it into wedges. It worked perfectly.
After inserting the sticks (bamboo skewers, although popsicle sticks or the 4″ lollipop sticks you can buy at Michael’s would work brilliantly), I put them back in the freezer to solidify while I melted some chocolate chips in the microwave, then half dipped, half spread the melted chocolate onto the frozen wedges. Some sprinkles or other decoration would have worked out well, but I didn’t really have anything. That’s the beauty of radio; you don’t really need to accessorize.
After three nights and four days of events, I got home from Banff mid-afternoon and didn’t much feel like cooking dinner. But it occurred to me that W hasn’t had anything green for a long time, and I didn’t feel like take-out or cereal, either. So I sucked it up and made a quick batch of spinach spaghetti sauce while the pasta boiled.
You do this by sautéing a bunch of spinach (or half a bag of the prewashed stuff) in a little canola oil, until it wilts; pour your tomato sauce overtop (or go the other way; heat up the sauce and stir in the spinach until it wilts), pour it into the food processor and whiz until it’s smooth. Voilá - spinach that is undetectable to a two year old.
I have never been so happy to see the arrival of daylight savings time. Sunlight at dinnertime! This is going to make documenting these dinners much easier.
Last week I lugged home the bone from the roast ham we made on It’s Just Food (in case you haven’t figured this out already, I can be cheap) and yesterday threw it in a pot of water to coax the remaining meat off and make a stock.
Having opened up a can of black beans to make quesadillas for lunch (still one of my favorite things ever) I decided that the ham stock was destined to be black bean soup. I’m sorry if I’ve black bean souped you to death already; turns out we eat a lot of it.
This one was a bit of a soup yukaflux: half a leftover can of diced tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion, red pepper, jalapeno (this is something I never would have had in the fridge even a year ago, but I have discovered that even one chopped into my soup makes all the flavor difference), the half can of black beans, a shake from the bag of frozen corn, and the meaty ham stock. Scooped hot over a pile of leftover brown rice that was in the fridge. Done like dinner.
I suppose at least my current crazy schedule is making this project more interesting. Or more dull?
Today I taught a homemade pasta class at the Cookbook Company with Lina deGaeta, master pasta-maker and the wife of the owner of the Italian Supermarket on the corner of Edmonton Trail and 20th Ave NE. (Who makes, by the way, the best pizza in Calgary - Saturday afternoons only they fire up the wood-burning oven and you can order pizza any way you like it, with real Italian ingredients and chewy, bulbous crusts.)
Tonight though, my call time to the set of It’s Just Food is 10:30pm, and we’re going to shoot all night. So I had a bit of a nap, and then, technically, it was dinnertime. Because I was assembling a sort of “lasagna” made out of fresh ravioli as a beauty shot for the show, I assembled another small one for Mike and W. (I got the idea from a cookbook put out by Real Simple magazine.)
I ate a wedge of frozen chocolate zucchini cake. That counts as dinner, right? After all, it does contain a vegetable, and was made with canola oil - a healthy fat.
Ravioli Lasagna
This is as fast and easy as it gets. The ravioli is already filled, so you don’t need to layer your noodles with filling. Also great when cooking for one – you can make individual sized lasagnas, which isn’t possible when using pasta sheets or lasagna noodles.
If you like, use any kind of cooked veg as well as or in place of the spinach – a container of roasted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and eggplant from the Italian market works especially well.
1 large jar good-quality tomato sauce
2 16-18 oz. bags fresh or frozen large ravioli - any kind
1 pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1 cup grated part-skim mozzarella (or as much as you like)
½ cup grated Parmesan
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Spray a 9”x13” baking dish with nonstick spray, and spread about a third of the tomato sauce over the bottom. Lay half the ravioli in a single layer overtop. Sprinkle with the spinach and half the cheese, another third of the sauce and then the remaining ravioli, sauce and cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake another 10 minutes, until golden and bubbly.
Serves 6.
(Low Fat) Chocolate Zucchini Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup cocoa
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup strong coffee
1 zucchini, unpeeled & grated
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Add buttermilk, brown sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla and beat for 1-2 minutes, until well blended and smooth. Stir in coffee and zucchini. The batter will be fairly thin.
Pour into a bundt pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until the top is springy to the touch.
I hope no one was expecting a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner of, say, beef Wellington and strawberries dipped into chocolate fondue, which would of course end up seductively licked off our fingers. A friend emailed me today, concerned with these public dinnertime duties and consequent pressure to cook an amazing romantic meal, and suggested I cook nachos, paired with a fine Kokanee and a Safeway apple pie. But the best part was her suggested narrative (obviously she watches Nigella):
My heaving bosom was barely concealed by the lace doily covering them. The heat of the oven door caused a fragrant drop of perspiration to roll playfully down my neck. I was immediately taken by the spicy hardness of the roasting chips. The succulent velvety texture of the avocado wrapped itself tightly against the awaiting firm black olives……
Seriously, I’m thinking this website should have guest authors.
So since the teacher’s convention is on and my sister is a teacher, my 9 year old niece, Emily, and 5 year old nephew, Ben, are here for two days, including a sleepover. Plus Mike has band practice tonight, so I’m cleared of any V-Day pressure that might have otherwise been. Beyond that, the extra bodies pose a slight obstacle at dinnertime because, among all the other mealtime prejudices (only orange cheese, no weird bread) Emily is lactose intolerant. When I asked them what they wanted for dinner, both (and this doesn’t often happen) answered the same: pancakes!
No, you can’t have pancakes for dinner.
Yes we can! We want pancakes!! Please can we have pancakes?
Well, it would be easy. And there’s the matter of maintaining my Cool Aunt status. But when I stopped to think on it, I realized that pancakes made the proper way, notwith a box of soapy-tasting ultra-refined mix, aren’t really a bad thing. Grains (I use mostly whole wheat flour, ground oats, some flax seed, and they have no idea), eggs, soy milk or yogurt, a drizzle of canola and flax oils, batter scattered with sliced banana and/or berries, actually does deliver complex carbs, healthy fats and protein. Phew. So they’re happy and I’m not guilty of baking animal-shaped chicken nuggets or ordering pizza. And with the miracle of modern freezers, breakfast is taken care of too.
Good pancakes don’t require a recipe, if you can remember that to make them you need two of everything: 2 cups flours and grains (this can be all one kind; I use a combo of whole wheat flour, sometimes some oat flour, sometimes some quick oats or oats that have been whizzed in the food processor, sometimes some oat bran, always a sprinkle of ground flax seed), 2 Tbsp. sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, 2 cups milk (or soy milk or thinned yogurt), 2 eggs and 2 Tbsp. (although you could use more) oil - canola and flax are my pancake oils of choice. Mix the dry ingredients (adding a pinch of salt if you think of it) and the wet ingredients separately, then whisk them together.
The secret to good pancakes is keeping the heat fairly low, and if you want to simulate that first pancake that never turns out quite right and gets thrown away, drizzle the pan with oil and then wipe it out with a paper towel. Cook until bubbles are starting to break on top, not until they have all already broken through the surface. You don’t want to exhaust all leavening potential. Scatter berries or sliced bananas on the surface before you flip it; the fruit is more evenly distributed that way, and won’t risk turning your pancakes green with berry juice. Another way to get them in is to simmer a handful of fresh or frozen berries in some maple syrup until they burst, turning the syrup a brilliant heliotrope (love that word).
Mike and I had yesterday’s leftover couscous, and yes, a few pancake pickings.
(P.S. If I was so inclined to make a special dinner for Mike, I might have chosen braised lamb shanks with mashed potatoes and Pavlova with cream and partially smushed fresh berries for dessert.)
Wor won ton soup is one of Mike’s favorite things. From King’s in particular - there was that one time, when he was working for a helicopter company out by the original King’s in the northeast, when he went for the Friday wor won ton soup run and bailed down the icy slope right outside the front door, dumping 6 large (about 1L) containers of the soup version of pure gold all over himself and producing a chunky, icy soup slide as it instantly froze on the grass. On a happy note, King’s graciously replaced them all for him, but he now frequents the southeast location.
I had pulled a package of won ton wrappers from the freezer awhile ago in order to make chips - to do this, cut the wrappers into triangles or strips, brush them with a little oil or water to help any seasonings adhere, and sprinkle them with any number of flavorings: lemon pepper, sesame seeds and Parmesan cheese, curry powder, or some of that powdered ranch dip mix. Toast them in the oven on a baking sheet until golden, and you’ll have crunchy, low calorie crackers that are able to structurally tolerate loads of chunky dip.
But a package of wonton wrappers will produce more chips than you’ll need for even the biggest bash. Fortunately, there are other uses for them. Wontons, for example.
(Note: When they are round, they are referred to as gyoza wrappers, and the square ones are wonton wrappers. Same thing, different shape.)
Making wontons by hand, to drop into simmering stock or brown on the stovetop and steam to make potstickers, are far simpler than you might think. All you require is a pound of ground pork, turkey, chicken or a combination (chopped shrimp or scallops are divine too), spiked with a little ginger, soy, green onion and sesame oil. Fill the wrappers, moisten the edges and seal them. While you’re at it, make a lot, and freeze them on a cookie sheet; this will prevent them from sticking to each other when you transfer them to a freezer bag.
The frozen wontons can be dropped into simmering stock with some broccoli, carrots, bok choy, and even whole shrimp or leftover slices of roast pork for wor won ton (or just won ton, if you don’t want to accessorize) that almost makes it unnecessary to do soup runs anymore.
(I said almost.)
Wonton Soup
For the wontons:
1/2 lb. ground pork, or half pork and half ground turkey
2 green onions, finely chopped, or some chopped fresh parsley or cilantro
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. rice vinegar
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
salt & pepper
About 30 wonton wrappers, thawed if frozen
Chicken, beef or shrimp stock
Bok choy, chopped spinach, sliced carrots, broccoli, pea shoots, baby corn, fresh or frozen shrimp, sliced cooked pork tenderloin, or anything else you like in your soup
To make the wontons, stir together all the filling ingredients just until combined – as with any meat mixture, don’t overwork it or it could end up tough.
Put a little water into a small bowl. Put a couple wonton wrappers on your work surface, keeping the rest covered so that they don’t dry out. Place a small spoonful of the pork mixture in the middle of each one, dip your finger in the water, and run it along two edges to moisten. Fold the wonton over to make a triangle, and press to seal. Now you could leave them like that, or moisten the tips and fold them closed, like a tortellini. Or, you could moisten the edges and then just squish them all up in a bundle, pressing them together so it doesn’t pop open. You’ll get the hang of it.
To freeze, lay them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze solid; then transfer to freezer bags and store for up to 4 months. To make soup, drop fresh or frozen wontons into simmering stock; add bok choy or any other veg you like, and simmer for a few minutes, 3 or 4, to cook the wontons through – the veg should cook along with them, but still stay fairly crisp. If you want to add shrimp, add them at the end and cook just until they turn opaque, or if they are already cooked, just until they heat through. If you want to add bits of cooked pork, add it at the end as well.
If you like, soak some Asian noodles and divide them among bowls; pour the hot soup overtop. If you like, sprinkle with some torn cilantro. Put bottles of soy sauce and chili sauce on the table so everyone can season their own bowls.
Except that I can’t eat any. I’m having a minor test done tomorrow, which means I can only ingest clear fluids for 24 hours. Me! Going without food for 24 hours! Plus however much time I spend at the hospital tomorrow afternoon, which I’m sure will seem far longer on an empty stomach.
So, planning to spend a full Sunday out of the kitchen (very unusual for me), I made a batch of chicken stew with pesto yesterday for Mike and W. If I didn’t work in the food world, and had just a few go-to dinner recipes in my repertoire, this would be one of them. If I was one of those Moms who made meals on rotation - meatloaf Mondays, spaghetti Tuesdays, pork chop Wednesdays, and so on, this would definitely make the cut. Willem loves it (possibly on account of the pesto, which he seems to be in love with), and so do Mike and I. For some reason it turns out creamier tasting than it should, and is far more interesting than the sum of its (veg, legumes and skinless chicken or turkey) parts. Plus, it’s another one of those meals that’s freezable or keeps well in the fridge; ideal for dipping in to all week long. And because it’s all in one pot yet isn’t runny like soup, it makes a perfect portable lunch. If when it cools down you divide it into individual freezable containers, you can pull one out in the morning and by lunch it will be partially thawed - still cold enough to be safe, but with a head start on the reheating process.
I have to stop talking about food and go read a book or something to distract myself. Maybe I’ll open up A Stew or a Story, an assortment of short works by M.F.K. Fisher. If I can’t eat food, I can at least read about it…
Chicken & White Bean Stew with Pesto
Canola or olive oil, for cooking with
1 large onion, chopped
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken thighs or turkey breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 big cloves of garlic, crushed
½ tsp. ground cumin
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can white kidney or navy beans, drained
1 can chicken broth
a few drops of Tabasco or a pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup (or a couple of big spoonfuls) basil or sun-dried tomato pesto
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving (optional)
Heat a drizzle of oil in a large pot set over medium heat. Cook the onion and chicken pieces for about 5 minutes, until the onions are starting to brown and the chicken is opaque. Add the celery, carrots, and red pepper and cook for a few more minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the garlic and cumin and cook for another minute.
Add the beans, chicken broth, Tabasco and some salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down to low, cover and let cook for about 45 minutes.
Stir in the pesto and serve topped with Parmesan cheese. Serves 4-6, or 2-3 with leftovers. It doubles easily if you want to make a bigger batch.
Not the best start to my year, is it? But this is what happens in real life.. some days you get to ditch your husband and 2 year old and go play grown up at JAROblue for a couple hours while your friend is in town from St. Louis.
Fortunately I already made that curried yam & red lentil soup, which Mike and Willem are devouring now with some chewy, crusty bread I baked this morning. The no-knead stuff, naturally, which I will post again someday when this site is properly up and running.
As I mentioned yesterday, Nigel Slater intended this soup to be made with a fresh pumpkin, flavored with chilies and turmeric, and topped with onions sauteed with a few more chilies. His photo is astronomically more appealing than mine, but this is what I’ve got. For the next few months, the fact that it’s pitch-dark at dinnertime is not going to bode well with my need to photograph food.
Curried Yam & Red Lentil Soup
Canola or olive oil, for cooking with
1 onion, chopped
a few cloves of garlic, smushed
a good grating of fresh ginger
2 handfuls of dried red lentils
1 medium yam, peeled and cut into chunks
1 small spoonful of curry paste - powder would work too
salt
a few glugs of half & half
In a medium pot, saute the onion, garlic and ginger in a drizzle of oil for a few minutes, until the onion softens. Add the lentils, yam, curry paste, salt to taste and about 1 1/2 litres of water (that’s 6 cups), or chicken or vegetable stock. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down, cover and simmer for half an hour or so, until the yam chunks are very tender.
Add as much half & half (or 2%, or evaporated milk, or even heavy cream) as you like, and use a hand-held immersion blender right in the pot to puree it. Taste and adjust seasonings if it needs it. Serve right away, or keep it in the fridge (or the barbeque) for up to a week to reheat when you want it.
