Archive for the 'freezable' Category
I saw a pot of black bean soup awhile ago on Smitten Kitchen, and its inky blackness called to me. Every time I see dry black beans now, which is a lot, I think of this soup – simply made in the Crock Pot, the dry beans tossed right in with lots of water. No soaking needed.
It’s a simple recipe – vegan, even – cheap and easy and good for you. It needs plenty of salt, and the chipotle chiles add smokiness and a bit of heat. You could really use this as a blank black bean soup canvas and do what you like with it. A ham hock or some stock would certainly boost flavour.
I posted the recipe over at the Family Kitchen.
May 23 2011 | beans and Family Kitchen and freezable and soup | 3 Comments »
It’s been hard to post recipes this week – I haven’t been able to get into it. I keep coming here and not knowing what to say. What is there to say about soup when there’s so much going on? I’ve found comfort in cooking during the after-school hours – our dinnertimes have been spent with the news on, the end of the day an opportunity for a more in-depth update on the threat of nuclear disaster, relief efforts hampered by snow and freezing weather and aftershocks, and near hourly re-estimates of the number of people missing and displaced. Every morning the alarm clicks on to the CBC and a grim update on a crippled nuclear plant, the dozen souls left to try to bring it under control, and the looming threat of nuclear disaster, followed (or led by, depending on the urgency of the situation that hour) by reports of violence in Libya. It seems impossible that the world is still humming along. But deadlines must still be met, appointments kept, laundry done. The house is still a mess and everyone’s gotta eat.
I know we’ve all been struggling to wrap our heads around the scope of the devastation, the suddenness of it all, and what can possibly be done to help. I’ve had plenty of calls and emails and tweets asking if I’m planning round 2 of Blog Aid. Excellent question. But it seems different now than it was a little over a year ago. The original book was for Haiti; I enlisted the financial support of Blurb and West Canadian Graphics, and the Canadian government stepped in to match donations. I don’t have all that backup this time. And though I could get moving and try to do it all again, I think there’s a perception that money isn’t going to make as much of an impact this time. People aren’t jumping for their wallets as eagerly as they were last year. (Not that I’m discouraging donations! I’m certainly not. It just seems to be the way it’s going.) Anyway. I’ve been involved in a similar project that is now getting underway, which you’ll surely hear about soon, and so there’s that. And I keep having ideas, but often they’re silly. I had one on Monday morning that made perfect sense to me, so long as it was bouncing around inside my head. When I talked about it it seemed silly, and so I haven’t done much to get it off the ground.
Also, it’s been a busy week. There was a bout of what may or may not have been food poisoning, but was miserable nonetheless. There have been deadlines and tests and grown-up stuff, and frustration that I still don’t know anywhere near as much about this world-wide-internet as I should by now. (Never have I been so annoyed at myself for not paying full attention in elementary school when they taught us basic programming in the computer lab full of Commodore 64s. I could have been a pioneer in all this!) I should at least know basic coding-if I did, my plan would have gone live by now. I was going to launch it Thursday. It’s Friday. And then part of me wonders if it really is silly or if anyone will even get it. And then I distract myself with emails and passed deadlines. It has all fallen out of focus.
All I know is this: it’s not helping any of us to be walking around feeling helpless, hopeless, and heavy-hearted. As someone somewhere once said: we can’t help everyone, but we can help someone. I think besides donating what we can to the cause, we need to channel our efforts into helping ourselves and those around us. Doing little things to make life happier wherever we can can have an astonishing ripple effect. Just like plate tectonics, and the way subtle, often undetectable shifts in the earth can have tremendous effects on its surface.
OK, so now you know the direction I’m going here. I’m going to get to the part with the soup, and continue explaining my perhaps-not-so-brilliant-but-then-again-maybe idea tomorrow.
So I went to help Dan at one of his Kick the KD classes last night. He has a great bunch of UofC students he’s teaching how to cook. For free. What a guy. The class was great, even if they did make me feel ancient. (Not intentionally, of course. The fact that I made a Cliff Clavin joke and no one had a clue who I was talking about – Dan included – didn’t help.)
So H, one of the students in the class, told me about a roasted pepper and butternut squash soup she made – an adaptation of a recipe she found in a yoga magazine (always wondered who read those) – and it sounded too good not to make. Of all the butternut squash soups of my life, I don’t think I’ve made one yet with roasted red pepper. Bonus: it’s not only vegetarian (if you use vegetable stock, of course), but vegan, even. Look at me! Eating vegan! And not in the form of a sticky cinnamon bun! (Which I suppose aren’t really vegan anyway with all that butter.)
Creamy Red Pepper & Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from H, who adapted it from a yoga magazine.
a drizzle of canola oil
1 onion, chopped
2 lbs butternut squash peeled and but into half-inch chunks
1 roasted red pepper
1 L chicken or vegetable stock
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
pinch grated nutmeg
salted green pumpkin seeds, to sprinkle on top
Heat oil in pot for a few minutes, then add the onion and cook until softened (5-7 minutes). Add the squash and cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently until softened and getting mushy around the edges. Once it’s mushy-ish (H’s words), add the broth, cover and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. About 15 minutes in, add your chopped roasted red pepper. Add spices and sugar before putting into the blender to blend up. Use a hand towel or J cloth and hold the lid down, and be wary of ‘liquefy’ setting. (Alternatively, use a hand-held immersion blender right in the pot.)
Serve topped with pumpkin seeds.
March 19 2011 | freezable and soup and vegetarian | 10 Comments »
9 out of 10 firemen can’t be wrong.
So Friday morning, you may have heard, I did a cooking segment on BT at the new Le Creuset store in Chinook (yes, I’m working on free stuff here! there are channels to go through!) WITH the firemen from the 2011 Hot Stuff calendar. Yes, my job does not suck at all some days. Although it must be said that Jill had a little more firefigher attention than I did. Possibly a lot.
We cooked with beef – ground sirloin, which comes from a single cut (sirloin) rather than a bunch (which you typically get with ground beef), which I like the idea of, plus you get the taste of a steak in ground form. Bonus: ground sirloin has about the same amount of fat as the extra-lean ground beef you’ll get at the grocery store, but with far better flavour and texture. Our theme was cooking with beef and beefcakes, surrounded by Le Creuset. Forget whiskers on kittens – these are a few of my favourite things. The coffee at Phil & Sebastian right next door completed me.
We made shepherd’s pies, a beefy Moroccan dish with olives and couscous, and these stuffed shells.
(Or rather they made them, under my -loose- direction.) They had it covered. They did a little improv. When the second wave of firemen arrived to eat, the consensus was the stuffed shells were their favourite. They’re like little two-bite lasagnas, filled with beef, spinach and ricotta and topped with melty cheese. How could you not adore them? I must admit I’ve always wondered who buys giant pasta shells to stuff – but despite their slipperiness and the fact that several tore or broke and were nibbled on by W or fed to the dog, I’ll be making them again. It was quick – I cooked up the beef, onion and garlic while boiling the shells, added it to some ricotta and spinach (the second time I added a spoonful of pesto, too), spooned the mixture into the shells (kids love getting in on this part, and it wasn’t at all finicky), poured sauce over, sprinkled with cheese and baked until bubbly. Easy. They freeze well (before baking), so you can make a big batch, divide it between two baking dishes, eat one right away and freeze the other for another night. Bake it straight from frozen.
Here’s the recipe – it’s very adaptable though – we didn’t measure particularly closely.
Florentine Beef & Cheese-Stuffed Shells
The best part about this gussied-up twist on lasagna is that it makes two pans – that means you can stash one away for a no-effort dinner another night. If you have kids around, small hands are particularly adept at stuffing pasta shells. Recipe courtesy of beefinfo.org.
1 box (340 g) jumbo pasta shells (approx. 44 shells)
1 lb (500 g) lean or extra lean ground beef sirloin
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2-3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. (5 mL) Italian seasoning
1 pkg. (454 g) light ricotta cheese
1 pkg. (300 g) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper
4 cups (1 L) pasta sauce
1/4 cup (50 mL) grated Parmesan cheese
Cook pasta shells according to package directions. Drain and set aside. (Don’t worry if some shells tear – you won’t need them all.)
Meanwhile, cook the beef, onion, garlic and Italian seasoning in large, deep skillet set over medium heat until the beef is thoroughly cooked and any liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat. Stir in the ricotta, spinach, 1 cup of the mozzarella and pepper. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the filling into each of about 32 shells.
Spread about a cup of the pasta sauce into each of 9×13-inch baking dish and a 9-inch glass pie plate (or similar sized baking dishes). Place 20 filled shells in the larger baking dish, and 10 to 12 in the pie plate. Drizzle the remaining pasta sauce over the shells, sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan. (At this point the dish can be covered and refrigerated overnight or frozen for up to 4 months). Cover loosely with foil and bake in 350°F oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 5 minutes, until bubbly around the edges and golden on top.
Makes 10 servings.
February 16 2011 | beef and freezable and pasta | 16 Comments »
I’m pretty smitten with this new soup. Although it uses ingredients I’m more than familiar with, the combination is somehow unlike any soup I’ve made before. Perhaps it’s the whole head of garlic. If I was the sort to do up a weekly meal plan, have meatless Mondays and pork chop Tuesdays and such, I’d make room for this soup.
Despite starting the day (at 4 am!) with firefighters straight from the 2011 hotstuff calendar, my day wasn’t so hot, teetering on about an hour and a half of sleep. It capped off a rough week – I was grateful when my sister brought Vietnamese food home from work to feed us all. Wouldn’t it be nice to be five again and ride home in the back seat, sobbing if you’re overtired and feel like a good wail, and have someone carry you inside, put your jammies on and make popcorn and apple slices for you to eat in front of How to Train Your Dragon? (The upside to not being 5 is the ability to crack open a bottle of wine to go with said popcorn and movie.)
I made this soup last week, actually, for a new little thing I’m doing for Calgary Co-op. No money is involved here – it stemmed from a conversation about the common misconception that it’s too expensive to eat well, and how to change that perception. Yes, fast food is cheap. Cooking from scratch is cheaper. I suggested to the folks at Co-op that we run a recipe with price breakdown in the Calgary Herald every Thursday, rather than the usual weekly flyer-style price listings. After all, advertising the price of ground beef for $1.79 per pound or tomatoes for $.99 a pound doesn’t make sense to many, including a good percentage of twentysomethings who don’t know how many tomatoes come in a pound and if it’s really a good deal, anyway. But to have a recipe that utilizes seasonal and sale ingredients in a way that will feed a family for less than $5 each might be more helpful to the home cook, don’t you think? With a little shopping list and everything.
So that’s how this soup came to be. It was in yesterday’s paper. It’s one to clip and save.
By the way, our cooking segment was at the Le Creuset store in Chinook this morning – let that be a hint about what the next Free Stuff will be. I’m working on it!
Spolumbo’s Sausage & Chickpea Soup
Adapted from the March 1995 issue of Bon Appétit.
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 lb. Spolumbos chicken apple or turkey cranberry sausage (2-3 sausages)
1 head garlic, cloves separated, peeled and chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 tsp. cumin
1 14 oz (398 mL) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1-2 19 oz. (540 mL) cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 L chicken or beef stock
a squeeze of fresh lime juice
fresh cilantro
1 avocado, peeled and chopped
In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat. Add sausage and garlic and sauté until the sausage is golden brown and cooked through, breaking up with your spoon. Add the jalapeño and cumin and cook for another minute or two.
Add the tomatoes, chickpeas and stock and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 30 minutes, until everything is cooked through and the broth has thickened slightly. Add a squeeze of lime, season with salt and pepper and serve hot, topped with fresh cilantro, chopped avocado, and extra lime wedges alongside. Serves 4.
Come join Soup-a-Palooza at TidyMom and Dine and Dish sponsored by Bush’s Beans, Hip Hostess, Pillsbury and Westminster Crackers!
February 11 2011 | freezable and soup | 30 Comments »
Can’t sleep. Can’t breathe. The cherry NyQuil and OJ Shirley Temple I mixed up (the Sick Shirley) has not kicked in yet. And so I’m up poking around the internet, figuring out how to do fun stuff like this. I have a cold. A drippy-nosed cold, the kind where you can generally breathe fine through one nostril but not at all through the other, and it feels like your brain is swathed in cotton batting. And when you run all the way down to the basement to change the laundry and come back up again, you have to sit down for a rest. Fortunately I’ve been on a bit of a soup kick lately, so I had some at the ready.
LOOK AT THE COLOUR OF THIS SOUP! It’s not part of the effect – this is what it looks like – a mug of lipstick/fire engine/nail enamel red paint. In Vancouver last week, I was lucky enough to stay at the new Fairmont Pacific Rim, which again made me question my decision to marry for love, not money. Downstairs in the giovani café there was a beet and butternut squash soup on the menu that I didn’t get, but the power of suggestion is strong with me. I wish I would have seen if it was chunky (like borscht) or smooth (like squash soup). I decided, since I’m totally into sippable soups right now (like I used to be into Vans and Social Distortion), that I’d do a purée. I roasted the squash and beets first, and added a splash of orange juice because it was in the fridge. It puréed into a brilliant red, the orange squash offsetting the Barney purple shade of beet. Lovely. And far better the second day. Particularly with a dollop of sour cream on top, which you could, if you wanted to, draw a bamboo skewer through to make a heart.
Roasted Beet and Butternut Squash Soup
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced
2-3 beets, tops trimmed
1 large onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1-2 cups orange juice
1 L chicken or vegetable stock
a big splash of half & half (optional)
sour cream, for serving (optional)
Preheat the oven to 450F. Spread the squash out on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle with oil. Wrap the beets individually in foil. Place the sheet in the oven and the beets directly on the rack; roast for 30 minutes, or until the squash is soft and turning golden on the edges.
In a medium pot, heat a drizzle of oil over medium heat and saute the onion for a few minutes, until starting to soften. Add the garlic and roasted squash. When they’re cool enough to handle, peel and chop the beets; add to the pot along with the orange juice and stock and simmer for about half an hour.
Add the cream, puree the soup with a hand-held immersion blender and season with salt to taste. Serve warm with a dollop of sour cream. Serves 6.
One Year Ago: Poached Eggs Over Warm Lentil Salad with Bacon
January 19 2011 | freezable and soup | 11 Comments »
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