Avgolemono

Hi... it's me.  Remember me?  It's ok if you don't.  I sort of ran away and hid for awhile.  Things were falling and I didn't bother to take the time to pick them back up.  I did come back once simply to tell you I was alive.  Does that count for something?

I hope you haven't completely written me out of your book yet.  I have new things to share, I promise.  Are any of them recipes, you may ask.  Which is a fair question, seeing as this is some sort of an excuse for a cooking blog.  And I'm hear to tell you that at least one of them is!  And it's perfect for right now, when all of us are fighting one type of sickness or another.  Soup.  The only kind of soup you want when you're feeling achy and cold and you have an elephant sitting on your chest.  There is an elephant sitting on your chest too, right?  Or is that just me?

It is chicken soup.  Chicken soup made creamy by the slow addition of an egg and almost impossibly bright by the swirl of fresh lemon.  It is chicken soup that is easy to make, requiring nothing out of the ordinary and no extra work, especially if you have a bag of shredded rotisserie chicken in your freezer.  It is chicken soup that will calm your nerves, warm your tummy, and if we are lucky, help beat up all this icky sickness around us.

This is the way that we're starting a new year.  With a new soup and an easy addition to my big green cookbook.  Oh, and with some other exciting news.  There happens to be this very shiny, very, very pretty ring thingy hanging out on my left hand.  It's a little strange and I'm not quite used to it yet, but it puts a huge smile on my face every time I look at it.  Yes folks, we're engaged.  Things are about to get all sorts of real.

Avgolemono
Adapted from Cooking Light, January 2012

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
6 1/2 c. chicken stock
1/2 c. uncooked long-grain rice
1/3 c. fresh lemon juice (~ 2 lemons, depending on their size)
2 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 large egg
2 c. (8 oz) chicken breast, shredded

In a Dutch oven over medium high heat, add oil and heat until it begins to shimmer.  Add chopped onions and garlic.  Saute 2-3 minutes or until fragrant.  Add chicken stock and bring mixture to a boil.  Add in rice and reduce soup to a simmer.  Summer for 16 minutes, or until rice is just a few minutes before done.

Meanwhile, combine lemon juice, cornstarch, salt, pepper and egg.  Whisk together well.  Once soup/rice mixture is ready, very slowly pour lemon juice mixture into soup, gently whisking the entire time.  Be patient and careful, you want the egg to incorporate, not scramble!  Add in chicken and stir.  Let lightly simmer until soup thickens and rice is done, about 305 minutes more.

End of Summer Minestrone

Don't focus on the "End of Summer" part of this blog title.  It's just going to make us both sad and it's not even worth it.  Time is time and no matter how much I pout, the cold and snow are going to come.  So, let's not talk about that.  I'm sure I'll complain more than enough once the winter storms start.

Instead, let's focus on the minestrone part.  This soup that was so thick with fresh vegetables, honestly we should be calling it a stew.  There were handfuls upon handfuls of green beans, juicy tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions, zucchini and summer squash.  Plus, just to fill it out, and to put to ease any boyfriends that are concerned about the lack of meat, some canned kidney beans.

This was fantastic.  It was filling, hearty and comforting, and one of the best things to sop up with a warm, crusty hunk of bread.  Plus, there was so much chopping!!  Maybe this isn't a plus for you, but a little slow, methodical chop-chop, dice-dice?  One of the best de-stressing techniques there are.  And with the start of cold, short days, who isn't a little stressed?  So, if we can't stop the end of summer, let's make soup to soak up ever last ounce of it we have left.

End of Summer Minestrone
Adapted from The Little Red House

This froze beautifully.  I froze the leftovers in individual portions and just last night pulled it out and left it to thaw in the fridge.  It had thawed by lunch time and microwaved like a dream.

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
3 carrots, chopped
5-6 baby Yukon gold potatoes, chopped
2 small onions, diced
3 tomatoes, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 c. chicken stock
2 c. vegetable stock
2 cans kidney beans
2 c. green beans, chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
2 Tbsp. fresh basil, shredded
1 c. whole wheat ditali pasta
1 zucchini, sliced in half moons
1 summer squash, sliced in half moons
Feta, to garnish

Chop up carrots and potatoes.  Dice onion.  In a large dutch oven over medium heat olive oil.  Add carrots, potatoes and onions and saute for 4-5 minutes until onions are soft and potatoes are starting to cook through.  Add garlic and diced tomatoes and continue to saute a few more minutes.

Add stocks and beans and bring soup to a boil.  Add green beans, bay leaves, oregano and basil.  Simmer until 15 minutes before serving.  Add pasta and squashes and cook until pasta is al dente, about 10-15 minutes.   Ladle into bowls and garnish with feta.  Serve with crusty bread.

Split Pea Soup

Poor Benjamin had his wisdom teeth out today.  So he's been stuck with ice packs to his face all day, while I was stuck with handing out Vicodin and crushing ice cubes in an old Magic Bullet.  And dishing out lukewarm bowls of homemade split pea soup.  Because that's what you serve recent mouth surgery patients, right?  You know, in between making ice packs that aren't too warm, aren't too cold.  Ice packs that are just right...

Anyways, Ben got split pea soup because that's what I made.  Because I had a leftover ham bone from Easter brunch.  And because split pea soup is what you make with leftover hambones.  It's simple logic derived from many childhood years of ham giving way to hambones giving way to a giant pot of split pea soup.  I used the same recipe my mom always did, because as far as I am concerned there is no other way to make split pea soup.  It came from the big, orange Betty Crocker Cookbook that was my mother's go to cooking tome for as long as I can remember (which is apparently vintage now and worth $75, according to ebay.  Who knew?).  It's tried, it's trusted, it's scanned and already in my big green cookbook.

 

If you've never had split pea soup, don't fear it.  Embrace it.  Because, here is the secret, it is chockfull of ham.  Lots and lots of glorious ham.  Sure, there are some vegetables in there too, but the star here is not the split pea.  It's the ham, the glorious, yummy, ham.  And who doesn't like ham?  Ben just said it's wisdom tooth removal certified.  Quite the accolades, right?  Yeah, I think he's still flying high on Vicodin, but I'll take it...

Split Pea Soup

From Betty Crocker's Cookbook, via my mother

This recipe from start to finish would take a few hours.  If you aren't making this on a lazy Saturday afternoon, you can break up the steps.  There are three main chunks to the recipe and I took a day long break between number 2 and 3.  Also, leftovers freeze wonderfully.  And having leftover pea soup in the freezer is a very happy thing.

8 c. water

1 lb. dried split peas

2 lb. ham hock (or hambone and whatever leftover ham you have)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 celery stocks, chopped

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

On clean kitchen towel, spread out split peas.  Pick through and discard small rocks, any strange looking peas, etc.  Combine water and peas in large Dutch oven.  Bring to a rolling boil for 2 minutes.  Immediately cover and remove from heat.  Let sit for 1 hour (don't peak!)

Next, add chopped onion and ham hock.  Bring soup again to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour, until peas are soft.  If you are breaking the recipe up, stop here and let soup cool down.  Cover and refrigerate. 

Bring soup back up to a boil.  Add carrots, celery, salt and pepper.  Cover and simmer for one hour, or until vegetables are cooked through and peas have broken down.  Soup will thicken more up cooling.     

Cheesy Potato Soup

Sometimes, I don’t want cooking to be an adventure.  Sometimes, after being away from my brand new apartment still half in boxes for nine days, I want to open a bottle of wine, cook up a new potato soup recipe from one of my magazines and have a relaxing night, sipping wine and soup and watching Up.  Maybe even get my new fireplace a going.

So Sunday afternoon I went straight to the grocery store without heading home first.  As I’m driving home dreaming of a nice glass of red, I suddenly remember “my silverware drawer”.  I raced to the front office which amazingly stays open till 5 pm on Sunday evening and asked if I received any packages.  No.  I checked my mailbox, hoping to find a reason why there, only to discover that for whatever reason the post office has deemed my mail undeliverable because my last name isn’t on the outside of the mailbox.  

I called Ben deflated.  How am I supposed to make potato soup without a knife??  All I have are the crappy plastic ware I bought to tide me over until me silverware came.  I take a deep breath and resolve that, yes, I can do this, as long as I have a good glass of wine to boost my spirits.  Then it really hit the fan...

...my corkscrew…

And there, in a few paragraphs, explains how my relaxing Sunday early evening got flushed down the toilet.  Yet, incredibly enough, the soup still happened.  It think it was the realization that it was the one thing in my power to make happen and that eating crappy frozen food would have let me completely and irreversibly in the doldrums.  Not that half way through chopping my onion, aka demolishing it into a pile of mush with a crappy plastic knife, eyes overflowing with tears, I didn't consider trashing the whole things and eating chocolate for dinner.  But then I realized that my super awesome pizza cutter actual did a comparatively good job at cubing potatoes and that I love cheese in every form and somehow, this soup came together.

I would love to tell you that it was so amazing, that it was well worth the internal struggle and resolve, but it was just alright.  Not bad by any means, just not really repeatable for any reason either.  I made only a few changes, I didn't use reduce fat cheddar cheese (because, why would you?) and it needed a generous seasoning of salt and pepper.  I also upped the cayenne quantity to almost 1/4 teaspoon, but that's a personal preference.  Also, the original recipe calls for 3/4 cup broth and 1/2 of water.  There is no reason to not use 1 1/4 cup of broth, it very much needs the extra flavor.  Lucky for me, I've been using Better than Bouillon, and it's easy to stir in a little more.  Overall, good and filling, but just a little bland.  The good news there is that the leftovers were even better then the original pot.  Just be sure to not skimp on the green onion topping, it's definitely worth it, even if you are chopping them with a pizza cutter.

Cheesy Potato Soup

Adapted from Cooking Light's Jan/Feb. 2012 issue

1 Tbsp. Butter
1 c. Onion, chopped
2 1/2 Tbsp. All-purpose flour
3 c. Red potato, chopped (~1 lb.)
1 1/4 c. 1% Milk
1 1/4 c. Lower-sodium chicken broth
1/2 c. (2 oz.) Sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/8 - 1/4 tsp. Ground red pepper
Green onions, chopped, for garnish

In large pot over medium heat, melt butter.  Add chopped onion and cook until fragrant and tender, about 5 minutes.  Sprinkle with flour and cook, stirring continuously, 1 minute more.  Immediately add remaining ingredients, through chicken broth stirring well so flour does not lump.  Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.

Add shredded cheese and red pepper.  Immediately remove from heat, stirring continuously until cheese is completely melted.  Ladle into individual bowls and top with green onions (you could do some extra cheese too, it's ok, I won't tell Cooking Light on you...)  Enjoy!