Help! Cucumbers are losing their cute factor!

To paraphrase an old Johnny Cash song;  I sowed some seeds of cucumbers, just to watch them live.  Believe me, those cucumbers are living large.  I cannot believe I lamented the death of a few cucumber plants left in a closed cold frame on the one day that was hot and sunny late spring.  I cannot believe I tried hand pollinating the cucumber flowers with a small paint brush, worried that the bees were not buzzing and the flowers were not setting.  I cannot believe that I worried that the four foot trellis I made for the cucumbers was a little on the ugly side, since it was completely covered by the vines in two weeks flat.

Every year Bean and I grow a couple of different  vegetable plants just to learn a little bit about the plant.  We want to feel a connection to the plants.  We want to know about the growth patterns, the shape and smell of the leaves, how the blossoms develop into the vegetables. We want to know how long the vegetables need to grow before we can pick them. We grew corn a couple of summers, not because we are naive enough to think a couple of corn plants would fill our corn needs, but because I had never had an up close personal encounter with a corn plant.

So this summer, I planted cucumber seeds.  Not just any cucumber, but an heirloom lemon cucumber.  Triple bonus.  A plant I have never grown and a vegetable I have never seen or eaten.  "Oh look, they are so cute"! soon turned into " Oh God, not more"!! The plants mocked me.  I would pick every cucumber I could see, only to glimpse the bright yellow orbs from my kitchen window five minutes later.

This summer has been very hot and humid.  Whereas I have not been such a big fan of this summer's weather; the cucumbers seemed ecstatic.
                                              

                 Every day baskets and bowls full of cukes.     

             

I have made a couple of discoveries this summer.  Firstly; it is possible for our little city garden to produce all the cucumbers we could possibly need or want.  Yeah!! Woohoo!! Good job!  Secondly; I don't really like cucumbers that much.  A cucumber thrown into a gazpacho - nice.  Tzatziki - Yum.  Thai pickled cucumbers - adore.  

But, what to do with all the rest?

        I have made numerous cold soups.
        Some I have liked.  Some were just so so.

         I have pickled them. No major prairie woman pickling 
         productions, but a couple of jars at a time for the refrigerator.
           Okay, I'll admit it - I am not brave enough yet for full scale  
         canning.                                     

                                 The gentleman fixing our porch left with a check and bag of cukes.                                           

               I have added slices of cucumbers in water with herbs to
            take the edge off of a hot humid day.

 I have treated myself to some at home spa treatments.







 I have even pretended that cucumbers are not cucumbers and

         made cucumber crisp for dessert.  I don't know-
Scott Conant, do you think that's  irresponsible?


Bye for now!  I think I am going to learn how to juggle.
(I must remember to clean the spines off the cukes first.)

Urban Farming and Foraging

Urban chicken farming.  Backyard chickens.  There has been a lot of buzz the last couple of years about raising chickens in a city environment.  To the surprise of many, it is legal in our city.  Bean and I had discussed getting a couple of chickens  last summer and researched it a bit.  Bean has been communicating with a few chicken owners to find out what we would need.  

Bean set up a couple of visits to fellow city dwellers' chicken coops.  So armed with a bag of freshly made pear ginger scones we went visiting.

                                                     

  

I was very impressed with their set up. The coops were clean, neat and odor free. This is especially important in an urban environment. They have one rooster, a Plymouth rock rooster, that just showed up in their backyard and four hens of two different breeds.  I don't remember the breeds of the hens. So much for taking a notebook with me to take notes! Just like dogs or cats, different chicken breeds have their own personality and characteristics. The photo of the hen above is of a breed that is cold hardy, sweet tempered and quiet.  The other two hens are of a different breed and have a tendency to be more vocal according to the owners.  The chickens' wings are not clipped, but it seems that they have not had any problems with them roaming outside their yard. The owners let the chickens run around the yard for daily exercise. In other words, the chickens seemed to be well cared for pets. Their garden was lovely with flowers, herbs and vegetables growing and did not seem to be suffering at all with the chickens running around it.  The chickens were surprisingly calm and quiet.  

Bean and I will continue our research to decide if it is a feasible venture for our backyard.  I just love the fact that people around the city are looking at  their living spaces and seeing a variety of possibilities  that extend beyond the normal expectations of city living.  When Bean and I went on our neighborhood garden walk, we saw more people growing vegetables, composting, and collecting rain water than in previous years.  One backyard even had a very busy beehive.   

At our house we compost some of our garden waste and most of our kitchen scraps.  We have a cheap and easy worm composting system set up that is basically a big plastic bin with a cover and holes drilled in the top and side for air circulation.  Harvesting the worm castings is a bit trickier than in the expensive worm composters that you can buy, but it is definitely doable.  Worm castings = black gold for your garden and houseplants.  Amazingly, there really aren't any bad odors once the worm farm becomes established which doesn't take long.  Bean chops the scraps in the food processor which helps everything get processed faster.  He is the main worm farmer in the house.

I love our little garden, even though right now it is a bit of a mess.  There is a lot of deadheading and weeding to be done.  The weather has been horrible - 3 showers a day kind of horrible.  It's been difficult for me to muster up the energy in the last couple of weeks to work much in the yard.  I am such a baby.  Most of the plants on the other hand, seem to be loving it.  The cucumber plants have gone crazy, wild.   This is the first year I have grown cucumbers.  I am growing lemon cucumbers which outgrew the the 4 foot trellis I made for them two weeks after they were planted!  

Yesterday on my day off from work I did a bit of weeding which led me to my decision on what soup to make for lunch. Cold purslane  and cucumber soup!  I decided to finally engage in a little urban foraging!  Three years ago I was at a farmers' market and I spied bags of green that looked suspiciously familiar.  " This looks just like the weeds I am always pulling out of my garden in the middle of the summer."  "It's purslane," said the woman at the booth.  In the last three years I keep running into  purslane; in my garden,in books, on TV, on the net, in the cracks on the sidewalk.  It's a favorite vegetable of Gandhi I read. Henry David Thoreau enjoyed it stir fried as a side dish.  Chock full of vitamins and minerals.  Loaded with Omega 3 fatty acids.  I watched a Mediterranean cooking show where they gathered purslane and other plants for a frittata with wild greens.    Eat it raw, cook it, pickle it....

I decided that it was time to join the purslane party.                                                                                                            

              

Lunch was cold purslane cucumber soup with a delicious chicken curry salad made by Bean.  The soup was made of raw ingredients, nothing was cooked.  The purslane was tart and lemony.  Unfortunately I was a little heavy handed with the onion.  C'est la vie! There will be another day, another soup and plenty of purslane for the picking!                       

Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone. Add Tomatoes.

There is nothing like a fresh picked tomato still warm from the sun, nestled between slices of white bread slathered with  mayonnaise and a sprinkling of  salt and pepper. Perhaps the perfect summer meal. The taste of sunshine and afternoon showers...m mm.  Unfortunately, the tomatoes in my garden are still green and small and have a way to go before I'll be able to indulge in this summertime ritual. I thought that my tomatoes were doing just dandy until I visited gardens yesterday on my neighborhood's garden walk.  Merely two blocks away stand tomato plants over eight feet tall. Glorious, healthy tomato plants with red fruit.  I now have tomato envy. I don't think that I have ever seen such tall tomatoes. And it is only half way through the growing season! One would need a ladder to harvest!  I was so overwhelmed at the sight, that I forgot to take a picture to document the setup. While I am waiting for my own measly tomatoes to ripen, I will rely on the farmers' markets which fortunately  have tables piled high with tomatoes.

From December to June, my husband Bean  treats tomatoes like the poison love apples they were once thought to be.  "You're not going to put any of that red stuff on my salad, are you?"  Red Stuff.  They do not even deserve to be called tomatoes.  During the winter months he will only eat canned tomatoes that are cooked in a dish.  I can't really blame him.

It is hot and humid and time for some good easy summertime dishes.  I made some gazpacho, which rather freaked my husband out.  Why would I ruin beautiful tomatoes with some old stale bread?! Um... because that's how it's traditionally made.  It is a bread soup after all.  The tomatoes I used were not all a deep red color, but an assortment of heirlooms of different hues.  The resulting color was a pretty salmon hue.  My husband declared it pink soup.  Too girly for him perhaps?  Maybe it was the heat, but I couldn't help messing with him a bit.

Lunch was girly gazpacho soup with salmon pinwheels. Yeah, he liked it.  He still can't let go of the idea of stale bread in the soup thing, which is odd because one of his favorite salads is panzanella, which uses stale bread.

 

Lightly toasted bread, a variety of tomatoes, fresh basil,onions tossed with a lovely vinaigrette over a bed of French Merlot lettuce from my garden.  Stale bread has never tasted so good!  


I cannot forget to mention  a very easy soup that is very quick, adaptable and often served with stale tortilla chips, or fried tortilla strips.  Again, a recipe that can use left over bread, in this case tortillas.  Although I have made the soup often without the tortillas.  This is a great soup when fresh tomatoes are not readily available.

    Gazpacho

• 2 or 3 slices of bread  soaked in a cup of water
• 3 medium tomatoes (quickly blanched and peeled)
• 1/2 of a green pepper
• 1/2 of a red pepper
• 2/3 of a medium cucumber (saving the rest for garnish)
• 1/2 of a small onion
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
•  1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 2 Tbl red wine vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste

Traditionally the ingredients are mashed in a large mortar, but nowadays it is very easy to use the blender.  At this point you need to determine how chunky you would like your soup.  I like a very smooth soup with a bit of crunch from the peppers and garnish. I throw everything in the blender, but the peppers which I keep separate and mince very fine. You can throw everything into the blender though and blend as smooth or as chunky as you like.  Wring the bread out a bit when you put it in the blender and add water until you get the consistency that you like. I pour the blended soup into a large bowl and add the peppers and chill until needed.

I like a smooth soup to contrast with the crunchy bits of garnish.  In the soup pictured the garnish has chopped cucumber, finely minced onion, cilantro, minced and sliced hot red pepper and a splash of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. The flowers if you are wondering are Johnny jump ups which do indeed jump up all over my garden.  Some other garnishes that would be nice are diced tomatoes, ham, chopped  hard boiled eggs,sweet peppers,  parsley or basil.





Southwestern Style (Tortilla) Soup  3-4 servings

• Strips of tortillas pan fried until golden or tortilla chips (optional)
• 1 small onion
• 1 tsp of cumin
• 1 jalapeno seeded and thinly sliced 
• 1 red sweet pepper
• 1 cup of cooked chicken, shredded
• 14 oz can of fire roasted tomatoes
•  3-4 cups of chicken stock
• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme 
• cilantro  (or fresh parsley)
• Salt and pepper
• 1 lime

Garnish suggestions:  diced avocado, shredded cheese,queso fresco, scallions


Saute the onions, sweet pepper, jalapeno,thyme leaves, cumin, salt and pepper for 8- 10 minutes.  Add the chicken stock, canned tomatoes with juice and simmer for about 10 minutes.Add the chicken and heat through thoroughly. Stir in chopped cilantro or parsley.  Right before serving add juice of one lime, or add juice and individual wedges of lime into each bowl. 

When serving place some tortilla strips at the bottom of the bowl and pour the soup over.

The flavor of this soup can be changed by using different kinds of hot peppers: jalapenos, serranos, poblanos, Anaheim, dried peppers.  You can also add other ingredients to the soup  such as corn, garbanzo beans or black beans.  Just make sure that the beans are cooked before adding to the soup.


Make it your own!

Relishing Rhubarb

" Last rhubarb of the season ma'am."  I was at the farmers' market last week gazing longingly at the rhubarb, when these words broke through my reverie and galvanized me to action.  I must have rhubarb.  I picked up a bundle; the stalks were slender and very fresh.  I had not made anything with rhubarb yet this spring.  In fact the only rhubarb I had so far was in the form of a pie from the farmers' market.  The pie was okay, but a bit  disappointing.  It certainly did not satisfy my rhubarb craving.

I loved rhubarb as a kid.  I loved sour slightly bitter foods: rhubarb, lemon, beet greens. An apple that made my face pucker and my eyes water was a good apple.  When my nephew was a toddler he shared a love of rhubarb.  "Mm mm... boobarb pie and rumma cake." he would say, licking his lips.  Where he ate "rumma" cake I don't know, but it obviously was a memorable experience!

Rhubarb grew wild in a small patch of land near my house that was for a while practically my world growing up.  Forts, tepees, bows and arrows were made there.  I had my neighborhood lending library there, complete with a small bookcase holding some of my favorite books. Hours were spent lying in the grass amidst the grasshoppers, butterflies, toads and sometimes snakes.  I buried my pirates' treasures there: sparkly discarded costume jewelry nestled in matchboxes.

It is there on that small patch of land that I learned about the connection between the land and food.  I do not remember who first taught us that the leaves of the rhubarb plant were poisonous, but the pretty red stalks made great pie.  Come spring, my mother would remind us to keep an eye open for the rhubarb.  It was exciting to be able to pick the rosy stems and present them to my mum.  My mother made rhubarb pie; never with strawberries and never rhubarb anything else.  Locavore eating at it's best!


I did not see much food growing when I was a kid. We had a pear tree and apple tree, but the fruit was high off the ground and the squirrels ate most of it.  My dad grew tomatoes amidst the flowers, and when I was older we went into the woods to pick wild blueberries.  Even though we did not have a vegetable garden, we almost always ate fresh vegetables and fruit unlike many of my friends whose families ate mostly canned and frozen food.  I knew what fruit and vegetables were in season. We would stuff ourselves with fresh strawberries in May and June knowing that we would be another year older before we would see them again.  We have become people expecting to eat fresh strawberries in November.  I have met so many people who have no idea when specific fruits and vegetables are in season.  Feelings of anticipation and celebration have been lost.


Rhubarb season can be over in a blink of an eye here if you are not paying attention.  At least I was able to make a couple of tasty rhubarb dishes; one sweet and one savory.

Rhubarb Soup 

• 1 lb of rhubarb thinly sliced
• 1 cup of orange juice
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 star anise
• 1  whole clove
• 3/4 tsp of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp fresh minced ginger
• few leaves of purple basil
• 1/2 Tbl of lime juice
• 1 cup of strawberries cut into quarters

Add everything except the lime juice and strawberries and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender. The stalks I had were very slender and tender, so they cooked very quickly and were not stringy at all.  Add the lime juice and strawberries and allow to cool.  Remove the whole clove and whole anise. If you used ground spices, you can skip that step. Process in a blender or using an immersion blender until smooth.  Refrigerate until needed.


Serve in a small bowl with a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

 

Rhubarb Relish

• 2 cups finely chopped rhubarb
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbl honey
• 1/4 cup  white vinegar
• 3 Tbl balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbl grated fresh ginger
• seeds of 3 pods of cardamon, crushed
• 1/4 tsp salt
• small jalapeno, minced
• small hot red pepper minced

Combine all ingredients in a pot and bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 20 - 30 minutes.
Serve on cracker or crostini, with or without cheese. Or serve as a side relish to meat. I paired the relish with a goat cheese I had made.  After a couple of less than stellar attempts at making fresh mozzarella, I made a very easy fresh goat cheese.  This relish has all the tastes I love - tangy, sweet and spicy!

It's a Chowda kind of Day

The weather has gone from sunny and warm to rainy and cool.  The kind of weather that makes me feel nostalgic and a bit antsy.  When I was very young my mum would say " She really doesn't have the sense enough to get out of the rain!"!  It's true.  Too many days of sunny blue skies would make me long for more exciting weather.  Some of my favorite memories coincided with rain soaked days.  Uncle Jimmy (who was actually our great uncle) adored wild weather and would take my sisters and me on spontaneous day trips and drive along the coast to wherever the waves were particularly high.  We surf fished in what seemed to be near hurricane winds at times, our bodies anchored down by weighted belts.  Still we tumbled on to the sands.

Here is one of my favorite photographs of Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Betty, my sisters and me.

Uncle Jimmy usually spent time alone on Nantucket in early autumn, but one year he invited us to visit.  We roamed the moors as he called out "Heathcliff, Heathcliff". Wuthering Heights was one of his favorite books. One day, during a horrendous rain storm, he announced that we were going to visit his friend Madaket Millie.  Lacking raincoats, we went to the store and bought big, black plastic trash bags, which we fashioned into tunics, by cutting slits for head and arms.  Off we went in the open jeep, more plastic bags atop our heads.

I was thinking that it was time for tea and I envisioned Millie to be a sweet old lady who would tut tut tut over our soaked clothing and offer us tea and cinnamon toast.  Uncle Jimmy had his own agenda.  And what turned out to be a very bad plan.  He was irked, because even though he considered Millie to be a friend, he had never set foot inside her house.  His plan was that I would take a roundabout way around the cottage and peer into her windows and later report what I had seen.  In the meantime, he and my sisters would approach the house from the front and engage Millie in conversation thereby distracting her from my activities.

Bad plan.



Millie's house looked more like a shack to me; gray and dilapidated, with electrical wiring attached to the shingles on the outside.  Out at the back, Millie was already there to greet me and any thoughts of tea and cinnamon toast quickly flew out of my head.  She stood there barefoot in the pouring rain, inspecting me from head to toe.  Her hair caught up in a careless bun, she wore a plaid skirt and a brightly flowered blouse held together in the front with wooden clothespins instead of buttons.  Most notable though, were the many dogs surrounding her and the shotgun pointed towards me.  Millie said to me, "Is that what the girls in the mainland are wearing these days?"


Millie told us wonderful stories and graciously gave us a tour of her shucking shack, which had a mountain of shells beside it and unlike her house, was tidy and spotless within.  She later apologized for the shotgun.  She mistook me for a certain girl reporter, whom she was not feeling kindly towards.


My Uncle Jimmy was a criminal lawyer.  (I am sure that the Madaket Millie peeping tom plan was a momentary aberration in behavior.) In his life he had also been a soldier, a policeman, and FBI agent.  One of his first jobs though, was that of a bricklayer. In Nantucket, we strolled along the brick paved streets of the island examining the architecture.  He taught us the names of the brickwork, windowpane patterns and door styles.  We learned about widow's walks and cupolas.  Large pieces of glass were expensive, which gave way to windows with many panes, called 12 over 12, 6 over 6, 9 over 6 etc.

Rainy days can be delightful, as long as there is tea and cinnamon toast and steaming bowlfuls of chowder available.


Potato Chowder with Chives

• one medium onion chopped medium fine
• three medium potatoes chopped
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 2 cups of milk
• Tablespoon of butter
• fresh thyme, parsley sprigs,  bay leaf gathered into a coffee filter and tied with string
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• chopped chives, chive blossoms and freshly ground nutmeg

Cook the onion in bacon fat until transparent and tender and then add the potatoes, stock and bouquet garnis. When the potatoes are cooked, reserve some of the potatoes, remove the herb bundle and blend until smooth and then pour it back into your soup kettle.  Heat 2 cups of milk with the tablespoon of butter until steaming . Do not boil.  Add the milk mixture to the potato in the soup kettle. Add the reserved potatoes.  Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.


Ladle chowder into bowl and garnish with chopped chives, chive blossoms and freshly ground nutmeg.

Hint:  When I want to simmer a soup with fresh herbs and spices for the taste, but don't want any of the actual leaves or spice bits in the soup, I make a bouquet garnis by placing the herbs in a small coffee filter and gathering it together with string.  I might not always have cheesecloth available, but I always have coffee filters.  It is like making a big tea bag.

Let the sun shine yellow split pea soup

When I think of a spring soup, split pea soup immediately comes to mind.  Even though the ingredients are available any time of the year, I remember eating this soup only in springtime.  The soup's sweet, rich and smoky flavor is great at keeping the raw chill of a fickle spring day at bay. A great soup to eat when the air is thick with fog and the sharp scent of peat.  The soup I had growing up was always green with pink chunks of ham.
I had no idea that yellow split peas were an option.

The discovery of a bag of yellow split peas on the bottom shelf in the grocery store brought about  simultaneous feelings of curiosity and  rebellion.  Yellow peas!  Who knew?!  I was on my own now, a thousand miles from home and ready to explore.  Ever since then, I have been making both green and yellow split pea soup;  but with the exception of color they did not veer much from the traditional soup I had growing up.

" It's spring fever...you don't know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you do want it so!"    ~ Mark Twain


 

The city is looking great! Soaring birds and dancing flowers.

" The world's favorite season is the spring.  All things seem possible in May."  ~ Edwin Way Teale

I wanted to make a soup that celebrated the lighter side of spring.  Clean and crisp.  The yellow peas made me think of lemon and the lemon made me think of cardamon.  I have whole cardamon pods in the cupboard.  I have never used whole pods before and bought a small amount on a whim.  I remembered that they had an astringent lemony fragrance.  The shape and color of the cardamon made me think of pistachios of which I had a very small amount.  My favorite part came next; a trip to my small garden to choose an herb.  Mint? In my mind I could hear Bean saying  "please no mint!". Thyme or lemon thyme?  Maybe.  Oregano? Just not feeling it.  Sage? Not a light enough flavor.  Dill or cilantro? No, the plants were too small.  Chives and parsley?  Bingo!  There were already more chives than I would use all year and they have a nice clean flavor.

    Yellow Split Pea Soup            (about 4 servings)
                                    

•   1/2 pound of dried yellow split peas
•   2 cups of chicken stock
•   2 cardamon pods
•   1 garlic clove
•   1 bay leaf    

     Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.  Add -

•    1 cup of water
•    2 chopped parsnips
•    1/2 chopped onion
•    Salt and pepper   

     Simmer for 1 hour.  I removed the cardamon just as they started to crack open, so I          would not have the small black seeds in the soup.  I also removed and bay leaf and 
     placed the soup in the blender and pureed until smooth.  Add stock or water to get the 
     consistency that you like.  I did not want it to be too thick.


    Chive and parsley pesto garnish 

•      2 Tablespoons of pistachios
•        Handful of chives and parsley
•        Juice of 1/2 a lemon
•        Zest of 1/2 a lemon
•        Small clove of garlic
•        Salt
•        Splash of olive oil

     I chopped everything in a small food processor.  

 

Cold Parsley Soup or Witchs's Brew?

'Twas a cold and blustery evening when I left the house.  The wind whipped my long black coat around my legs.  The city street's litter swirled in the air.  The wind carried sounds from down the street behind me and I became aware of snippets of conversation.

"See that girl there, the one in the long black coat?  I see her walking every night, always about the same time.  Always alone.  I don't know where she goes.  She lives in the house with all the black cats and the witch's garden.  Yeah I think she's a witch."

??What the Hell??!!

My neighbors thought I was a witch?!  Even though this happened a long time ago, in the early 90's, I would like to set the record straight.

1. I did not own any cats.  Can anyone own cats? Fact is, I was deathly allergic to cats and could tell if they were anywhere near me, even if I were outside. My allergy has subsided a bit and I am now only severely and not deathly allergic.  The cats shared their space with the guy who lived upstairs from me.  For health reasons I tried ignoring the cats as much as possible.  Cats definitely have a mind of their own!  The more I ignored them, the more they wanted to be around me! Gifts of mice and birds appeared on my doorstep.
2. My nightly haunt? No mystery there.  I worked the graveyard shift at a local cafe baking breads and desserts!  Although I must admit I rather enjoyed the notion of plain old me transformed into a woman of mystery, even if it was for just a moment in time.  It brings to mind The French Lieutenant's Woman.  
3.   Long black coat. Give me a break. It was the 90's in a major city - who did not wear a long black coat in the winter?
4. Witch's garden. Okay, I must admit that this was not the first or only time that one of my gardens was referred to as a witch's garden.  My gardens tend to be wild and weedy: herbal gardens sprinkled with unusual flowers.  Culinary gardens.  The closest to potion making I did would be a sage tea for a runny nose.

The snow cover finally melted about a month ago and I was excited to see signs of life in my garden.  Thyme, parsley, oregano, mint and chives were already growing under the blanket  of snow.  The oregano plants were in fact so big that I needed to cut them back. The sage had no signs of life, but I knew that it would begin to leaf out when it was ready.
It was time to start my first round of seeds:  lettuce, arugula, boy choy, tomatoes, basil,peas and cucumbers. Spring was in the air.  I wanted to make a soup to celebrate the spring: an herbal tonic.

 

Slim pickings in the refrigerator: a couple of lonely ribs of fennel and some Italian parsley. I sweated sliced fennel in butter for about ten minutes and added some broth, salt, pepper and a splash of white wine and simmered for about 30 minutes.  I then added chopped parsley and simmered for 5 more minutes.  The mixture was pureed in a blender for a couple of minutes and smoothed out with a little cream.  You could also use yoghurt or buttermilk for a more tangy flavor.  Pop the mixture into the refrigerator until cold.

C

Cold parsley soup- a little something to whet the appetite. Cheers to my witch's garden!

Keep the Faith Corn Soup

My Uncle Jimmy ended every conversation, phone call and letter with me with the same three words:  Keep the faith.  During the past year and a half  I have thought of these words often.  What is faith?  What or whom do I have faith in?  How do I keep the faith I have?  How do I gain the faith I don't have?  What exactly was Uncle Jimmy talking about anyway?

What does any of this have to do with soup?

In my cupboard sit many cans of corn.  With the exception of tomatoes, I rarely buy anything in a can.  This past year I have learned to live less independently, and more interdependently.  A friend, realizing that I was having financial difficulties decided that I was her own little charity project.  Ouch.  Every so often she would bring me a small bag of groceries; a motley mix of vegetables, fruit and canned goods.  Guess what?  I have learned that it is not always necessary to be strong and independent.  I have learned to graciously accept cans of corn.  Every grocery bag was my own little Food Network challenge.  Really, when you think about it, "what's for dinner?" has been a food battle that has gone on for thousands of years.

I parked a couple of cans of corn on my kitchen table.  I like to set up my ingredients in front of me for inspiration.  I had nothing really, but cans of corn and the vague idea of making corn chowder.  The cans were sitting behind a couple of stale chunks of focaccia bread that I had made, which I had planned to turn into bread crumbs.



I was making a sandwich for lunch, when my husband Bean (not his real name, but a nickname of his that he said I could use in lieu of his real name) on the way out of the kitchen door said  "Cool!  Corn chowder thickened with bread crumbs!".  Brilliant!  I have seen many Italian recipes using stale bread as a thickening agent.  I finished making my  sandwich and turned on the TV which was airing a travel show about Chimayo, New Mexico.

Years ago, Bean and I travelled in Northern New Mexico.  It is an area rich in history, art, scenery and wonderful food.  Part of the vacation was spent camping in the desert and hiking the canyons.  We travelled through the mountains in search of the old Spanish churches.  The weather was gorgeous.  It was in October, when the nights are cold and the days are warm. The smoky  aroma around Chimayo was incredible.  The chiles were being harvested.  Some of the chiles were being strung together into ristras to dry, while others were being roasted in outdoor ovens or over fires.  The aroma is unforgettable:  a heady mixture of spicy, sweet and earthy notes.  Chimayo chiles are botanically the same native chiles that grow throughout Northern New Mexico, but many think that they have their own distinctive flavor.

There is an old adobe church in Chimayo, El Santuario Del Chimayo.  Built on what is considered sacred ground, the church attracts pilgrims from all over.  The faithful pilgrims leave crutches no longer needed at the church, as well as pictures of loved one, letters and rosaries.  Many take with them what is considered holy dirt dug from a hole in the church's floor.  The hole needs to be constantly filled with new dirt, a practice that does not seem to bother most.  The new dirt becomes blessed for future pilgrims.

Watching the program brought back a flood of memories.  I thought of the wonderful time spent with Bean exploring the area.  I also thought of the countless days spent in the last year and a half wondering if my husband would get to live another day, to reach another birthday.  Would he ever go on another trip beyond home and hospital?  By now I was excited to get back to my soup making.  I was going to try to capture the smoky sweet and spicy flavor of the Chimayo chiles.  I was going to think about faith.

Keep the Faith Corn Soup  (makes about 3 servings)

• 1/2 cup of diced onions
• 4 small cloves of garlic
• 1/4 of a large sweet red pepper, roughly chopped
• 1 can of corn, drained
• 3 cups of chicken stock
• 1/2 cup of stale bread chunks
•  bay leaf, smoked paprika, dried chile pequin, black pepper, salt, lime juice, lime zest, and thinly sliced jalapeno  

Cook the onions and garlic in vegetable oil for 8 to 10 minutes, until soft and translucent.  Add the chicken stock, red pepper, drained corn and simmer for 10 minutes.  Then add the stale bread, bay leaf, smoked paprika, chile pequin, black pepper and salt and simmer for another 30 minutes.  Remove the bay leaf and use a hand wand or a blender to puree the soup.  Ladle the soup into bowls and add a squirt of lime juice, lime zest and thinly sliced jalapeno.

 Stale bread makes something magical happen in the soup.  The texture becomes rich and velvety without the addition of any cream.  The amount of stock and spices need to be adjusted to suit individual tastes. The lime juice and zest add a nice bright note to the soup.

 

For this bowl of soup, I used the same basic recipe, but used chipotles instead of the sweet red pepper, chile pequin and paprika, and cooked the soup with cilantro stems and leaves.  For the garnish, I grated Mexican chocolate.  Yes - chocolate! I happened to have some Mexican chocolate on the counter to make a mug of hot chocolate when I came in from shovelling snow.  Bean asked me what spice I used that changed color and then melted away. Forget what your parents told you -  Play with your food! At least when cooking!

I realized that I had possessed a lot more than a can of corn.  There was only one last thing to do.  I opened one of my desk drawers, to make certain that my own little silver vial of Chimayo dirt was still nestled safely inside.

Winter Minestrone

 I have never met a vegetable that I did not like.  My husband on the other hand seems to have a running feud with quite a number of different vegetables.  A kind of family feud where no one can remember the how, or why or when it started.  So when I announced that the first soup  I was going to make was a minestrone, his face fell.  "You're going to make some cream soups too, right?".  I am sure I will.
   Since my sister and brother-in- law sent me a recipe I decided to follow it as best I could.  Ditalini pasta was no where to be found, so I substituted orzo which was cooked separately and added to the soup towards the end.  I don't usually consider zucchini a winter vegetable, but I decided to go with the flow and include it anyways.  I did not use canned beans but beans that I soaked and cooked that I happen to have on hand.

Resolutions for the new year

Resolutions were made as the new year approached. Forget about the 'I want to lose ten pounds, exercise more, sleep more...blah, blah blah'. This will be the year to eat more soup and have more fun. I am not sure how the 'have more fun' will play out, but 'eat more soup', how difficult can that be?

Making soup has always been a stress buster for me; the rhythm of the chopping, the sound of sizzling, the aromatherapy of a steaming pot on the stove. I need soup. Soup is not usually made to fill an immediate hunger. It's for later in the day or even tomorrow. My resolution was to make one soup a week. In the month of January, I made six different soups.
In December my sister and brother-in-law, both fellow soup lovers sent me a recipe for Winter Minestrone. That recipe was the bug in my ear, the kick to my backside, the starting point to make good my resolutions.