In order to try to liven things up and light a fire under my ass so I start working on my cookbook (SERIOUSLY working on it, not half-assed as I have been!), I want to try a couple of things here. It will, of course, depend upon the participation of my readers. Are y'all up for it?
First, talk to me about your favorite comfort foods. What are they? When do you enjoy eating them? What are some feelings and memories associated with them? Who first made this food for you?
Second, I want you to challenge me, sorta. Give me a purpose - prosperity, love, etc. - and let me see if I can find some good ingredients to combine into a recipe. Keep in mind my budget and the fact that I can't really get pork here, unless someone sends me pre-cooked bacon or canned ham. I'll see what I can do to come up with a dish, make it, photograph it, and feed it to friends and coworkers.
Finally, I am toying with the idea of making some short videos to post on my blog. I can't really record myself doing a cooking demonstration. I suppose I could ask someone to do it for me, but I don't really have the editing capabilities. I could make short videos on things that I have already cooked and show the finished product. I'm also thinking about posting short little videos on my favorite kitchen witch books.
Ideas? Suggestions? I don't have too many work-related responsibilities until classes begin on October 12, and if I just sit around the house doing nothing, I tend to get really depressed and develop paranoia and hypochondria or something *L* Save me! :D
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Let's Talk Potatoes
Who doesn't love potatoes? Many Americans, when asked to name their number 1 comfort food, will name mashed potatoes. French fries/chips are the most popular "vegetable" side dish in many restaurants and homes. The Potato Famine in Ireland drove a couple million people from their homeland and into America to avoid starvation. Clearly this is an important crop. But what do we know about it?
Potatoes are from South America, specifically Peru. People in Peru first began cultivating this plant around 34000 B.C.E. That's a long damn time! The potato didn't make it to Europe until the 1500s.
Like the tomato, it is a member of the nightshade family. Also like the tomato (which we know is a fruit), the potato is used for protection. Potatoes are ruled by the moon and their element is earth.
Potatoes are an excellent full-moon food and also good for grounding. Potatoes eaten for protection should be seasoned with onions, chives, rosemary, parsley, or dill for maximum effect. Potato dishes are good to eat after energy has been raised, in order to help ground the participants. I have served potato soup after meditation workshops to help people ground themselves.
If you're looking for a warm, comforting soup to serve this autumn, here is a recipe for maximum comfort: Loaded Baked Potato Soup. Who doesn't love a loaded baked potato, with cheese, sour cream, bacon and green onions or chives? My mouth is watering just thinking about it!
Ingredients:
8 ounces bacon, chopped into small pieces
2 1/2- 3 lbs potatoes, scrubbed, peeled and cut into cubes
1 large onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons AP (all-purpose) flour
4 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 cup whole milk
2 cups shredded cheese - Colby, Cheddar, what you will
3-4 green onions, sliced thin, for garnish
sour cream, for garnish
salt and pepper to taste
Cook the bacon in your soup pot until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon but reserve the drippings. Cook the onion in the bacon drippings until soft. Add the garlic and cook 1-2 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook about 1 minute. Whisk in the broth and milk. Add the cubed potatoes and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cover Cook until the potatoes fork-tender, 7-10 minutes. (Cut the cubes fairly small so they will cook more quickly.)
Remove about 2 cups of cooked potato cubes and set aside. Puree the rest of the soup in a blender or using a stick blender. Reheat the soup over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese to melt. Return the reserved pieces of potato to the pot. Season with salt and pepper.
To serve, ladle soup into bowls and garnish with crispy bacon, sliced green onions, and dollops of sour cream.
I think I'll be making this over the weekend. A friend of mine returned to the United States yesterday and gave me some bacon before leaving. Woo hoo!
Potatoes are from South America, specifically Peru. People in Peru first began cultivating this plant around 34000 B.C.E. That's a long damn time! The potato didn't make it to Europe until the 1500s.
Like the tomato, it is a member of the nightshade family. Also like the tomato (which we know is a fruit), the potato is used for protection. Potatoes are ruled by the moon and their element is earth.
Potatoes are an excellent full-moon food and also good for grounding. Potatoes eaten for protection should be seasoned with onions, chives, rosemary, parsley, or dill for maximum effect. Potato dishes are good to eat after energy has been raised, in order to help ground the participants. I have served potato soup after meditation workshops to help people ground themselves.
If you're looking for a warm, comforting soup to serve this autumn, here is a recipe for maximum comfort: Loaded Baked Potato Soup. Who doesn't love a loaded baked potato, with cheese, sour cream, bacon and green onions or chives? My mouth is watering just thinking about it!
Ingredients:
8 ounces bacon, chopped into small pieces
2 1/2- 3 lbs potatoes, scrubbed, peeled and cut into cubes
1 large onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons AP (all-purpose) flour
4 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 cup whole milk
2 cups shredded cheese - Colby, Cheddar, what you will
3-4 green onions, sliced thin, for garnish
sour cream, for garnish
salt and pepper to taste
Cook the bacon in your soup pot until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon but reserve the drippings. Cook the onion in the bacon drippings until soft. Add the garlic and cook 1-2 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook about 1 minute. Whisk in the broth and milk. Add the cubed potatoes and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cover Cook until the potatoes fork-tender, 7-10 minutes. (Cut the cubes fairly small so they will cook more quickly.)
Remove about 2 cups of cooked potato cubes and set aside. Puree the rest of the soup in a blender or using a stick blender. Reheat the soup over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese to melt. Return the reserved pieces of potato to the pot. Season with salt and pepper.
To serve, ladle soup into bowls and garnish with crispy bacon, sliced green onions, and dollops of sour cream.
I think I'll be making this over the weekend. A friend of mine returned to the United States yesterday and gave me some bacon before leaving. Woo hoo!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Meatball Soup for a Cool Autumn Day
Here is the recipe I plan to make this evening. It's full of veggies, beans, pasta and little meatballs. This is a hearty soup and needs only a few accompaniments - good bread, maybe a salad, and a nice red wine.
For the meatballs:
1 lb ground beef
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
¼ chopped parsley
2-3 tablespoons grated onion (you can also use dehydrated minced onion, but only use 1 tablespoon)
1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper
Combine ingredients in a large bowl. Use your hands to fully incorporate all the ingredients. Roll the mixture into 1-inch meatballs and set aside.
For the soup:
½ cup small pasta (e.g. thimble, ditalini, small shells, etc.)
2 cups cooked white beans (I used frozen)
2 carrots, washed, peeled and sliced into rounds
2 small zucchini, diced
1 onion, diced
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen green beans
2 banana peppers, cored and sliced into rings
1 red pepper, cored and chunked
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
2 tsp fresh basil, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
4 pints stock or ½ water, ½ stock
Salt and pepper
Optional: 3 Italian sausages, sprinkle of chili flake
If using the sausages, brown along with the meatballs. Slice before adding to the soup.
(I would add the sausages if I could find them, but they aren’t available here. Most pork products are not readily available here.)
In a soup pot, add 2 tablespoons oil. Lightly seal and brown the meatballs so they don’t lose their shape when cooking. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Lower the heat and add the chopped onion and pepper. Cook for 5-6 minutes until slightly tender, then add garlic. Cook for 2-3 more minutes. Add the zucchini and carrots and allow them to cook for a couple more minutes.
Combine the rest of the ingredients (except for the pasta) and bring to a near boil. Skim off any foam from the meatballs. Reduce heat and allow soup to simmer until meatballs are cooked and veggies are tender. You may need to add some additional liquid during the cooking time. Keep warm water or stock handy. Don’t use cold as it will reduce the temperature of the soup.
While the soup is cooking, bring salted water to a boil in another pot. Cook the pasta until just al dente. Keeping the pasta separate will keep it from getting mushy. To serve, put some pasta in the soup bowl and ladle over the soup. Garnish with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Notes: The ingredients are really flexible. If you're super short on time, use all frozen vegetables. You can buy frozen onions and peppers together as well as frozen Italian vegetable mixes. I'm using frozen barbunya again like I did in the chili recipe because the canned beans can be too mushy. You could even use frozen meatballs but I think they're rather disgusting and prefer to make my own. I can't get a lot of frozen products here, anyway.
Use chicken or beef broth or stock in this recipe. Feel free to leave out the tomato paste if you want a less "tomato-y" soup. Use dried herbs or fresh, but remember to use about half the amount of dried. I have some bush basil growing on on my balcony, and rosemary grows in front of one of the apartment buildings here.
For the meatballs:
1 lb ground beef
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
¼ chopped parsley
2-3 tablespoons grated onion (you can also use dehydrated minced onion, but only use 1 tablespoon)
1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper
Combine ingredients in a large bowl. Use your hands to fully incorporate all the ingredients. Roll the mixture into 1-inch meatballs and set aside.
For the soup:
½ cup small pasta (e.g. thimble, ditalini, small shells, etc.)
2 cups cooked white beans (I used frozen)
2 carrots, washed, peeled and sliced into rounds
2 small zucchini, diced
1 onion, diced
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen green beans
2 banana peppers, cored and sliced into rings
1 red pepper, cored and chunked
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
2 tsp fresh basil, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
4 pints stock or ½ water, ½ stock
Salt and pepper
Optional: 3 Italian sausages, sprinkle of chili flake
If using the sausages, brown along with the meatballs. Slice before adding to the soup.
(I would add the sausages if I could find them, but they aren’t available here. Most pork products are not readily available here.)
In a soup pot, add 2 tablespoons oil. Lightly seal and brown the meatballs so they don’t lose their shape when cooking. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Lower the heat and add the chopped onion and pepper. Cook for 5-6 minutes until slightly tender, then add garlic. Cook for 2-3 more minutes. Add the zucchini and carrots and allow them to cook for a couple more minutes.
Combine the rest of the ingredients (except for the pasta) and bring to a near boil. Skim off any foam from the meatballs. Reduce heat and allow soup to simmer until meatballs are cooked and veggies are tender. You may need to add some additional liquid during the cooking time. Keep warm water or stock handy. Don’t use cold as it will reduce the temperature of the soup.
While the soup is cooking, bring salted water to a boil in another pot. Cook the pasta until just al dente. Keeping the pasta separate will keep it from getting mushy. To serve, put some pasta in the soup bowl and ladle over the soup. Garnish with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Notes: The ingredients are really flexible. If you're super short on time, use all frozen vegetables. You can buy frozen onions and peppers together as well as frozen Italian vegetable mixes. I'm using frozen barbunya again like I did in the chili recipe because the canned beans can be too mushy. You could even use frozen meatballs but I think they're rather disgusting and prefer to make my own. I can't get a lot of frozen products here, anyway.
Use chicken or beef broth or stock in this recipe. Feel free to leave out the tomato paste if you want a less "tomato-y" soup. Use dried herbs or fresh, but remember to use about half the amount of dried. I have some bush basil growing on on my balcony, and rosemary grows in front of one of the apartment buildings here.
A warming autumn meal
Well it seems as though the rainy season has arrived in Istanbul! We've had lots of rain and flash floods this past week, and I'm sorry to say that some poor unfortunate souls have lost their lives. The rain is supposed to continue for quite some time.
As a way of combating some of the depression that sets in when the weather is so lousy, I've decided to host a dinner tomorrow evening. I'll post recipes as I go, but the menu is as follows:
Pesto stuffed mushrooms
Rosemary-olive bread (Williams-Sonoma recipe)
Pasta e fagioli - my version of this soup, with the addition of meatballs
Carmelized pear upside-down ginger cake (Williams-Sonoma)
Autumn is my favorite season. I love to be in the kitchen during this time of year. Still, with the days growing shorter and the weather getting bad, depression settles on my shoulders and I drive myself nuts. Hopefully it will pass before too much longer!
How many of you feel a bit down during this time of year? What do you do to combat it? Do you cook? If so, what do you like to make? I'm thrilled to have a house full of people to cook full. I can't wait for my friend Daniel to get here at the end of the month. I fully intend to fatten him up a bit before he goes home to Chile!
As a way of combating some of the depression that sets in when the weather is so lousy, I've decided to host a dinner tomorrow evening. I'll post recipes as I go, but the menu is as follows:
Pesto stuffed mushrooms
Rosemary-olive bread (Williams-Sonoma recipe)
Pasta e fagioli - my version of this soup, with the addition of meatballs
Carmelized pear upside-down ginger cake (Williams-Sonoma)
Autumn is my favorite season. I love to be in the kitchen during this time of year. Still, with the days growing shorter and the weather getting bad, depression settles on my shoulders and I drive myself nuts. Hopefully it will pass before too much longer!
How many of you feel a bit down during this time of year? What do you do to combat it? Do you cook? If so, what do you like to make? I'm thrilled to have a house full of people to cook full. I can't wait for my friend Daniel to get here at the end of the month. I fully intend to fatten him up a bit before he goes home to Chile!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Quick Veggie Chili
This chili is chock full of protective ingredients, it's quick to throw together, and it's pretty darn tasty.
I used:
1 650-gram bag frozen beans (barbunya) +
1 small can red kidney beans
1 medium onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2 banana peppers, seeded and chopped
1.5 cups frozen corn
1 can diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons chipotle chile powder
2 tablespoons chili powder (I can't get this ingredient here, so I left it out)
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 1 cup TVP (textured vegetable protein), reconstituted for 10 minutes in boiling water (another ingredient I wasn't able to acquire)
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
Start by cooking the onion in a heavy soup pot. Soften for about 5 minutes. Add the pepper and soften for another 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Adding a little salt will let the allow the vegetables to "sweat" and should be added when the peppers are put in.
Stir the spices into the onions and peppers. Add the diced tomatoes and tomato paste and stir well. Put in the beans and add enough water to cover them. Allow the beans to simmer until they are thawed and tender (if using frozen). If only using canned beans, add beans and corn at the same time. Simmer for 20-25 minutes. Chili is better the longer it simmers, but you can certainly eat it after 25 minutes. If using cilantro, add it at the end of cooking so the flavor stays fresh. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.
The chipotle powder adds a really deep, smoky flavor, plus a touch of warmth. I used a type of frozen bean because they are more common than canned and I didn't have time to cook dried beans. You can use any combination of beans that you want. I had red kidney beans and a type of white bean with flecks of red. They're known as "barbunya" here.
I used:
1 650-gram bag frozen beans (barbunya) +
1 small can red kidney beans
1 medium onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2 banana peppers, seeded and chopped
1.5 cups frozen corn
1 can diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons chipotle chile powder
2 tablespoons chili powder (I can't get this ingredient here, so I left it out)
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 1 cup TVP (textured vegetable protein), reconstituted for 10 minutes in boiling water (another ingredient I wasn't able to acquire)
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
Start by cooking the onion in a heavy soup pot. Soften for about 5 minutes. Add the pepper and soften for another 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Adding a little salt will let the allow the vegetables to "sweat" and should be added when the peppers are put in.
Stir the spices into the onions and peppers. Add the diced tomatoes and tomato paste and stir well. Put in the beans and add enough water to cover them. Allow the beans to simmer until they are thawed and tender (if using frozen). If only using canned beans, add beans and corn at the same time. Simmer for 20-25 minutes. Chili is better the longer it simmers, but you can certainly eat it after 25 minutes. If using cilantro, add it at the end of cooking so the flavor stays fresh. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.
The chipotle powder adds a really deep, smoky flavor, plus a touch of warmth. I used a type of frozen bean because they are more common than canned and I didn't have time to cook dried beans. You can use any combination of beans that you want. I had red kidney beans and a type of white bean with flecks of red. They're known as "barbunya" here.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Lazy Kitchen Witch
I apologize for not posting anything lately. I guess I'm in a bit of a rut. I'm also enjoying all this free time. Classes were supposed to start Sept.29, but now it looks as though my department won't start teaching until October 12! The new campus is still unfinished and it will probably still be mostly unfinished by the time we move in.
I haven't been doing a whole lot of cooking lately. I made some vegetarian chili for last night's chili night at the boss's house and it was quite good. I can post the recipe if anyone is interested. I was going to add TVP but the store didn't have any this time (surprise), so it was two-bean chili. It was still very nice. I haven't done a lot of cooking for myself lately, though. My band was adjusted a couple of days ago and I haven't eaten much lately. That's the idea, though!
On the subject of herbs, I have access to rosemary. I can't find it in the stores, but there are 6 rosemary bushes growing in front of one of the apartment buildings near me. I walked up the hill last week and snipped off one little sprig and brought it back to put in my roasted potatoes. Yum!
Tomorrow and Monday will be very busy days. We're administering the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) twice tomorrow, and on Monday we have to read several hundred essays. I'll get back to posting soon though, I promise! I want to talk about superstitions about food and the kitchen, and I have a couple of bean recipes that are nice this time of year.
I haven't been doing a whole lot of cooking lately. I made some vegetarian chili for last night's chili night at the boss's house and it was quite good. I can post the recipe if anyone is interested. I was going to add TVP but the store didn't have any this time (surprise), so it was two-bean chili. It was still very nice. I haven't done a lot of cooking for myself lately, though. My band was adjusted a couple of days ago and I haven't eaten much lately. That's the idea, though!
On the subject of herbs, I have access to rosemary. I can't find it in the stores, but there are 6 rosemary bushes growing in front of one of the apartment buildings near me. I walked up the hill last week and snipped off one little sprig and brought it back to put in my roasted potatoes. Yum!
Tomorrow and Monday will be very busy days. We're administering the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) twice tomorrow, and on Monday we have to read several hundred essays. I'll get back to posting soon though, I promise! I want to talk about superstitions about food and the kitchen, and I have a couple of bean recipes that are nice this time of year.
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