Garlic Mustard Soup

It feels so nice to have something so bright green to eat! Especially when it's from my yard. Nothing in my garden is ready yet, but that doesn't mean that green isn't filling up everywhere. I love it when the skeletal trees begin to fill up with a haze of green (in this instance, Robert Frost said it best), and all the houses and cars slowly begin to disappear from sight, until one day you can't imagine that anything is near you at all, bowered by a soft curtain of green leaves.

I decided to pull a large lush green bed of the invasive plant, garlic mustard, and make some soup with it on this rainy day. Eating an invasive is such a good idea! Try to pull the root out when you're foraging for it. Not only are you taking one for the team, but you're helping the poor ramp, because, not surprisingly, they are on the wane from being over harvested.

I love it when the outdoor cutting board starts to look like this again!

 This soup is very easy, but be warned: it is quite bitter. Not horribly bitter, but still. Do you like chicory and broccoli rabe? Then you'll like this. But if you don't like bitter greens, then you might want to cut the garlic mustard with some other greens that are more mild. It was a perfect after a long weekend of indulgent holiday eating. My family was in town for Easter, and we ate and drank a goodly amount: there was Italian antipasto, German charcuterie, lots of wine and an amazing roasted lamb. A spring time tonic was just what my weary system needed to get back on track.

In your soup pot, saute a crushed garlic clove in some olive oil. Add two large handfuls of garlic mustard greens that have been cleaned and put through the salad spinner. (I'd guess the greens loosely filled a quart measuring cup.) They will wilt down quickly and considerably. Add two large potatoes, peeled and diced. Toss to mix everything. Add two cups of water, and return to simmer. Then add two more cups of water. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat so it simmers, covered, for about a half hour. When the potatoes are sufficiently soft, puree with an immersion blender. Season with a good amout of salt, a dribble or two of cream if you like, and if it's on hand, a dose of preserved lemon syrup. Serve with a good hearty bread.

Purple Podded Pea Soup

Writing purple podded pea soup was irresistible, but this post is really about my garden and these peas I dried. Right now my little garden is under two feet of snow with a thick crust of ice on top. So, when I take things out from the pantry or freezer it's really like a postcard from summer, and a glimpse into next summer.

It doesn't necessarily have to be from my own garden to get me verklempt. I pulled a quart of huge, red tomatoes from the freezer that were from my friend Dana's garden and used them to make some incredible chili. The red of these great big heirlooms was a shock to my winter-glazed eyes. What's so cool is that it was Dana's first garden in many years. She was a little worried that it wouldn't work out, but it not only supplied her family with food, she had to unload some on me! Bless her soul.

He called them Thai fish chilis...

How about these amazing peppers from pals John and Jen? They're been gardening in the New Paltz Community Gardens for years now, I believe. John makes some outrageous hot sauces, so he goes heavy on the peppers. I never grow peppers, but I think this year I will. Look at how incredible these are! I strung them up in the kitchen and after about five months they are dry and ready to pop into meals. Like chili.

When I bought the purple podded peas seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, I wasn't quite sure what I had gotten. I thought I would be able to eat them off the vine. Technically I could, but they were a bit tough. A tweet answered from those nice folks at the library told me what I suspected: they were peas for drying. What happens with legumes that you dry? Very simply: they dried on the vine, I shelled them, stored them in a mason jar, and took them out recently to make some pea soup. They did not look like split peas at all. The look like pea seeds, which they are. My yield from a little row of peas was one and a half cups. I tossed them in a pot, added eight cups of water, some chunks of ham, and let it cook for quite a few hours. It tasted just like pea soup, even though it doesn't quite look like pea soup.

It's nice to have a helper for shelling dried peas.

However, growing these peas, as I noted, didn't yield much. My rationale for growing them again is this: legumes are wonderful for your soil, they are what's called nitrogen-fixing plants, and naturally provide nitrogen for your garden (for more in depth but simple information on this process follow this link). So, if I get a pot of soup out of it, all the better. It's also a beautiful plant and easy to grow. Remember that when you plant peas or beans you will want to look into inoculant for your soil to get the best results. The inoculant (a naturally occurring bacteria) helps the plants to fix the nitrogen. I bought a small bag at my local gardening store and sprinkled it in the soil before planting.

Purple podded peas!

If you want to get serious about growing dried legumes, you're going to need a lot of room to plant quite a few plants. I'm not sure that I have enough room for that. Already I am working on how I'm going to plant everything I want to grow this year. I built three new beds last year! And already I know I'll run out of room. It's not just that I want to grow more, but I want quantity. I'm trying to keep in mind that the last two summers were probably the worst ones we've had in years. Two years ago it rained incessantly. Last year it didn't rain at all. However, my spirits are never dashed; I am completely optimistic about this year.

The walk to the compost pile is arduous.

What are you dreaming about with regards to gardening? Do you have seeds already started? Or are you still dreaming in the snow, like me? Have you been gardening for years, or are you just starting?

Mr. and Mrs. Elderberry need wetter quarters.

I'm dreaming about more fruit plants, moving my elderberries to a new home by the pond, creating a new composting system, building more growing space. Although, I've been gardening my whole life, and my current garden is now five years old, I always, always feel like a novice. I just keep on learning!

Duck (Prosciutto) Soup

What I love about things like cured meats and homemade stock, is that when you have those things on hand, simple things become elevated. It doesn't take much to make a five minute soup that is stellar. And I'm not the only one. I had just taken these photos and was eating my soup and reading when I came upon this post by Peter at cookblog who eloquently discusses the merits of having wonderful things like cured meats on hand.

All I did was heat up some chicken stock, throw in some frozen spinach (organic--once the bag is open you can grab a handful and toss it in, not like those big blocks you often find), a handful of frozen scallions (from the garden) and once in a bowl I topped it with a few slices of duck prosciutto. I didn't need to add any salt or flavoring because the duck took care of that. It just takes a few minutes for something amazing once you have a few items on hand.

Kielbasa Potato Soup with Caramelized Onions and Kale Chips

An antidote to winter

I don't think I'm alone in saying that soup is one of winter time's greatest joys. I was visiting friends on a cold winter's day, replete with blue skies, scintillating sun and blustery wind that swept the powdery snow every which way. While riding on a tobbaggan behind their four-year old son, which was being pulled by a snowmobile, I fell off on a fast turn. Not wearing snow pants (like a rube, I might add) I was cold to the bone when I finally got home. No matter. This soup warmed me up in no time at all.

This soup was born out of leftovers, as many good soups are. I've broken it down to be a stand alone recipe. However, you might want to have kielbasa sauteed with onions and boiled potatoes the night before and just make sure you have a good amount of leftovers!

Kielbasa and Potato Soup with Caramelized Onions and Kale Chips

Boil six potatoes in their jackets, peel when cool. Can be done the day before and kept in the fridge. Right before they are to be added to the soup, mash each one with a potato masher squarely, so they are not mashed but instead in nice cubes and chunks.

Make kale chips. Can be done a week beforehand. Keep in an airtight container.

1 large bunch of kale. Stem removed and chopped. Spread out on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe longer. Keep an eye on it! It goes from crisp to burnt in a matter of a minute. I like to salt them when they come out of the oven.

In a large Dutch oven pour one or two tablespoonfuls of olive oil and saute two medium yellow onions and one small red onion until brown and sweet. I like to slice them in thin wedges.

Add in one large red pepper in large dice a little before the onions are done, so they become soft.

Add a large kielbasa in at the same time as the peppers. Cut in slices on the diagonal, cut in half. Let them brown a little as the onions caramelize.

Then add the potatoes and six cups of water, slowly, so that it never gets cold. Add about two cups of water and two potatoes at a time, waiting for it to come to a simmer again, then adding the next batch. When you have them all added, and it's back to a simmer, let the soup cook with the lid partially on for about ten minutes. Then add half the kale chips, which will turn into the kale with the soft consistency of spinach. Reserve the rest of the chips to serve on the table for whoever wants more kale or some crunch.

The kielbasa salts the soup, so you don't really need to add any salt at all. Maybe a few grinds of pepper. Now all you need to do is fall off a speeding snowmobile!

Potatoes, kale, kielbasa, onions- that's it!

Roasted Carrot, Celery and Acorn Squash Soup

This soup really hit the spot for the past few rainy, then chilly, spring days. I roasted two acorn squash, a big bunch of carrots, and celery. Yes, roasted celery is delicious! I especially like to add it to sweet vegetables like carrots and squash, because it balances it out with its green parsley-ish taste. I sauteed onions in olive oil and then added all the roasted vegetables, added water and simmered to make sure it was all nice and soft. I added a small amount of fennel seeds, instead of the usual nutmeg or ginger. Then I got out the trusty immersion blender and went to town on it. It was perfect topped with crème fraîche and fresh chives.

And in local rhubarb news, I've been obsessed with my rhubarb plants these days with good reason. They are huge and by far, the most exciting plant in the garden at the moment. But even still, they are such vigorous and beautiful plants, and not to mention I love me some rhubarb, that I love them all year round. My plants just started to flower, and they looked incredible and alien, but due to my greedy need for more pieplant I had to chop the flowers down to encourage more stalk growth. I can't shut my piehole!

Chicken and Dumpling Soup

A while back, before it got arctic out there, my son and I would go for a walk every morning before his nap. We would walk down to the pond to see what the resident muskrats were up to. Maybe we would be lucky and see the albino red tailed hawk sitting in the big oak, waiting for some unlucky rodent to be his breakfast. Or the great blue herons we see from time to time visiting from the marsh down the road who fly away with prehistoric flaps of their huge wings as soon as we get near. We would play by the barn a little, now empty of animals and a bit forlorn, hay still cemented to the stall doors and the faint smell of manure lingering in the cold air, not unpleasantly. But now it is truly winter, and the idea of bundling up before nine and traipsing around the icy grounds with a 23 pound toddler in tow is not a reality. The snow is too awkward for a new walker to navigate, and although it's good exercise, I'm just not up for the walk. We go outside in the afternoons now, and there's still a lot to see, but I miss my morning walks.

Usually I don't get wistful for nicer weather until February, but this year it's struck me sooner. We've really been cooped up quite a bit, and yesterday I had a strong pining for a cold beer on the porch while green fluttered all around the trees. We were reading a book in which a dragonfly zips across the water, and a luna moth sails through the night, and it squeezed me right in the heart, all that warm, simple green. It's at that moment I realize that I have to get real and focus on the very beautiful moments of winter: sitting in front of the fire, baking a tray of cookies, the sparkly glint of huge flakes of snow coming down in the sun, the patterns of ice on the pond, the waves of frost on the windows, and a big pot of stock cooking on the stove. Lucky for me, Steve decided to make his amazing stock yesterday. He's much better than me, impatient fool that I am. He takes his time and really cares for the stock. He does it right. And for that I'm thankful, because then I could make this chicken and dumpling soup which hit the spot yesterday for dinner and today for lunch. Thank you, winter!

Dumplings

2 cups of flour

3 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

2 tablespoons olive oil or you can use an egg, beaten

2/3 cup milk

seasonings: I used dried thyme and celery seed

Add wet ingredients to dry. It will be a wet, sticky batter.

While you are doing this, bring two quarts of stock to a simmer. Add one cup of shredded chicken. Once at a simmer again, drop in spoonfuls of dumpling batter. They will puff and float like little clouds. Throw in a lot of spinach in to wilt. Add lots of fresh chopped parsley and dill. Salt and pepper to taste. Mix gently before doling out into bowls. The broth will thicken a little from the flour in the dumplings. Stare out the window at the strange blue winter sky and think about how nice it is to be right there, right then.

Winter Squash Redux: Bread, Soup and Savory Bread Pudding

Last week I bought a squash, and it's still giving. Soup with a dollop of yogurt and fresh baked bread makes for cozy days in the Hudson Valley winter. Then some savory bread pudding using my old recipe, but I used two cups of stock and one cup of yogurt and no leeks. The cheese sprinkled on top was from a cheese plate left over from Sunday's brunch. Scrumptious!

And then this quick bread which I made to cheer up both me and a friend, as we were both in need of some substantial and healthy, yet a little sweet, treat to pick us up on a gloomy day. This is ever so easy, not too sweet, and packed with good-for-you squash. The crystallized ginger on top was decorative and decadent for such a sturdy bread. I think I might do without it in the future, but it does look pretty!

Sweet Squash Quick Bread

Makes two large loaves. Preheat oven to 350. Have all ingredients at room temperature.

3 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice

Have these mixed together and ready to go.

In a seperate bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup olive oil and 1 cup sugar

Add 3 beaten eggs. Whisk up fluffy-like.

Add 2 cups of pureed squash.

Add dry to wet in three parts. Beat until smooth. Pour in greased loaf pans. Adorn with crystallized ginger or what have you. Bake for about an hour. Cheer someone up by giving them one loaf and keep the other to yourself!

Shrimp and Scrod Soup

Today started out sunny, but cold. Then it slowly turned cloudy, hazy--that hazy shade of winter, you know? It is December, last time I checked. By dinnertime it was slowly raining, cold and foggy. We were in by 4 o'clock, down in the basement where we have our wood stove. Sounds weird to have a stove in the basement, right? But it's cozy and a little like a den from the seventies, or a rec room, if you will. For numerous reasons, it was the right thing to put the stove in the basement, and now it's the equivalent to our porch in the summer. In the winter we spend all of our time downstairs, hunkered down in the bunker. It's a furnished basement; didn't everyone have them in the seventies? Well, maybe not my family, but all my friends did. Half skeleton and half plush, it was where you and all your friends would hang out with cookies and milk, and then, fast forward a few years, whatever you could find in the liquor cabinet. Maybe there was a dart board (we have one), and perhaps a record player (check), and probably also a oddly stocked bar, containing creme de menthe and some crappy gin (odd? yes, crappy? no).

I stepped out on the porch tonight, while a rich and tomato-y broth waited for me in the kitchen, simmering away, as I finished my last sip of wine. Waiting for what, you ask? To put the fish and shrimp in, so they could poach quickly and be finished off with parsley and Pernod. I took my time on the now defunct porch, taking in all the sounds: the howl of the fire alarm siren, the distant, slow choogle of the freight trains running, the sad, quiet patter of the rain. All the lights in the distance from neighbors' porches had a fuzzy glow about them, and I breathed in the air, wet and cold, and thought, here is December. It only gets colder from here on out.

And so, I turned in to the kitchen, warm and sputtering with the shimmery red broth waiting for me to slip in the shrimp and scrod, to finish it's duty to warm our souls on this gently wintry night.

Saute chopped garlic in olive oil. Add one large diced onion, and one peeled, diced carrot. Bay leaf, please! Slowly, one quart of shrimp stock (or some fish stock). One can of peeled tomatoes. Let that business simmer for a while if you can handle it, adding some oregano, fennel, salt, red pepper flakes and ground black pepper. When it's all looking and smelling right, and you are ready to eat, ease in a half pound of shrimp (I kept them in the shells; more work and yes, messy, but more flavor) and a half pound of homely, but proud, scrod. A handful of chopped fresh parsley, a tablespoon of Pernod, if you have it, and then sit down by the fire and sup.

Winter Squash Soup

I love squash, but that wasn't always the case. I've finally managed to find ways in which I love it and want to eat it all the time. There's a few vegetables I have problems with, and I always feel bad that I do. I always try them, year after year, thinking that somehow my tastes have changed. For example, I don't like cantaloupe, but I think it smells amazing, and its flesh is tantalizing. But every time I take a bite, something in me just says no. That doesn't stop me from planting it or buying it. I love cantaloupe. I just can't eat it. It's weird.

Moving forward, I am now officially in love with winter squashes, and I do believe that I will try to grow as many as I can next year. I've had some squash vine borers in the past two years, so I'm going to move them out of the old bed and plant them everywhere else I can. The other day I stopped in the Apple Bin, a little orchard around the corner from us, and purchased this little gem. The sign said Marina di Chioggia, but they have bumpy skin and this was smooth, so I believe maybe it was wrongly identified? Or perhaps there is a smooth-skinned version? The newest Organic Gardening has a nice article on winter squash that was good.

All that aside, I made some soup. I can't rave enough about said soup, and I really think that was just because the squash was so good. The gorgeous orange color just shouted out, "I'm making you healthy just by eating my deliciousness!!!" I really think that the soup was saying this.

I roasted the quartered, de-seeded, olive-oil-rubbed squash at 400. Peeled it and chopped it in chunks. Sauteed diced onion, celery and fresh ginger in olive oil, then added the squash and about five cups of chicken broth and water. Salt and pepper. Pureed it with the trusty immersion blender. Served it with a dollop of greek yogurt. Chives would have been nice, but isn't that always the case? I rarely have them on hand. Is that wrong?

Recipes

I can't keep up with all the things I want to make, so I will occasionally just post them here for future use.

Like this recipe for Braised Beef Ribs that my friend Pete sent me: Balthazar's Braised Beef Ribs. Being who I am, that is, frugal, or austere, as my mother's kindly puts it, I will wait until I see the meat for sale in the store.

Then there's Jason's delightful soup recipe that I will get to shortly, being it's that time of year and all:

"Standard recipe, soak the beans over night, mire poix and garlic sauted, stock or broth, fresh rosemary, lots of pepper etc. But, I cooked it all down slow with smoked turkey "tail" then removed the meat and added it to the soup. I pureed half the beans so I got the creamy texture but still retained the heartiness then added escarole at the end. Really delicious, the smoked turkey is something I never tried before but amazing, I normally would use ham hock but some people don't eat pork so I tried it. Really good..."

Right now, I am working on the yogurt cake that Eve sent me the recipe for. I am very excited for it, because it was incredibly easy and smells delightful...More on that later!

Autumnal Days

Yesterday was a glorious day--60's, clear, blue sky, the smell of leaves mingling with smoke---so I ditched my errands and daytripped in New Paltz instead. Packed up the baby and we strolled around, hitting the playground and town, ending up on Huguenot Street playing with pinecones and puddles while the sun got soft and low and everything had that fuzzy, warm look to it. Made my heart swell. Autumn fills me with the sweet melancholy that brings back memories from my first candy apple at a school fair in Cold Spring Harbor, to traipsing through crispy leaves on Mechanic Street, and all the way to lazing about with an upturned coat collar through the Shawangunks as a scruffy college student. Sweet fall.

When I got home, I had to think fast on my feet. A big container of stock in the fridge made my decision and what I ended up with was chicken and dumpling soup with leeks and parsley. The dumplings were gnocchi size and I will admit, could have been fluffier. But, I was in a rush. They were taken from a recent purchase: The Dumpling Cookbook, page 31, Hungarian Csipetke. How can you go wrong with a dumpling, even if it could be a little more tender?

After baby's bedtime, I made the Stayman Winesap jelly that I had prepared for all day. How did I prepare for it? Just chopped up four huge apples, skin and all, heated them with water and mashed them up. Then let them drain their juice while I was galavanting about. I am in love with apple pectin. This time I was patient and it yielded a soft, almost clear, jelly. Still, it doesn't have a strong apple-y flavor, which is interesting, but makes for all sorts of possibilities.

This morning was gray and quiet, so I threw together these golden raisin and fennel scones and they are unbelievably good for three tablespoons of butter and soymilk. The recipe is based on The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book for Old Fashioned Scones.

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp butter

1 cup plus two tbsp milk

1/2 cup raisins

tsp fennel seeds

I processed the powders and butter. Then mixed the milk, raisins and fennel in a bowl. Baked at 375 for fifteen minutes.

I used vanilla sugar and vanilla soymilk, so mine were super vanilla-y, which was delicious. I suggest adding lemon zest. I loooove fennel and golden raisins. I've made this a bunch of time varying everything from the flour to the milk, so have fun with it. It's so easy. You could have hot scones for breakfast!

Stracciatella

Or, Italian Parmesan and Egg Soup. What do you do when you've just made a large pot of excellent chicken and vegetable stock that can stand on it's own, but you don't want just broth? What do you do when you have two chunks of stale bread hanging around because you know it will come in handy one day soon? What do you do when you have loads of parmesan because you stocked up when it was on sale? What do you do when you have lots of great eggs in the fridge? What happens when all of these factors converge?? You make Stracciatella! This was brilliant. And you know it was good for me, too. 

I whizzed up the bread, a great handful of parsley leaves, a few garlic cloves in the processor until bread-crumby. Then mixed, by hand in a bowl, grated cheese (1/2 cup) and two beaten eggs. This mixture was then mixed into six cups of simmering stock. Served with a drizzle of olive oil, more cheese, pepper. Heavenly. The parsley and garlic are an inspired combination and the bread and eggs give it body, but light and airy.

Very Easy Corn Chowder

Lately, I've been craving lots of soup. The cold weather and its requisite colds are here, and the refrain of "lots of fluids" is ringing in my ears. This is the easiest, most satisfying soup you could as for. Why don't you do yourself a favor and make it? People should not only eat more soup, they should make more soup. It's easy and cures what ails you.

Saute a medium-sized onion in olive oil and a slice of butter. Slowly add two cups of chicken stock. If you prefer, you could just use water. Then add three or four potatoes, peeled and diced, and let them cook in the simmering broth until tender. Then add two cups of milk--I used 2 percent. Bring to almost simmering. Use your trusty immersion blender (one of those hand-held thingees) and puree until you get a nice smooth blend. Bring back to temperature and add two cups of frozen corn and a handful of chopped scallions. Parsley would be good too, but I was out. Salt and pepper. Cook for a bit more, making sure the corn has been heated thoroughly, and then you are done.

It would also be good with some bacon in it, but then doesn't everything? Say it! Chow-dah!

BBQ Stew

Listen, I know this sounds gross, but it was really tasty. It was inspired by a pint jar of bbq sauce that I made back in the beginning of September knowing full well that the season was on the wane and thus, there was not much more of a need for said sauce. So, what to do? (The sauce was from a Joy of Cooking recipe). I had bought a huge fresh ham and roasted it with potatoes, onions and apples, served with sauerkraut. It was gorgeous, all burnished mahogany and glistening fat, and we ate it at 8 p.m. in front of the TV watching Fellini. The next day I cubed up all the left over meat and cooked this up:

BBQ Stew

Put all this in a crock pot and cook it on high for six hours:

1 pint of good BBQ sauce

2 pints of water

1 can white beans

1 can plum tomatoes (28 oz.)

1 bay leaf

a few cloves of garlic

cubed, cooked pork

When this is done, leave the crock pot on warm and add 1/2 white rice, and 2 peppers (1 red and 1 green looked nice). Cook for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Add chopped fresh parsley.

It was a thick and meaty chili-ish dish. A little vinegary and a touch sweet. Although, I am not sure when the next time will be that I have a pint of bbq sauce I need to use that doesn't include, well, barbecue.

Chicken Orzo Soup

What a soothing balm chicken noodle soup of any kind is on a rainy, stay at home day. I don't believe I need to say more, except that making your own is easy, and delicious. I started off with a whole chicken (an inexpensive fryer from our local super marche, actually, good chicken, not like, the national brands or nothing) and I filled the trusty stock pot with water and boiled off the chicken making a lovely, simple stock. The chicken went in a bowl to cool, and then to be picked. the stock was strained and kept off to the side.

To the soup pot: olive oil, onions sauteed til soft, carrots added, cooked for a bit (five minutes?), stock added slowly while it warmed up til boiling, 1/2 cup of orzo and the shredded chicken meat. In ten minutes, I was reaping the benefits of a hot bowl of soup. Don't forget salt and peppa!

Cannellini, Cherry Tomato and Arugula Soup

I call this a hot bowl of summer. It's been getting cooler and cooler quicker and quicker, so I made soup the other day. Also, I didn't have much in the fridge. This was one of those soups that came out of nothing. Thank god for the garden! This utilized a bunch of split cherry tomatoes and the last of the arugula, which was getting a bit tough and stringy.

Saute chopped garlic and onions in olive oil. Put a bay leaf in. Add two cans of white beans (slowly, so they don't make the pot cool down too quickly) and then halved cherry tomatoes. Add a can or two of water. Simmer for a bit, until it tastes good or you're just plain hungry. Add washed arugula and a bunch of chopped parsley. Serve with a drizzle of good olive oil, cracked pepper and some grated cheese.

Et voila. Sorry I'm so lazy on the amounts. I just throw things in and see how they look.