Day 42: Simple Garden-In-A-Pot Soup

This recipe probably has the most appropriate name of any recipe in the whole cookbook. I am usually wary of generic sounding vegetable soup, but I am happily wrong about any preconceived ideas about this soup.

Simple Garden-In-A-Pot Soup

This soup is perfect for fall and winter weather. It also has no overwhelming taste, so it would be easy to modify the spices or veggies to suit your mood.

This soup is made in three easy steps.

Start by thin slicing, in the food processor or by hand, 2 medium onions, 2 carrots, top third of 2 celery stalks with their leaves, and six large garlic cloves. Film a large heavy-bottomed pot with oil and heat at medium-low. Add the veggies along with salt and pepper. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring every so often to make sure that nothing burns or sticks to the bottom. This stage puts off the loveliest fragrance.

Raise heat to medium and add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 2 teaspoons of dried basil, and 2 teaspoons of paprika. Stir constantly for 3 minutes to allow flavors to meld.

Then add 2 small zucchini, thin sliced, 1 rough chopped portobello mushroom, 1/4 head of green cabbage, thin sliced, a handful of chopped dark greens (spinach is good, I used chard), and 6-8 cups of your preferred chicken or vegetable broth. I used half chicken broth and half mushroom broth.

Now partially cover and let cook for 30 minutes. If you want a stronger broth, you can uncover and cook the soup down a few minutes longer.Serve in large bowls with shredded Asiago on top. Delicious and very good-for-you-tasting.

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Day 41: Scandinavian Flower Eggs with Sweet-Tart Mustard Dill Sauce

This was a great way to use up all of the potatoes, greens, and eggs that I have been getting in our farm share. This recipe has such a fancy name that I was halfway through before I realized it could have just been called "Fancy Potato Salad".

Scandinavian Flower Eggs with Sweet-Tart Mustard Dill Sauce

If you like eggs, mustard, and potatoes, this recipe is for you. Happily, I love all three so it was win, win, win.

Start by hard-boiling 8 eggs.

While your eggs are cooking, boil one pound of small red potatoes for 15 minutes. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. When cool, peel the potatoes and slice in 1/4" slices.

While the eggs and potatoes are cooking, start on the sauce. In a medium bowl, mix together 1/4 cup plain vinegar (or cider vinegar) with 1 clove of minced garlic and three tablespoons of minced onion. It is nice if you can sit this aside for 10 minutes to mellow while you prepare the rest. Then stir in 2 T of sugar, 3 T canola oil (NOT olive oil, too strong of flavor for this), 1/2 cup dark, grainy mustard, and 1/3 cup of fresh, chopped dill. Then add salt and pepper too taste. At this point, taste for sweet-sour balance. I actually used a little less mustard and another teaspoon of sugar, all said and done. The mustard I had was extremely strong flavored.

Now comes for the grand assembly of the salad.Take your serving platter and spread out 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise to form a 9-10" circle.Cover the mayonnaise with your potato slices, overlapping them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and then pile 2-3 cups of thin-sliced lettuce on top of the potatoes, covering them. I used purple potatoes since that is what we had from our farm share and I like how they looked.
Peel and quarter your potatoes lengthwise and arrange on top of lettuce in a sunburst pattern, like a flower. Sprinkle with more salt and pepper, if you desire.

Before serving, zig zag dressing over the top of salad and top with diced, sweet onion and fresh chopped dill. I used a lot of onion and only a tiny bit of dill since there is so much dill in the dressing. Also, you will not need all of the dressing so you can serve the rest of it on the side at table or save it for another salad.

This salad looks lovely, but I have to say, it is a bit awkward to serve. The mustard sauce is delicious. Next time I might just chop everything up and assemble it like a more traditional salad and then I think you can just put a bit of mayo in the dressing instead.
Yum!

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Day 40: Oven-Roasted Chicken Cacciatora

I must admit, I did not cook this. I had bought all of the ingredients and then I fell ill and since it looked like a fairly easy recipe to make, I convinced my husband Trevor to make it.

Oven-roasted Chicken Cacciatora

This is a easy, one pan dish. It is made with chicken thighs, but you could use chicken breasts if you wanted, just be aware that it will cook faster.

In a roasting pan, spread out 8 chicken thighs (bone-in, skin on).

Scatter the following ingredients on top of the chicken:
-1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives
-4 thin slices hard salami, cut into 1 inch squares
-1 large red pepper, roughly chopped
-1 large tomato, coarse chopped
-1 red onion, coarse chopped
-leaves from two 4 inch pieces of rosemary
-10 fresh sage leaves, torn
-4 minced garlic cloves
-1 teas fennel seeds, crushed
-1/4 cup dry red wine
-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
-salt and pepper

Roast chicken at 400 F for 30 minutes, basting occasionally. Chicken should be 170 F. Usually with any recipe of this type, you would brown the chicken pieces first and then de-glaze the cooked on bits to make the sauce. The authors skip this part to make it easier and less messy, but next time I will probably go ahead and brown them first as I like the look and taste. Alternatively, you can broil the chicken afterwards to brown.

Serve with a squeeze of lemon. This was simple and easy and you can easily adjust the ingredients to what you have on hand. The dish was tasty with the rosemary and olives, so make sure you don't leave those out!

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Day 39: Coriander-Orange-Scented Red Lentil Soup

I thought it was weird at first, but now I am finding it positively endearing, the use-of-hyphens-in-nearly-every-recipe-title!

Coriander-Orange-Scented Red Lentil Soup

This isn't just orange-scented, it's got all sorts of orange tasting going on as well. And it isn't a bad thing, not at all.

This soup looked interesting because it contains all sorts of my favorite things: cilantro, red lentils, garlic, ginger, yum yum. And it did not disappoint.

This is very easy to make and uses the unique ingredient of cilantro stems.

First, wash a bunch of cilantro. Cut off the bottom 3-4" of stems and chop these fine. Set the rest of the cilantro aside for now.

Next dice up 3 medium onions, setting aside about 1/3 of them.

Film a nice big soup pot with oil over medium to high heat. Stir in your 2/3's of onions along with salt and pepper. Saute until those onions start to brown. Add you cilantro stems, 4 cloves garlic- fine chopped (I used 6), 1/2" chunk of peeled ginger- fine chopped, 2 teas ground coriander, and zest of 1 orange. Stir that in for just about 20 seconds until nice and fragrant and scrape out entire contents of pot onto a plate for now.Back into the now empty pot on the stove, add one 14 oz. can of chicken broth, 2 /2 cups water, 3/4 cups of lentils, and the uncooked onions you set aside. Bring that to a boil, ok, a gentle bubble (I call that a simmer), and cook, partially covered for about 10 minutes, no more.

Add back your cooked onion/cilantro stem mixture with more salt and pepper if you wish and then cover and simmer for an additional 15 minutes. Then add in the juice from the orange you zested plus the juice from 1 lemon and additional orange juice, up to one cup. Cook til warm and bubbly. Serve with some of the cilantro leaves you set aside. I also added a heaping tablespoon of lowfat yogurt to each bowl when I served it.
Melt some parmigiano on some whole grain bread and a fabulous feast you have. The orange wasn't as overwhelming as you might think, but I could definitely taste it as well as smell it. My husband couldn't even put his finger on it at first that it was orange because it is a little unexpected. I also loved how much onion was in the soup.

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Day 38: Chinese-Ginger Scallion Meatballs and Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry

Now don't go thinking that I am obsessed with meatballs just because there are two meatball recipes right in a row. I freely admit that I have cooked nothing from my cookbook project in the last three weeks. Our farm share produce was just not measuring up to what I needed ingredient-wise, so it took a back seat. But now I am on it again and I just happened to make the other meatball recipe.

Chinese-Ginger Scallion Meatballs and Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry

This is a variation on the Scandinavian Spiced Meatballs I made last month and just varies in a few key ingredients.

Start by blending in your food processor 1/2 piece of fresh peeled ginger, 3 whole scallions, 1 T soy sauce, 1 egg yolk, a little sugar, and 1/2 cup dry red wine. Once that is blended, you can either add your meats (1 lb lean ground beef, 1/2 lb ground chicken or turkey) to the processor and pulse 5 times or turn out processor into large bowl and blend your meats by hand. At this point also blend in 3 more chopped scallions and 10 diced water chestnuts. Form your meatballs, ad you should get at least 20 if you make them 1 1/4", but I make mine a little bigger.

Film a saute pan with oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add your meatballs and brown before turning them (about 3 or 4 minutes). Turn them over carefully and add 1/2 diced onion, 1 diced red bell pepper, and 1/2 cup thin-sliced bamboo shoots. Why they don't say add a whole can of bamboo shoots, I have no idea, but that is exactly what I did. Turn heat to medium, cover, and let cook 8-10 minutes, until centers are no longer pink.

Remove meatballs with a slotted spoon and put into your serving dish. Return heat to high and cook down onion-bell pepper sauce, stirring frequently. Once the juices are cooked down, add 1/3 cup rice or white wine and cook down before adding 1 cup chicken broth and 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce.

Like last time I made these, I just added the wine and the broth at the same time and it turned out great. (Especially the part when I added a little corn starch to thicken the sauce that I am sure would send a shudder through the authors' minds.)

Once broth is cooked down by half, pour over meatballs to serve. I served this over brown rice.

Alongside my meatballs, I made Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry. (I love how much hyphenating there is in this cookbook!)

Some people might call this recipe spicy. I put a whole, diced, jalapeno in it as called for, but I think I should have put 2 jalapenos in it.

Start by peeling 2 large Garnet or Jewel Yams. I prefer sweet potatoes, so I compromised with 2 medium yams and 1 sweet potato. Cut your sweet root veggies of preference in half lengthwise and then cut into 1/4 inch thick half rounds.

Boil yams in fiercely boiling water. (Do they watch Project Runway?) Yes, they use the word fiercely quite frequently when describing boiling water. Cook at a hard bubble for 10 minutes. (I love these descriptions.) I cooked my potatoes for 10 minutes and they came out a little mushy. Yummy, but mushy as you will see in the photo. So I would start testing for doneness around 7 minutes or make your potato chunks a little bigger. Drain your yams and place in your preferred serving dish.

For the curry part, the authors have been extremely explicit about how to prepare the ingredients, that it is a "Chinese cooking" thing and every little bit is important and I completely agree with them. Not only is it fun to slice ginger into little matchsticks, but it actually does taste different on your tongue. I wish more cookbooks had such specifics.

Reuse the same pot you cooked the yams in and generously film it with oil and set over medium-high heat.
Add the following: 1 inch peeled ginger, peeled and sliced into paper-thin matchsticks
4 large garlic cloves, sliced paper-thin
1 jalapeno, sliced very thin
2 whole scallions, cut into 1-inch lengths
2 large shallots, thin sliced
generous sprinkling of salt and pepper
Stir frequently on medium-high for 2 minutes. Cover, and then reduce heat to medium low and cook for an additional 5-8 minutes or until ginger has softened. Stir in a handful of coarse chopped basil (Thai or regular) and stir, uncovered for 30 seconds or less, just to wilt the basil. Spoon sauce over your yams and then give a squeeze of lime over the entire dish. This packs a lot of flavor and tasted pretty damn healthy too.It was a nice compliment to the Ginger Meatballs. Good leftovers too.

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Day 37: Scandinavian Spiced Meatballs with Caramelized Apples

This recipe makes a lot of meatballs so make sure you have dinner guests or you are going to be able to eat the leftovers the next day.

Scandinavian Spiced Meatballs with Caramelized Apples

This recipe looks complicated at first glance, but meatballs are pretty easy. You blend all of the meatball ingredients in a food processor, shape the little suckers, and then cook them with the sauce ingredients.

Start by blending 1/2 medium onion, 1/3 cup dry red wine, 1 large egg yolk, 1 garlic clove (I used 4), nutmeg, ground ginger, salt, coriander, cumin, and pepper in your food processor. Now the recipe says to add 1 lb lean ground beef and 1/2 lb ground chicken (or turkey) to the processor and pulse 5 times. I just turned out the processor into a large bowl and added the meats and blended with my hands. At this point you also add 3 sliced up large scallions 5 large, diced, pitted prunes.

Many meatball recipes I have done in the past call for 1 tablespoon or so of white rice as a thickener, here they use prunes. And they magically blend in and you can't taste them, so don't worry about those picky eaters--what they don't know won't hurt them!

Shape into 20 plus meatballs. I ended up with a few more since those organic ground meats come pre-packaged and I didn't want to waste any meat. So I had to cook my meatballs in two batches.

Film a saute pan with oil and heat over medium-high. Add the meatballs and brown before turning. (The authors point out that your meatballs should not touch, but I would have to cook mine in 3 or 4 batches and they turned out just fine squeezed in together.) Once they are browned, turn the meatballs and sprinkle with pepper, a bit of bruised caraway seeds, 1/2 of a diced onion and 1 diced apple. (1/4" dice works nice.) Reduce heat to medium low, cover, and cook until middles are no longer pink, about 8 minutes.

Remove meatballs with slotted spoon and place in serving dish. Turn heat to high and boil down the pan juices in the apple mixture. Using a wooden spatula, frequently stir the apples until they are getting nice and brown. Then add 1/2 dry red wine and keep cooking until wine is cooked down. Then add chicken broth and and boil it down by half and then pour sauce over meatballs to serve.

Now, I have to admit, sometimes I don't read things too carefully and I added the wine and the broth at the same time and I let it cook down by half and it turned out delicious anyways.
I served these babies with spicy green beans, and smashed and roasted potatoes. The roasted potato recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman's blog. Dish delish! I make these potatoes all the time now.

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Day 36: Hoisin China Noodles with Four Flavors

The obvious key to any good sauce is usually the high fructose corn syrup present in whatever base you are using. Store bought Hoisin Sauce's number one ingredient? High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Hoisin China Noodles with Four Flavors

We were having a dinner guest so I wanted to make something a little fancier. This comes off very well and it is high maintenance with the prep work and makes a lot of dirty dishes, but the cooking part couldn't be easier.

First you prep the four "flavors"--this are raw ingredients that you serve at table so this part is easy. Prepare 1 and 1/2 cups each: thin-sliced radishes, bean sprouts, peeled, seeded, and diced cucumbers, and thin-sliced spinach leaves. These look very nice if served in their own separate bowls.

Next you need to cook 3/4 pound of Chinese Egg Noodles. Now the recipe calls for the thin noodles, substituting egg spaghetti if nec, but I used the wider noodles because that is what I had and they worked great because they held the sauce so well. When noodles are done, rinse in cold water. It is best if this is all done before you start cooking the pork and sauce. When I cook this again, I will start the noodles before prepping the veggies.

Marinate 1 lb ground pork butt with 3 T dry sherry, chopped garlic, and 1 teas sugar. Set aside for now.

In another small bowl blend 2 T hoisin sauce with 2 T soy sauce and 1/2 teaspoon hot chile paste. (Another thing to admit, I doubled the hoisin and soy sauce and quadrupled the chile paste. You can never have enough hot spicy yummy sauce.) Set this aside as well.

In a large skillet or wok, warm up 3 T canola oil. Add the pork mixture and cook for a few minutes, breaking it into smaller bits and cooking until most of the moisture is gone and the pork is no longer pink. Add 1/2 cup sliced green onions and 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts. (I also add a sliced red pepper since we had one from our farm share.)

Cook for no more than a minute and add in you soy sauce mix. Heat that for another minute and then add 3/4 cup chicken broth and cook, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes over high heat. Add your drained noodles and cook long enough for the sauce to get all over the noodles and to heat them up a little, just a couple of minutes. Serve immediately in a nice large bowl with your four flavors on the side for your guests to select what they want.

Trevor and his friend Tony both liked the dish a lot. At least their plates were empty by the end of dinner! The only thing I might try differently is to add raw carrots to the flavors and actually throw the spinach in with the noodles to wilt them a little.

Very delicious. Drink with cold beer.

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