a lighter potato/leek soup

I seem to have several recipes for potato leek soup. I happen to be quite a fan of leeks, and soup is one of my favorite things to make—but the recipes I looked at all seemed too heavy for a warm summer day. I searched around for some summery soups to enjoy, and just happened upon a spring recipe for potato leek soup with no milk or butter in it to make for a lighter dinner while still making use of the leeks I had my eye on. This recipe from http://chicagoist.com looked fairly simple, which appealed to me as a low-key weekend dinner option that wouldn’t take up a lot of my time. I of course ended up making it a major project, as I chose this time to also make homemade vegetable stock to use in the soup, but it really was worth it.

Ingredients:


1 clove of garlic, diced

½ cup diced pancetta

1 tbs olive oil

2 large leeks, chopped (the white/pale green parts)

1 pound of yellow potatoes

1 cup vegetable or chicken broth

1 cup water

flat leaf parsley and green onions (for topping)

In a medium-sized pot, boil potatoes until slightly soft. I put mine in the refrigerator to cool off, as they need to be cut into 1 inch cubes and I didn’t feel as though second-degree burns would go all that well with my soup. This also frees up the pot to use for the next steps, which means less dishes for me to wash! Next, heat the olive oil in your medium-sized pot, then add the garlic and diced pancetta.

I should note here that I am never convinced that there is enough garlic in ANY recipe, and I often double or triple (in this case) the recommended amount of garlic. If you are a nonbeliever, you can stick to 1 clove of garlic, but I will say that the extra garlic was an excellent choice in this particular recipe. The garlic and pancetta should sizzle merrily away until lightly browned. The leeks are the next addition and should be cooked on medium heat until soft—you don’t want to brown them. Add the cubed potatoes, water, and broth (I added an extra ½ cup of broth to mine), and cook until the potatoes are soft—approximately 20 minutes. Blend about 1 cup of soup in a small food processor (or alternately, use an immersion blender to smooth out the texture of your soup a bit), and add back to the pot. Serve, using the green onions and parsley as garnish.

A word about parsley: I don’t really like it all that much. I might be alone in this, but I almost never buy parsley unless I think it is vital to the integrity of the meal, or if I am entertaining and want the presentation to be especially nice, OR if I have several other things to use parsley in before it goes bad. None of those things were the case in this instance, but I love green onions and can nearly always find an excuse to use them, so I garnished my soup with green onion and fresh ground pepper, which was lovely.

Summer is an excellent time to enjoy a nice chilled glass of rosé, and, incidentally, rosé pairs quite well with this soup. I am a bit of a neophyte when it comes to rosé, I must admit, but I spent a bit of time exploring the selection at Metropolitan Market and I chose La Vielle Ferme Côtes du Ventoux 2009 rosé, which was a lovely deep pink in color, and was dry with a fruity bouquet. It was also affordable—I believe it was under $9 on sale. I will definitely be drinking more rosé as our summer heats up!

raw beet salad

I have loved beets since I was a little girl. They are sweet and earthy, brightly colored, and I will always happily gobble them up. I am learning that beets are one of those vegetables that many people just don't like. I'm not sure why--they are the candy of the vegetable family!

A recent article in the New York Times listed beets as #1 of the 11 best foods you aren't eating, as a great source of folate and potentially cancer-preventive antioxidants. To highlight that article, they have recently posted some great beet recipes--one of which I made last night and loved.

ingredients:

1/2 lb beets

3 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp minced chives, mint, parsley, or a combination of the three

salt to taste

leaves of 1 romaine heart (I left these out this time)

This salad is easy and very quick to make. First, scrub the hell out of the beets, trim any gross-looking bits off, and then grate them into a medium/small bowl. Toss the minced mint, parsley, chives, or the mix with your grated beets. Add olive oil, juice, and mix well. I added just a dash of salt to my salad, mixed it again for good measure, and refridgerated it for about half an hour before serving to allow the juices to mingle.

I used fresh mint this time. I think if I had used chives or parsley instead, I might have used a tad more lemon juice than orange juice as a complement to the more savory herbs.
This mixture was awesome. I completely forgot to buy the romaine, but it stands alone quite well. It is a great summer salad and I had visions of grilled salmon served alongside. I would definitely bring this to a barbeque or summer potluck!

Vegetable stock

In an effort to live more sustainably and to make more things from scratch, I have begun making my own stock--usually I will make chicken stock for soup the same day and use all or most of it, but I am constantly needing vegetable stock for different soups I am making, and thought I should learn how to make stock without meat.
A friend of mine gave me the excellent idea of storing waste vegetable scraps in a container in my freezer, which I dutifully did for a little over a month. This is perfect for someone like me, because I always feel so wasteful when a bit of onion starts going wilty in my fridge and gets thrown out--scallions especially tend to get tossed when they aren't used up right away, as they have such a short shelf life. By the end of my vegetable scrap hoarding period, I had squirreled away broccoli, onion, scallions, celery, shallots, (washed) potato peelings, rosemary, zucchini, wilted salad mix, and more!
The day of, I bought a few carrots to add to the stock, and was cooking with leeks, so I added the dark green part of the leeks, and a couple of tomatoes in my fridge that were going soft. I tossed a few turkish bay leaves on top for good measure, and filled the pot with water. In general, no matter how much stock you are making, you should have enough water to cover, or in the case of floaty vegetables, mostly submerge the stock ingredients. Adding the standard mirepoix (celery, carrots, onion) is, in my book, a requirement--if you don't already have these items on hand, you'll want to pick them up before making your stock.
In addition to these things, you can add wine to the stock, though I did not in this case. Generally, with stock, you want to just cook it for a long time to really ensure that the flavor (and nutrients!) are thorough. I brought the pot to a simmer, and let it cook away on medium heat for a little less than 2 hours covered, then uncovered and reduced for about an hour and a half. The stock that I ended up with was a lovely light brown color, and tasted great! I got about 6 cups of stock from my recipe, and put it in the freezer in 2-cup portions.
Depending on what you'd like to use the stock for, you could put any number of things into your stock. You might want to add more herbs, use fresh ginger, tons of garlic, add colorful beets or beet greens for a brightly colored stock... you name it. I look forward to more stock experiments in the future!

Plátanos Maduros

I had never eaten a plantain until I tried plátanos maduros at a Puerto Rican restaurant. It was love at first bite, and every once in a while I find myself craving them. Plantains are a cousin of the sweet banana that we eat as a snack, baked into bread, sliced over cereal in the morning, etc. However, a plantain is NOT a banana. Plantains are extremely versatile--they can be cooked while green or yellow as a starchy component to a meal (the potato of the caribbean!) or they can be cooked when black, the starches within having converted to sugars. I have had plantains both ways, but I must admit that my sweet tooth points me towards this recipe whenever I have plantains on hand.

It's pretty easy to make plátanos maduros. Basically, you just buy some plantains, and forget about them. For a week, for a month, whatever. The riper they are when you get around to using them, the better. I should have waited a little longer to make these for optimum deliciousness, but I am not a patient woman.

This is how it goes down--it is ridiculously easy and unless you hate plantains, you won't regret it. If you hate plantains, I question the logic behind your desire to read this blog entry.

Slice your plantain the same way you might slice a banana to put it into your cereal. My plantain slices were on the thick side, which I how I like them. Clearly, if your slices are thinner, you will need to be more careful about watching them while they fry to avoid overcooking.

Heat a frying pan filled with oil--it should be enough to at least partially submerge the plantains while they fry.

I don't fry a lot of things, so this process grosses me out a bit. Tons and tons of hot oil that I am submerging fruit in? Weird. If it grosses you out too, get past it. It's worth it.

Toss the sliced plantains in what should, by now, be VERY hot oil ready to fry them up. They should turn a lovely, caramelized-looking golden brown color. Cook both sides, remove from oil, and allow to cool a bit on a paper towel (to suck away some extra oil).

You can eat the plátanos as is, or, as I did this time: with a bit of cinnamon and sugar sprinkled over the top. YUM.