FFWD – Béatrix’s Red Kuri Soup & Chestnut-Pear Soup

November 28, 2014November 28, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 21 Comments

A few weeks ago, red kuri squash arrived at my local food co-op, so I snapped two up right away. At the same time, I picked up some pears and some vacuum-packed chestnuts so that I could catch up on another fall soup.

I served the red kuri soup and the chestnut-pear soup together, in small bowls, as we did Christine’s Simple Party Soups. The two soups complemented each other well. I put a dollop of sour cream in each of the bowls, but these soups are lovely without any garnish at all, as well.

Béatrix’s Red Kuri Soup

I used one of the squash in this soup, cooking it down with the rest of the ingredients, and roasted the other. It’s in the freezer, waiting for an opportunity to make this soup again. I’m interested to see how the roasted version compares to the traditional soup.

I split the soup with my parents, who enjoyed it as much as I did. Kevin’s not a big squash fan, but he didn’t mind this soup at all. I’ll be making it again, while there’s still red kuri squash in the store, but I also want to try red kuri in dessert recipes. I have it on good authority that it makes a terrific variation on pumpkin.

You can find the recipe for this soup on Dorie’s website.

Chestnut-Pear Soup

I didn’t give half this soup away and it’s a good thing, because Kevin absolutely loved it. Usually, he’ll eat soup without much comment, but he raved about this one and happily helped me eat through a full recipe’s worth. He was happy that I’d made it vegan, using vegetable stock and replacing the butter with olive oil. The ingredients for this soup are available throughout the fall and winter, so we’ll be revisiting it often.

You can find the recipe for this soup here.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Béatrix’s Red Kuri Soup. Then, see how everyone fared with the Chestnut-Pear Soup.

FFWD – Storzapretis

November 21, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 18 Comments

It’s not often that I come across a dish that’s relatively unknown on the Internet – in this case, I mean the English-speaking internet. Until the flood of French Fridays posts today, I could only find a handful of references to this week’s dish in English – there are plenty of recipes for it on French sites. (As an aside, it pleases me that I can read French relatively well, even though no one should ever be subjected to me speaking it.)

Storzapretis, not to be confused with the Italian pasta called strozzapretis, are a sort of Corsican gnudi, as Betsy pointed out in her post today.

They are properly made with Brocciu cheese, but thick ricotta makes a good substitute. The ricotta is mixed with spinach, grated cheese, minced mint or marjoram, an egg, and a very small amount of flour. It’s then formed into quenelles, lightly tossed in a little more flour and set to rest in the fridge or freezer. When it’s time to finish them, they’re gently poached in simmering water, carefully dried, then put in the oven covered with tomato sauce and grated cheese.

It’s the last two steps that caused our crew so much trouble this week, resulting in one of the longest P & Q sections we’ve had in some time. Reading the comments saved me from disaster and also led me to experimenting with cooking them in two different ways.

Many Doristas found their storzapretis disintegrating as they poached, so Adriana tried skipping that step and cooking them in the oven only. She preferred that method and when I tried it, the night I made the storzapretis, I cooked a few that way and stowed the rest in the freezer.

Today, I tried the poaching method and though they kept their shape, I found their texture to be a little too soft for my liking, even after baking them for a bit longer than called for in the recipe. The ones I’d stuck straight into the oven were tender and fluffy, but firm. In future, I’ll skip the poach.

Though these dumplings were a bit time-consuming to make, I will be making them again. They’re worth the effort. And this week’s experience just reinforced my love of this cooking community – we truly help each other along each week.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Storzapretis.

FFWD – Jerusalem Artichokes, Two Ways

November 7, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 22 Comments

This week’s post tackles two French Fridays assignments, because when Jerusalem artichokes first showed up in the rotation last month, there were none to be found in Vancouver markets. I prefer the name sunchokes for these, as it’s a bit less confusing than Jerusalem artichokes, which are neither native to the Middle East nor related to artichokes. They’re actually native to the Americas – a root vegetable from a plant in the sunflower family, with a flavour that hints at artichokes. Sunchokes are sought after by chefs, but they’re not for everyone. Some folks experience a bit of gastric distress when they eat them (we found out this week that my Dad’s one of them), so they’ve earned a rather notorious nickname.

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Parsley Coulis

This week’s dish was a puréed soup, much like a potato soup, with salty leek and garlic notes against the delicate artichoke flavour of the sunchokes. I substituted vegetable stock for chicken stock, but otherwise followed the recipe, which you can find here. I packed up half the soup for my parents and the flavours were a hit for all of us.

The parsley coulis caused a bit of consternation in the group, because a number of us couldn’t get the parsley past a pesto texture. I didn’t mind that texture at all in this soup. The parsley also finishes the soup perfectly.

Since sunchokes stick around in the market until almost spring, we’ll be revisiting this soup all winter.

Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes with Garlic

I bought more sunchokes than I needed for the soup so that I could roast some, too. We ended up having them as a snack last night and enjoyed them, though I’d used too small a pan and they didn’t crisp up as much as I would have liked them to have done. The slivers of garlic were amazing with the sunchokes and on their own – they made this dish. However, I think that next time I roast sunchokes, I’ll do as Sanya did and mix them in with potatoes or other root vegetables. I think they’d be a nicer element in a mix than they were on their own.

Another unusual vegetable demystified, thanks to Around My French Table.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Parsley Coulis. Then, see how everyone fared with the Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes with Garlic.

Cottage Cooking Club – October 2014

October 28, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 15 Comments

There was no mistaking it this month. We’ve moved out of our summer repertoire of recipes and are solidly into winter vegetable territory.

If this month’s recipes are any indication, however, that’s not such a bad thing.

Carrot, Orange, and Cashews

On the rare occasion that I find myself supreming an orange, my mind always turns to this:

Am I the only one? Probably.

Sectioning the oranges aside, this was a very simple salad, flavoured with a little cumin and cider vinegar, but really playing on the flavour combination of orange, carrot, and cashew. It’s got a vibrancy that a typical carrot salad lacks and the juice of the orange manages to intensify the carrot’s flavour without itself disappearing.

I was out of cumin seeds, so I used ground cumin, but I don’t think the salad suffered. This dish provides a nice contrast to the usual heavy fare of winter and would brighten any casual gathering, both in colour and taste. Something to keep in mind as the rainclouds make Vancouver their winter home.

Vegeree

Eggplant and zucchini are my partner’s two favourite vegetables, but he likes them served very plain. And separate. So, I was mostly on my own for this one.

I like the idea of this dish more than the execution – roasting the vegetables together left them a little underwhelming, I thought. If I make this again, I’d roast the eggplant whole, while caramelizing the onion on the stovetop. Then, I’d add cubes of zucchini to the onion to soften a little. Finally, I’d toss them with chunks of the roasted eggplant and the rest of the ingredients. I think this would add some depth of flavour that I found a little lacking in this dish.

Broccoli Salad with Asian-Style Dressing

This is a perfect lunchbox salad. You could make it the night before and refrigerate it, then pull it out and let it come to room temperature before lunch. You’ll just need to remember to pack two little containers containing the toasted sesame seeds and the slivered green onions, so you can dramatically strew them over your salad before digging in. Lunchroom theatre.

This one’s definitely on my ‘make again’ list. I especially liked that the dressing was complex without being too assertive.

Roasted Cauliflower with Lemon and Paprika

This dish is another simple treatment for a brassica. Florets of cauliflower dusted with smoked paprika and roasted with lemon wedges. I could eat this every day.

Intrigued by this month’s recipes? Buy the book and join us.

Here are the links to the rest of the group’s posts for this month. I encourage you to check them out – you’ll meet some wonderful bloggers and get some great inspiration for vegetarian eating.

From Soup to Nuts – A French Fridays Catch Up

October 17, 2014October 17, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

I wandered down the Drive this evening, armed with an umbrella and a needlessly puffy raincoat, taking one final look to see if Jerusalem artichokes had shown up in the market.

This is what I found:

Fresh, fragrant chestnuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts;
Persimmons, fresh figs, quince, and softball-sized Okanagan apples;
Cauliflower in white, orange, and purple, carrots in a rainbow of colours, beets across the red spectrum, and mounds of homely, dun-coloured celery root.

Not a sunchoke in sight.

So instead, I’m giving you a triple-barrelled catch up post.

Provençal Vegetable Soup

Waaaay back in July, our lovely administrators Betsy and Mary allowed four of us to pick the recipes for that month. I chose this quintessentially summer soup. But before I could make it and post about it, I developed a flu and a sinus infection that kept me out of the kitchen for quite a while.

So finally, here it is, end-of-summer soupe au pistou presented to you when it’s cold and dark and rainy. My soup included some of the last of the beans, tomatoes, and zucchini from my garden and I had just enough basil left to make the pesto (but not enough for a garnish). I skipped the pasta and added extra potato instead. I also threw in a can of mixed Italian beans along with the chickpeas for extra heartiness. I kept it vegan for Kevin, so no pesto for him. My bowl had a healthy dollop of pesto and more than a pinch of Parmesan, which immediately melted into the hot soup. My soup wasn’t as clear as a traditional soupe au pistou because of all that extra potato, but it was awfully delicious all the same.

I don’t think it’s entirely inappropriate to be showing you this in October, actually. Like Smitten Kitchen’s Fall-toush Salad, this soup can be adapted for colder weather. At the end of every summer, I’ve always got a stock of frozen homemade pesto in the freezer – this year it’s mostly radish leaf pesto, because my basil harvest was unusually stingy. I think a swirl of summer in a bowlful of fall or winter vegetables sounds like a very good idea.

You can find the rest of the Doristas’ seasonally appropriate takes on this recipe here: Provençal Vegetable Soup

Rice Pudding and Caramel Apples

Now, for something you’d expect to see in October.

I love rice pudding, but it’s something I’m used to making when I’ve got leftover rice to use up. This rice pudding is doubly different from my usual practice – it’s made fresh on the stovetop and it uses arborio rice. The pudding is creamy with whole milk and from the rice itself. It’s flavoured only with vanilla, which plays beautifully against the caramel apples with their hint of lemon.

My caramel was a little thin, so next time I think I’ll do as Liz did and pull the apples out when they’re tender so that I can cook the caramel until it’s thick. We still loved it, though. The layers of caramel, apples, and pudding were so satisfying and the whipped cream added just the right taste and texture to make this dessert elegant and comforting all at once.

You can find the recipe on Epicurious and you can see everyone else’s posts here: Rice Pudding and Caramel Apples

Caramel-Almond Custard Tart

And finally, a dessert that made me very popular at our housing co-op’s general meeting this week. I made Dorie’s pâte sablée, or sweet tart dough, for the first time in a very long time recently. I’d forgotten just how good it is, so when we had a gap in food provision at the meeting this week (our co-op is so big on feeding its members that we wrote it into our Mission, Vision, and Values statements), I decided to catch up on this tart. It’s a good thing I waited until now to make it, because it’s so easy I’d have been popping it into the oven on a far too regular basis.

Who knew that par-baking a tart crust, toasting a few almonds, making a creamy caramel, and whisking up a custard could add up to something that (almost) looks like it came from a pastry chef? I think this is the recipe I’m going to pull out next time I really need to get someone on board with something.

Here’s the link to more posts about this beautiful tart: Caramel-Almond Custard Tart

There will be plenty of roasting vegetables in the oven this weekend – the markets are full of root vegetables, brassicas, and squash. But, I’m not exactly sure when sunchokes will show up here. The grocers I’ve asked so far can’t remember exactly when they start coming in, either. Whenever they do, I’ll be making this week’s dish, along with the Jerusalem artichoke soup that’s coming up in the rotation in the next month or two. Catch ups are my thing, apparently.

Now, if you’re curious about what the rest of the French Fridays crew got up to this week, you’ll have to look here: Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes with Garlic

Cottage Cooking Club – September 2014

October 8, 2014October 9, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 7 Comments

When I was in elementary school, we went to Salt Spring Island for a week called Outdoor School, where we stayed in cabins, ate in a mess hall, and did experiments in streams, on beaches, and in the woods. By then, I was the shortest and shyest of all the kids in my class and with a little bad luck, I was assigned to the cabin farthest away from the big hall where we ate our meals. Inevitably, I was late for almost everything. It didn’t help that I’d brought a precariously high stack of books along with me for the week. At the end of camp, the teachers held a just-for-fun awards night and I came away with a key chain that said, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”

As you can see, this still suits me to a T – here I am, a week late with my Cottage Cooking Club post. And it’s not for lack of interest. This month’s selections were a huge success for us.

Pinto bean chili

One of the best indicators for me that I’m going to be going back to a recipe over and over again is how many notes I’ve written in the margins and white space on the page. It means that it’s versatile and customizable and that the base recipe is solid. This chili is exactly that. We’re given two variations, one for winter and one for summer, but you can get creative with what’s in season and what’s on hand. I chose the summer recipe, as the last of my zucchini was just ready and the markets were full of peppers of all varieties. I swapped out the bell pepper for pimento pepper (as you can see in the photo at the top of this post) and used one fresh cayenne pepper in place of the green chiles and cayenne powder. I served it vegan for Kevin, but grated a bit of Parmesan on mine. I needn’t have – it was flavourful enough on its own.

Puy lentil and spinach soup

Vancouver is famous for its cold, wet weather, as Seattle is, too. We Cascadians keep recipes for warm, comforting soups close to hand and this soup fits the bill. French green lentils are a staple for us and this soup, thick and almost stew-like, showcases them perfectly. I suspect we’ll be eating this regularly all winter.

Oven-roasted roots frittata

I was on my own for this one, but that was fine with me. I love frittata and this root vegetable variation, baked in the oven, was easy and delicious. It’s just the sort of thing I want to have waiting for me when I’m working flat out on a project and need lunch to be easy. Easy, delicious, and nutritious, that is.

Runner beans with tarragon and lemon

I skipped the butter in this dish and used Earth Balance instead. I’m still not convinced that it’s anything more than a pricey margarine, but using it meant that this dish was vegan. Margarine or no, the beans were delicious, and included some of the last of this year’s bean crop from my garden, along with some of the tarragon I’m digging up and trying to overwinter indoors this year. The combination of flavours was lovely.

Now, save for a summery French Fridays catch up or two I’ve got to find time to post, we’re well into the flavours of autumn. I suspect I’m going to love our October Cottage Cooking selections as much as I did September’s – I promise you’ll see the results a little sooner next month.

Here are the links to the rest of the group’s posts for this month. I encourage you to check them out – you’ll meet some wonderful bloggers and get some great inspiration for vegetarian eating.

FFWD – Celery-Celery Soup

October 3, 2014October 3, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 17 Comments

Four years ago this week, our first French Friday posts went up. It’s hard to believe that halfway through our fifth year of cooking together, we’ll have completed Around My French Table. Personally, I think we should all meet in Paris for gougères and champagne.

And I wouldn’t mind a bowl of this soup, either. Celery and celery root, with a hint of apple and a base of onions. I flavoured mine with thyme and rosemary, and added some shallots to the mix, but it’s Dorie’s bonne idée that makes this dish for me. The cubes of curried apple she suggests added a touch of complexity that I really enjoyed. I made a vegan version of this soup, but Kevin wasn’t that fond of it, so I think I might pick up some crème fraîche tomorrow. Then again, I might not – it stood up well without the addition of dairy.

The recipe for this week’s recipe is on Dorie’s website.

Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza

I’ve been meaning to catch up on this one for a while, but I didn’t really want to make a gluten-free version of it. It sounded too good with puff pastry. I finally found an excuse to make it last weekend, when my mother and sister-in-law came into town for a hockey game. I used puff pastry vol-au-vents rather than using a sheet of the stuff to make little pizzas – no squashing of flaky layers involved. (For a look at the virtues of flattening puff pastry, see Tomato-Cheese Tartlets.) I did follow the rest of the recipe, arranging thin slices of the ingredients in the vol-au-vents (and their lids) before sliding them back into the oven for a very short time.

It’s a surprising dish – there are so many flavours bursting through, including ginger, tomato, onion and radish, but they all complement each other. These were elegant, delicious little treats. And totally appropriate for a pre-game snack, right?

And now, on to the last six months or so of this cookbook. I can’t tell you how much I’ve come to appreciate my fellow cooks in this adventure. I hope you read through their posts; they’re a lovely bunch of folks.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Celery-Celery Soup. Then check out what Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza looks like when you follow the recipe.

FFWD – Vanilla Vegetable Salad

September 26, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 15 Comments

After a summer of salads comprised of whatever the garden’s got on offer, it seems like time to examine the shelves and stalls at the market a little more closely. There are still some remnants of the summer’s harvest on the shelves, but now there are also apples upon apples, winter squashes, root and cruciferous vegetables – things that speak of roasting or stewing, not the quick-dressed freshness of hot-weather meals.

Still, there’s one last summer salad for French Fridays and luckily the markets easily yielded the ingredients. Well, more or less. I haven’t seen a yellow zucchini for a few weeks now, so I opted for a small green one. And since the colour scheme was already in flux, I picked up some heirloom purple carrots in place of orange. For the greens, I chose an herby mix that I thought would counterbalance any dissonance I might experience from the vanilla in the dressing.

Yes, vanilla. There’s a lot of olive oil and lemon in this dressing, with only a touch of vanilla extract, but the flavour is transformed by it. I made the dressing by eye, since I was halving the recipe, so I may have been a bit conservative with the amount of vanilla I used, but the flavour was definitely there. My first taste was surprising – I didn’t even register whether I liked it or not. It was just something new to me. Then, I simply enjoyed it. Kevin told me that he liked it, but didn’t love it. (He’d eat it again, so I consider it a win for him.)

I’d love to try this dressing in a salad that’s already a mix of sweet and savoury, one with strawberries or figs, perhaps. There’s still a little time before cold-weather eating fully sets in.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts here: Vanilla Vegetable Salad

FFWD – French Lentils

September 12, 2014September 12, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

I’m in a peripatetic state of mind, it seems. Right now I’m in the middle of several books, including Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth, and Rebecca Solnit’s latest book of essays, Men Explain Things to Me (if you’re not familiar with her, this might be a good place to start). I’m also re-reading Tamar Adler’s Everlasting Meal, as the easiness of summer garden eating is about to wane and I feel in need of a refresher on the simple, thrifty, respectful way she approaches food and eating.

One of the things I need to remember is that making more food than you’re going to eat for your next meal, in both quantity and variety, is one of the best ways to make sure you’re eating well at every meal.

This basic recipe for French lentils is exactly the sort of thing I want to have in the refrigerator when I’m wondering whether I really want to get into the kitchen and cook. The lentils are gently cooked in broth or water, infusing themselves with the flavours of the vegetables that are along for the ride. You can add cognac and shallots at the end, or not. You can chop up the vegetables and stir them back into the finished lentils, or not. You can serve them with another protein, sprinkle them with cheese, chill them and use them for a lentil salad later. Or, you can tuck into them just as they are.

I used vegetable broth in this batch, which makes them a nice vegan treat, though I sprinkled some with cheese, for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that I only had about a half cup of French green lentils left, so I substituted brown lentils. The brown worked well, but I prefer the green – they are both gorgeous and delicious. Time to go back to the food co-op and stock up, since this is one of the recipes from Around My French Table that I make often, especially in the colder months.

You can find this week’s recipe at Serious Eats.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts here: French Lentils

FFWD – Chanterelles with Cabbage & Nuts

August 30, 2014August 31, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 15 Comments

It’s easy to think of disincentives for being late: a tapping foot, the flustered greeting, that feeling of being out-of-step with everyone else. But sometimes there are advantages, too. I couldn’t make it to last week’s Farmers’ Market, so I don’t know if they had chanterelles for sale, but I do know I couldn’t find them anywhere else all week. This afternoon, though, there were several baskets of the beautiful fungus sitting front and centre on Wild Foraged‘s table. I scooped up a box, but I admit I almost gave up on the idea of this week’s dish when I found out they also had Chicken of the Woods on hand.

My better angel prevailed and here we are, with an appetizer that is sweet and savoury, meaty and vegetal, all at once. I made a small portion of the dish for the two of us to share, substituting savoy cabbage for the napa and using some vegetable stock in place of bouillon. I’d forgotten to pick up hazelnuts on the way home, so I used chopped almonds instead. I think they were as nice as hazelnuts would have been. I also took Dorie’s bonne idée and threw in some green grapes, which added another lovely layer of flavour to the dish.

The hardest thing about this dish is obtaining the mushrooms. The easiest thing is deciding to make this again before chanterelle season is over. See for yourself, here.

And because we’re heading into the home stretch of Around My French Table, I’m trying to do at least one catch up a week until I’m up-to-date:

Lyonnaise Garlic and Herb Cheese

I’m sort of glad I waited so long to make this one, or else it might have become a staple item in my refrigerator. Fromage blanc (or in my case, ricotta drained overnight until thick) mixed with alliums and herbs makes a wonderful spread for crudités, breads, or crackers. I loved it with oatcakes and slow-roasted tomatoes. If Kevin wasn’t adhering to his vegan diet of late, I’d have filled tomatoes with the stuff for him. I’ve still got quite a bit left and I’m thinking it might find its way into a savoury tart very soon.

Find out what the rest of the French Fridays crew thought about their Chanterelles with Napa and Nuts

And here’s where you can find the verdict on Lyonnaise Garlic and Herb Cheese