#vegetarian optional

~Broccoli Pistachio Soup~

One of the best comfort foods I know 2/3 cup butter 2/3 cup all purpose flour 7 cups milk 4 large baking potatoes - baked, cooled, peeled, and cubed (about 4 cups) 4 scallions, sliced 12 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled 1 1/4 cup shredded cheddar (or 2 cups, if you are me - that's an 8 oz package) 1 c sour cream (8 oz package) In a large pot over medium-low heat (I set my burner on 4 out of 10), melt butter, then stir in flour until smooth.   Add milk a little at a time, stirring until smooth each time. Bring to a gentle simmer and heat until thickened.  Add potatoes and scallions, simmer for 10 more minutes.  Add remaining ingredients, stir until cheese is melted.

Taste: Five out of five

Difficulty: Low

Time: Fairly low

Alterations and notes:

Do not bring your milk to a full rolling boil, heating it that energetically will cause the milk to curdle.

If it does curdle, you can use an immersion blender will smooth it back out.

This soup ends up really thick, almost like mashed potatoes. If you want a thinner, creamier soup, you can omit the flour and the first step, and simply being your milk and butter directly to a simmer. This also saves time, since it takes a while for the milk and roux (butter & flour mixture used for thickening) to thicken.

If it accidentally ends up too thick, you can add more milk until you get the consistency you want.

Definitely use a non-stick pot for this recipe.

I recommend whole milk for a rich creamy soup, but if you are calorie conscious then skim will give you a healthier version of this.  Or you could compromise and use 2%.  

Russet or Idaho potatoes are good baking potatoes.  Cooking them in the microwave is fine for this, just make sure to remember to prick them with a fork to avoid ruining your microwave with potato explosions.

You can save time, effort, and dishes by using bacon bits, I recommend the kind that are real bacon.

I don’t care for sour cream so I always leave that out.

Bacon is optional for the vegetarians, obviously.

Taste: Four out of five

Difficulty: Moderate

Time: Significant

Alterations and notes:

Fresh basil is a must.  You can use dried thyme instead of fresh, but basil tastes very different when it’s fresh.

Fresh-squeezed lemon juice will taste better, but it’s optional.  Bottled will work here.

I only used 8 cups of stock instead of 8 1/2, because mine comes in 4 cup boxes.  It was fine.

Piercing the eggplant skin with a fork allows steam to escape.  I’m not exactly certain what would happen if you omit this step, but given that the list of possible outcomes includes ‘exploded eggplant all over your oven’, I’d recommend playing it safe.

I used tinfoil instead of parchment paper, and the eggplant stuck to it a little.  Next time I will heed the instructions and use parchment paper.

I didn’t have any trouble peeling the eggplants, for the most part I could pull the peels off with my hands.  Some flesh did stick but it was easily scraped off with a spoon.

I’m not sure what the purpose of rinsing the eggplant is.  In takes place after the cooling and peeling steps, so it doesn’t seem to be something you do to cool it down or rinse away any stray bits of peel.  Mine came out too soft to rinse anyhow, I worried it’d just disintegrate if I tried.

Where it says “Char bell peppers over gas flame or in broiler until blackened on all sides.”, what you do is this.  Core and seed the peppers, cut them in half, lightly coat with olive oil, and put under the broiler for about 5 minutes each side, until the skin starts to blacken and bubble.  (Line the pan with foil for easy cleanup.)

I never understood why recipes that have you roasting peppers often tell you to put them into a paper bag afterwards, so I did some digging.  Apparently this is to allow the skins to slip off easily.  [source] 

Of course that assumes you care about peeling them.  I didn’t bother.  This does impact the texture but only slightly.  Honestly you could probably get away with not peeling the eggplant either, I might do that next time.

If you are using dried thyme, add it before the 45 minutes of simmering.  Dried herbs need time to release their flavor, while fresh herbs do so quickly.

Keep an eye on the liquid level, 45 minutes is a long time and you won’t want all the broth boiling away.  You may need to turn down the heat to medium-low or even low, or cover it for part of the time.

Do not used a closed blender with hot foods.  The resulting rapid expansion of steam will force the lid off (or the bottom, if the lid locks securely) and you will have a horrific mess on your hands.  Either use an immersion (stick) blender, or allow the mixture to cool to lukewarm before blending and then reheat.

At some point I’d like to try making this as an unblended soup, or a partially blended one.  I think it’s be nice to have actual chunks of roasted red pepper and eggplant and onion in there.

Recipe is from Sides, by Melicia Phllips

1 tablespoon unsalted butter 1 small onion, peeled and diced 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped 1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, & diced 2 small or 2 large acorn squash, peeled, seeded, & diced 2 large turnips, peeled and diced 2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch-thick rounds 1 1/2 cups chicken stock 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1 bay leaf 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger Small pinch of cayenne pepper Small pinch of allspice 1 teaspoon kosher salt A few grinds of black pepper Squeeze of fresh lemon juice 1/2 cup heavy cream or 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (optional)

For the shallots: 3 large shallots Vegetable or olive oil, for frying Salt to taste

In a 3-quart saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic and sweat them until translucent, but not browned, about 5 minutes.  

Add the butternut and acorn squash, turnips and carrots.  Cover and sweat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the stock and the thyme, bay leaf, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cayenne, allspice, kosher salt, and pepper.  Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for abut 30 minutes, until the vegetables are soft.  Stir occasionally.

While the vegetables are cooking, prepare the shallots.  Trim off both ends, cut them in half lengthwise, and then thinly slice them lengthwise.  You should get half-moon pieces.  Heat 1/4 inch of oil in a 10-inch frying pan over medium heat.  Fry the shallots in 2 batches until golden brown (the shallot should sizzle on contact with the oil), abut 30 seconds.  Drain on paper towels and salt lightly.  The shallots will get crispier when they cool and may be made a day ahead - just cover them well and keep them at room temperature.

Puree the vegetables in a food processor or blender, adding a little cream or butter if desired.  Season with a squeeze of lemon juice and then taste and adjust the seasoning.  Serve the puree in a shallow bowl and sprinkle the crispy shallots on top

Taste: Four out of five

Difficulty: With shallots - Fairly high, moderate otherwise

Time: Somewhat high

Alterations and notes:

To sweat, in cooking, means “to cook something over low heat in a small amount of fat, usually in a covered pan or pot. [...]  The objective [...] is to soften them and release the moisture in them, not to brown them.“ [definition]

Since peeling acorn squash can be a pain, you might want to use twice as much butternut squash instead.  They taste pretty similar, and while butternut squash is also a pain to peel, you can often find it peeled and chopped already.

The fried shallots are optional, but they do add a very nice flavor and crunch.

Do not used a closed blender with hot foods.  The resulting rapid expansion of steam will force the lid off (or the bottom, if the lid locks securely) and you will have a horrific mess on your hands.  Either use an immersion (stick) blender, or allow the mixture to cool to lukewarm before blending and then reheat.

Recently a family member had surgery and afterwards was allowed soft foods only for a while.  Rather than see him bored with an endless parade of yogurt and canned fruit, I offered to make some food that would fit his requirements but actually be tasty and varied.  In addition to Chinese eggplant (meatless, of course), my Amazing Applesauce, and roasted garlic mashed potatoes (this recipe only with pureed roasted garlic instead of bacon, scallions, and cheese) I made this.

Recipe is from Sides, by Melicia Phllips

4 cups sliced parsnips, cut about 1/2" thick 2-inch strip orange zest 1 cup chicken stock Juice of 1 orange 1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into bits Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Combine the parsnips, orange zest, and stock in a 10-inch skillet. Bring to a boil over high heat, lower the heat to a simmer, and cover the pan. Cook for about half an hour, until the parsnips are soft. Discard the orange zest. Pass the parsnips and what is left of the cooking liquid through a food mill or purée them in a food processor. Stir in the orange juice, grated zest, butter, salt, and pepper and serve immediately. Note: This can be made a few days ahead. You can either reheat it gently on top of the stove, stirring often, or put the purée in an ovenproof casserole and reheat, covered, in a 375F oven. You can also leave the casserole uncovered and top it with buttered crumbs if you like.

Taste: Four out of five

Difficulty: Moderate

Time: Moderate

Alterations and notes:

For those not familiar with parsnips, they look like fat white carrots but have a sweeter taste, and unlike carrots they’re generally not eaten raw (though you could - I nibble them sometimes as I cook).  They are one of many winter root vegetables, and they are very yummy.

The recipe doesn’t tell you to peel the parsnips, but you should.

Where the recipe calls for a 2″ strip of zest, it doesn’t say of this refers to width or length.  I’d guess length, since the easiest way to remove this will be a vegetable peeler and that’s not going to leave a peel two inches wide.

You don’t have to make your own stock or get special stock - any chicken broth is fine.  Honestly you could probably use extra orange juice instead, vegetable broth, or even milk - the idea is simply to have a liquid to thin down the mash, one that add flavor but not an overwhelming amount of it.  Plus that way you can make this a vegetarian dish.

When you grate your orange zest, don’t tamp it down into the measuring spoon, just measure it light and fluffy.  Remember to only grate the bright orange, slightly shiny outside layer - the paler orange/white spongy layer beneath that is the pith, and it’s bitter.

You don’t strictly have to cut up the butter, that just makes it melt faster.  And if you add it before pureeing, it’ll get cut up anyhow.

It’s the strip of zest you’re using in the first sentence, not the grated quarter-teaspoon.

Do not miss the bit about “lower the heat to a simmer“ and boil your parsnips on high for 30 minutes like I did, because all the liquid will boil away and your parsnips will burn and your dish - and possibly your pot - will be ruined.  It may reassure any beginner cooks in the audience to know that even with all my experience I can still totally ruin things.  It’s not just you!

Disclaimer: I am a lily-white American who came up with this recipe based on a Lebanese spice blend and a very basic knowledge of Middle Eastern cooking.  If you’re after authentic Lebanese cuisine, this is not the recipe you’re looking for.  Move along. *handwave*

4 cup beef broth (1 quart) 6-7 tablespoons olive oil, divided 1 tablespoon Lebanese spice blend (see notes) 1/2 cup flour 1 lb stewing lamb 1 cup lentils 1 large onion 2 cloves garlic 2 carrots, roughly diced 1 red pepper, roughly diced 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes

optional garnish: ground sumac or lemon wedges

Put beef broth in crockpot and begin heating on high.  Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat in large saucepan (to prevent overcrowding).  As the oil heats, mix flour and spice, dredge lamb, and brown briefly in hot oil before adding to the crockpot.  Stir remaining spiced flour into the pan drippings.  Depending on how much liquid was given off during browning, you may need to add another tablespoon of oil.  Once this is a smooth mixture, stir into the crockpot.  Cook 3 hours.  Add lentils.  In the same pan used to cook the lamb, sautee vegetables in 3 tablespoons of olive oil for 5-7 minutes just until softened and onions are translucent (not yet browned).  Add vegetables to crockpot along with the tomatoes.  Cook for 1/2 hour more.  Garnish if you like.

Taste: Five out of five

Difficulty: Moderate (totally worth it)

Time:  A few hours in the crockpot plus more for prep

Alterations and notes:

If you’re not inclined to buy a jar of spice blend for only a single recipe, the spices that go into it are are listed.  I don’t know what the proportions are, but I might guess it’s something along these lines:  1 tsp allspice, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground fenugreek, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp ginger

When an ingredients list contains the note ‘divided’, that simply means you’re not using all of it during the same step.  This can be useful to know in advance.

I browned my meat on a burner set to 5 of 10 and that worked pretty well.

You want a large saucepan so you’re not crowding the meat, since that means the steam won’t escape and will make it harder to get the nice browning you’re looking for.

To dredge means to coat with a dry ingredient - it usually refers to coating meat in flour, breadcrumbs, or similar breading before cooking.

You just want to brown the edges of the meat, not cook it all the way through.  It still has to go in the crockpot and you don’t want it overcooked.

If you’re feeling lazy, you could skip browning the meat and sauteeing the veggies and just dump everything straight into the crockpot, but the flavor won’t be as rich.

Lemon juice or sumac really lends a nice tang to this, but it’s good without it too.  Matter of taste, really.

This is what I did with the rest of my lobster from cheap-lobster season.  And from now on I’m going to make it again every year when lobster is cheap.  But for those whose budget cannot accommodate lobster, this recipe still has possibilities.

Taste:  Five out of five

Time: Moderate

Time: Moderate

Alterations and notes:

In perusing the author’s notes, I saw this:  “Lobster, shrimp, scallops, crab. Give me a shellfish paired with pasta and you’ve just made me a very [happy] camper.”  This made me think.  I had some shrimp in the freezer.  Crab, too, from my trip to the Boston fish markets.  Some little sweet bay scallops were easily acquired.  So why not?  In the end I used about 3/4 lb of lobster meat, about as much shrimp, and 1/2 lb each of scallops and crabmeat.  This is a lot more seafood than the original recipe calls for, so I was worried there might not be enough cheese sauce to go around, but it wasn’t a problem at all.   It was all delicious, so if lobster’s out of your price range you can use the cheaper types of shellfish instead.  The scallop and shrimp I baked in the preheated oven, using the baking dish that would eventually hold the mac & cheese.  I want to say they took about 10-15 minutes, but I couldn’t swear to it.  They’re done when the shrimp turns pink-white and opaque.

My favorite type of pasta for cream sauces is shells, because they scoop up little pockets of sauce wonderfully.  But you could use most medium-sized types of pasta here.

I was wary about the cayenne, because it’s very strong (I’ve been burned by recipes with cayenne before) and all the other flavors in play are light, delicate flavors.  It would have been very very easy for the cayenne to overwhelm everything else.  I am pleased to report that this did not happen - the 1/8 of a teaspoon was small enough to keep the cayenne nice and subtle.

A 10 oz block of fontina was enough for 3 cups - you’re not packing it tightly, but rather measuring it loosely filled.

I’m not quite sure what makes some kind of breadcrumbs fresh, since by definition it’s ground up stale bread, but if it means that you need to turn bread into breadcrumbs yourself, don’t worry about it. Store-bought is fine, so long as they’re plain and not flavored with herbs or spices.

Al dente means firm to the bite - the pasta should be not quite crunchy but not totally soft either.  After the pasta’s cooked, it’s a good idea to rinse the noddles in cold water to stop the cooking process.  They still have to go in the oven, and you don’t want mushy overcooked pasta.

Honestly, I would have made the breadcrumb topping before the cheese sauce.  The topping you have to set aside and let it cool once it’s done anyhow, and the cheese sauce is not tolerant of neglect.

There are two points in the recipe at which you’re melting butter in a pan.  Be sure you’re following the right place in the recipe, or you'll end up like my friend and I, staring down at a pan of garlic sauteed in *way* too much butter.  Oops!

It took quite a while for our roux (mixture of flour and melted butter, used as a thickening agent) to start browning, but then we were being cautious and using medium low heat instead of medium.  If you use medium heat, keep a close eye on it to avoid over-browning.  That’s why it tells you to whisk the whole time (stirring with any other implement works too) - the idea is to move the food around so it doesn’t stay in contact with the hot pan for loo long at any given time.

It took a lot longer than 5 minutes for the milk to thicken up, but I think our burner was still only set to 4 out of 10, which is kind of on the border between medium heat and medium low. I tend to be cautious when heating milk because if you let it get to a full boil it’ll start curdling (again, the reason for the frequent whisking).  Because it took so long, we skipped the step of cooking it for an additional 10 minutes after it had thickened.

I actually used a large frypan to toast the breadcrumbs so that they could all spread out and get toasted evenly, rather than heating unevenly in a deeply filled small pan.

Keep a *very* close eye on your garlic.  A small clove is not much, and the less there is in a pan or pot, the faster it cooks.  You’ll want to stir constantly to avoid overcooking.  It wouldn’t hurt to use medium heat instead, it’ll just take slightly longer to reach golden-brown and fragrant.

Because the garlic will cook quickly and burn easily, I recommend having your breadcrumbs pre-measured and close at hand to add as soon as the garlic is done.

I actually gave the breadcrumbs one good stir to mix in the garlic and butter before I let them toast.

High heat was not a good call for toasting the breadcrumbs.  When the minute was up, we had a little bit of burning going on (luckily there were enough unburned breadcrumbs that we were able to simply stir them together them with the burned ones and it tasted fine). 

The fact that you’re melting all the cheese when the pot is off the burner threw us for a bit of a loop, but that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.  We did have to turn the burner back on, however, to get it all to melt.

Our cheese sauce ended up not being entirely, perfectly smooth. I didn’t worry about it since the cheese can finish melting in the oven.

The instructions say to gently fold in the lobster meat.  Folding is different from stirring - it’s a gentler technique used with delicate ingredients to mix them in intact.  There’s a nice little 30-second video on how to fold that shows the technique and explains the reasons behind it.  That said, lobster’s sturdy enough that you don't need to use quite such a delicate touch - stirring normally is fine.  The crab meat we used, however, pretty much did disintegrate into the cheese sauce.  That might not be a bad thing in your book, but next time I make it I’m going to try to keep the crab intact, which will definitely require folding.

The breadcrumbs pretty completely covered our 9 x 13 pan, so we couldn’t see when the pasta was browned and bubbling, so we just baked it for 20 minutes and called it good.

I was wary about the breadcrumbs since I don’t normally like my seafood topped with breadcrumbs, but these garlicky, lemon breadcrumbs added the perfect zing of flavor and crunchy texture.  I tried the mac & cheese without, and I actually like it better with the breadcrumb topping.

The author made a good choice in using fontina and mascarpone instead of the more commonly-used gruyere.  The result is a delicately cheesy sauce that complements the flavor of the shellfish but doesn't overwhelm it - a very easy thing to do, which is the reason I’m wary of most lobster recipes.

This recipe is much better reheated in the oven (or a toaster oven) so that the breadcrumbs stay crunchy rather than getting soft and mushy in the microwave.  A large potion does well for 30 minutes at 350 - it’s worth the extra wait.

This makes a lot of food, and shellfish is notorious for its short shelf-life.  If you can make it for a crowd, great - the recipe says it serves 6-8, and those would be pretty hearty portions.  If it’s not going to all get eaten right away, let it cool until you can put it in the fridge (putting hot things in the fridge can spoil other things in there and strain the cooling mechanisms) and once it’s good and cold in the fridge, cut it up into individual portions to freeze.  It does okay in the freezer, so you can thaw pieces and put them in the oven for dinner.