Stir-Fried Plums with Carrots and Red Cabbage

Hey, I'm back!

A lot has happened since the end of August. We moved (end result=bigger kitchen - hooray!), and then I lost the cable that connects my camera to my computer. Not that that's a sufficient excuse for not posting this recipe until now, since I took the pictures back in... July? Whenever plums are in season. Anyway, here's to more frequent posting.
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I have come into a million plums from someone at work who has a plum tree and keeps bringing them in. I think I will have to eat several for breakfast, then make a couple of pans of crisp when I get home, just to make sure I use them all. It's great! And these plums are gorgeous (see below).

Last night, I made a plum cake (which is now gone). Tonight, I thought I'd try to use them in a savory context. Our produce drawer is running low on veggies at the moment, but the plums at least get us in the same general section of the nutrition pyramid - right??

Yeah, I think so. Anyway, here's what I used:

• 2-3T oil (enough to cover part of the bottom of a medium-large non-stick skillet
• 1/4 small onion, halved and sliced into thin strips (if you magically have shallot on hand, that would probably be cooler)
• 1 boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces (freezing it for 10-20 minutes makes it easier to cut, IMHO)
• 2 carrots, sliced diagonally
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• handful chopped red cabbage
• 3 plums (I used the little Italian ones), sliced into eighths
• enough cooked dried udon noodles (fresh are even more delicious, though!) to serve 2-3. I had planned on this being only enough for dinner, but as it turned out I had leftovers for lunch the next day.
• 2 T soy sauce
• splash of sherry, if you have it
• 1 T brown sugar
• 1 T roasted red chili paste (I use the "Taste of Thai" stuff)
• lime wedges for garnish (you could splash a little vinegar in at the end, instead)

1) First, heat up the oil in the skillet to a pretty extreme medium/medium-high. Then fry the onion for several minutes, stirring a lot, until it is nicely browned. Browner than you usually want your onions. Scoop the onions out into a bowl to save for later, but leave as much oil as you can in the pan.

2) Reduce heat to medium, add chicken to skillet, and cook until no longer pink. Add garlic slices and cook for 30 seconds or so.

3) Add soy sauce, sherry, brown sugar, and roasted red chili paste. If everything is way too smoking hot, you can add some water too, to buy you some time. Cook for a couple of minutes or until it's all melted into a kind of sauce.

4) Add carrots and stir-fry for a minute or so (depending on how thinly they are sliced). Add plums and red cabbage and stir-fry briefly just to coat them with the sauce, and to warm them. Don't let the plums get too mushy.


5) Stir the reserved cooked onions back into the pan. Add the cooked udon noodles to the pan, and stir to combine.

6) Serve with lime wedges, if you have them. If not, put a little splash of vinegar (rice vinegar would be good) in the dish before serving.

Grapefruit Salad with Ground Cherries and Mint Sugar

Title sounds all classy, doesn't it? Well, I already had the mint in the fridge for something else, so this dish was prompted by my officemate leaving me a message on a Friday that she was out of the office, imploring me to find some use for a grapefruit and ground cherries that she had left in her desk drawer, since they wouldn't make it through the weekend and she didn't want them to go to waste.

The ground cherries are to the left, below. I had no idea what they were, but they come from my officemate's garden and she explained that they look like tiny tomatillos, but taste kind of pineappley. They also have little tiny seeds built in, giving them a subtle crunch like figs! Yum.

As per my usual, I didn't make this recipe up: epicurious has something similar that uses grapefruits, oranges, pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries (I used dried currants), and no ground cherries.


Anyway, there's not much to describe. I peeled the grapefruit over a bowls so that I could save any drippiness. I pulled the sections out of the white stuff as best I could. I took the ground cherries out of their husks, washed them, and cut them each in half.



Then I ripped up a bunch of mint leaves (but not as many as you see in the first picture - maybe 8-10?), and smashed them with the leftover grapefruit juice and some sugar in my mortar and pestle.

The currants went on top.

This picture is really shaky!

Zucchini Enchiladas with Pumpkinseed Salsa

Hey, I'm back. It's been a busy August! We're trying to buy a house, so all posts following this one will probably be a little more... uh... economical in nature for a while. For instance, I have some pictures of a salad I made from the contents of my co-worker's desk drawer. I'll post those after this. Anyway...

Zucchini enchiladas. This was epicurious's recipe of the day when I went to their site looking for something to do with the ginormous zucchinis my officemate had given me (thanks, Julia!). So, it was meant to be right from the beginning. The actual title of the original recipe is "Zucchini and Red Pepper Enchiladas with Two Salsas," but come on - that doesn't even hint at the fact that these enchiladas are loaded up with toasted, spiced pumpkinseed puree - by far the coolest element!

These were absolutely delicious, and they held together surprisingly well for our lunch and dinner the next day. I will say that trying to seal these babies together by frying them in oil without having all the goodness drip out the ends and burn was a bit of a challenge, especially in the 100-degree weather we were having that night. In the future, I could possibly be persuaded to leave out the frying and assemble these like soft tacos, just because the frying was such a pain and left me with some finger burns.

The recipe asks for you to grill the vegetables. Yeah... I live in an apartment. I did, however, use this as an excuse to pick up a cast-iron grill pan at Goodwill! I've been very happy with it.

So, the recipe.

Ingredients

For enchiladas:
-1 large white onion, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
-2 red bell peppers, quartered
-3/4 pound medium zucchini, cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices [I had way more zucchini than this, and I used way more - probably why we ended up with enchiladas big enough to eat two, not three of them as a generous meal]
-12 (6-to 7-inch) soft corn tortillas [I used white, and I think they were a little bigger than this]
-1/2 cup vegetable oil
-6 ounces crumbled queso fresco or ricotta salata [I used the queso fresco]

For pumpkin-seed salsa:
-1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh serrano chile, including seeds
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1 1/3 cups raw green (hulled) pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
-1/2 cup vegetable oil
-2 cups chopped cilantro [Mike doesn't like cilantro. I can't remember if I used a little parsley instead, or just ignored this]
-1 1/2 cups water

For tomato salsa [yeah, or you could just use some store-bought salsa]:
-2 medium tomatoes, chopped
-1/4 cup finely chopped white onion
-2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh serrano chile, including seeds
-2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
-Garnish: cilantro leaves

For the tomato salsa: stir together tomatoes, onion, chile, lime juice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.


For the pumpkinseed salsa: cook chile, garlic, cumin, and pumpkin seeds in oil in a 10-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat, stirring, until seeds pop, 4 to 5 minutes.



Transfer 3 tablespoons seeds with a slotted spoon to a bowl and reserve. Purée remaining seeds and oil with cilantro, water, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a blender until smooth.

Start enchiladas:Prepare a gas grill for direct-heat cooking over medium heat.
Preheat oven to 350°F .
Secure each onion round with a wooden pick for grilling. Oil grill rack, then grill vegetables, covered, turning occasionally, until tender (6 to 8 minutes for bell peppers and zucchini; 10 to 12 minutes for onion), transferring to a bowl.

Okay, grilling the vegetables in my little grill pan took many,

many,

many,

many batches.

To make the enchiladas: cut vegetables into strips. Spread 2 teaspoons pumpkin-seed salsa on each warm tortilla and top with some of grilled vegetables, then roll up.

Heat oil (1/2 cup) in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Fry enchiladas, seam side down first, in 2 batches, turning once, until lightly browned and heated through, about 2 minutes per batch.

Transfer enchiladas to plates, then drizzle with remaining pumpkin-seed salsa and sprinkle with reserved seeds and cheese. Serve with tomato salsa.

Yum!

Spoils of Summer - Daikon-Beet Salad with Mashed Plantain

This heat is killing my produce. I had a plantain, two beets, a shallot, some garlic, and a daikon radish (the size of my forearm). They were all on their way out - even the garlic, which is saying something because my garlic standards are pretty low. I made something that actually resembles potato salad - in taste only, though.

I did a teensy bit of interwebs research before embarking on this experiment. I couldn't find anything that exactly resembled what I wanted to do, but this recipe helped me verify that beets and daikons could go together; this one gave me a recipe for a salad using regular potatoes and daikons (and about a million other tasty things I didn't have on hand), and this one told me how to get the plantain out of its skin. Thanks, epicurious!

I peeled the daikon and chopped them into matchsticks. Same with the beets, after cooking and peeling them (I simmered the beets with a splash of apple cider vinegar for about 20 minutes. About 5 minutes in, I threw in the plantain, with its ends trimmed off and cut crosswise into three pieces).

I minced the shallot, mixed it with some honey, (light) sesame oil, white wine vinegar, yellow mustard, slivered garlic, salt, and pepper, and then stirred in the beet and daikon matchsticks. This part then went into the fridge to chill and wait for the mashed plantain.

Once the plantain pieces looked soft enough for me to get the peel off, I drained the water and pulled the peel off with the help of a knife and fork. I mashed the plantain with a little salt and sesame oil (just enough to get it to more or less stick together - not creamy like regular mashed potatoes) and stuck it in the fridge to cool. I cooled it separately from the beet-daikon mixture because I didn't want the heat to un-crisp the daikon, but in retrospect I probably should have mixed the plantain in when it was still a little warm, so that it would have been creamier. I also would have used one or two more plantains if I'd had them. But hey - for a using-things-up dish, this really did come out pretty well! Mike even ate all of his and said something about "liking" it. Success! And pink, pink leftovers!

Spoils of Summer - Pasta with Raw Tomato-Avocado Sauce

This recipe is based upon one that appears in a tomato sauce book that I have out in the kitchen, or, as I like to call the un-air-conditioned part of the apartment, the inferno. I will go look it up and properly cite the author soon. The author credits her friend, whose name is Flavia - that I do remember.

While your pasta water is heating up, you just dice up some tomatoes and avocados, mince or sliver some garlic, and toss with some torn basil, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little sugar if the tomatoes aren't on their A-game.

Once you drain the pasta (I always use the long and skinny variety, but have used everything from angel hair to the kind that's so thick that it's hollow - anything seems to work), you can either toss it hot with the pasta, which allows the avocados to almost melt their way into coating the strands, or you can rinse the pasta with cold water and serve the dish cold. Either way, you toss the mixture with the pasta and serve. Yum!

Spoils of Summer - Cherry-Apricot Crisp

I tossed the fruit with a little lime juice, salt, and a little cornstarch. The crisp topping was almond meal, coconut oil, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. I can't remember if I also used a little bit of quick oats for the version that appears in this picture - we had a lot of cherries to use up and I made several batches of crisp! I baked at 350 - 25 minutes, maybe? Just until it gets bubbly.

Spoils of Summer - Caprese

I thought I'd do some brief posts of some no-cook, low-cook, or just-enjoying-the-summer-produce things we've eaten in the last few weeks. It's been a crazy summer so far, so I'm going to go heavy on the pictures and easy on the text, as I try to get the AC unit to meet me halfway between 68 and 105.

Anyway, here's some caprese that we had. That's what it's called, right? Tomatoes, fresh mozarella, basil, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Tortilla de patata - Spanish Tortilla

I LOVE Spanish tortilla. I love that it is firm enough that you can slice off a piece and it holds together, with a beautiful potato-ey cross-section. I love that you can eat it cold or hot, and I love that the Spanish put it in sandwiches (yes - a starch-on-starch sandwich). I love that you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I've only it attempted it at home once or twice, however, and the results were a decided fail. It's hard to get the tortilla to stay in one piece, and if it breaks, you end up with a still good-tasting, but non-sliceable potato-egg scramble.

Cooks Illustrated published a recipe for Spanish tortilla in this month's (July) issue. I tried it out and got a tortilla that stayed in one piece on the first try. Success! They claimed the key to get it coming out right without using half a bottle of oil is to use Yukon Gold potatoes, which don't stick as much and therefore don't require as much oil. They also recommend doing a two-step flip to get the tortilla turned over: after using a spatula to loosen the tortilla from the pan around the edges, you slide it onto plate #1, cover it with plate #2, quickly flip over, remove plate #1 (which is now on top), and carefully slide the tortilla back into the pan so that the second side can get cooked. My tortilla had a couple of minor tears in it, but cooking the second side mended them.

The two final recipes that the article offered include added ingredients: roasted red peppers and peas, and chorizo and scallions. They sound good, but I was just after the traditional, no-frills recipe, which is the one I'll post here.

Ingredients
-6 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

-1 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes (3 to 4 medium), peeled, quartered lengthwise, and cut crosswise into 1/8-inch-thick slices
-1 small onion , halved and sliced thin (seriously, slice them really thin if you can. You don't want to be able to say "hey, these are onions" when you bite into the final product. They should all but melt away)
-1 teaspoon table salt (I used kosher because it was all I had. It came out fine)
-1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
-8 large eggs

Instructions
1. Toss 4 tablespoons oil, potatoes, onion, ½ teaspoon salt, and pepper in large bowl until potato slices are thoroughly separated and coated in oil.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Reduce heat to medium-low, add potato mixture to skillet, and set bowl aside without washing. Cover and cook, stirring with rubber spatula every 5 minutes, until potatoes offer no resistance when poked with tip of paring knife, 22 to 28 minutes (it’s OK if some potato slices break into smaller pieces).


2. Meanwhile, whisk eggs and remaining ½ teaspoon salt in reserved bowl until just combined. Using rubber spatula, fold hot potato mixture into eggs until combined, making sure to scrape all potato mixture out of skillet.

Return skillet to medium-high heat, add remaining teaspoon oil, and heat until just beginning to smoke. Add egg-potato mixture and cook, shaking pan and folding mixture constantly for 15 seconds. Smooth top of mixture with rubber spatula.

Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook, gently shaking pan every 30 seconds until bottom is golden brown and top is lightly set, about 2 minutes.

3. Using rubber spatula, loosen tortilla from pan, shaking back and forth until tortilla slides around freely in pan. Slide tortilla onto large plate. Invert tortilla onto second large plate and slide it browned-side up back into skillet. Tuck edges of tortilla into skillet with rubber spatula. Return pan to medium heat and continue to cook, gently shaking pan every 30 seconds, until second side is golden brown, about 2 minutes longer.

Slide tortilla onto cutting board or serving plate and allow to cool at least 15 minutes. Cut tortilla into wedges.

You can see that I got our tortilla a little more brown than would have been ideal - but it was all in one piece and tasted great, so I was happy. It keeps really well under a plate in the fridge for at least two or three days - after that, it still keeps, but the condensation makes it a little less appetizing to eat cold.

We had our tortilla with a roasted beet salad (which was pretty good - I'll post the recipe separately) and some gazpacho for me - Mike's not a fan of chilled soups and it wasn't really tomato season yet, anyway.

Roy Rogers: The man, the myth, the beverage.

Here's a clip from Scrubs that I always think of when ordering a non-alcoholic beverage that carries a person's name. So, Arnold Palmer, Shirley Temple, Roy Rogers, and O.J. (who skates through on a technicality - oh, hush, I just mean that "O.J." actually stands for orange juice).

J.D.: "I've taken your best qualities and my best qualities and combined them into something better - much the way that iced tea and lemonade were joined to become an Arnold Palmer. Incidentally, has anyone ever done less to become famous? I mean, 'Yay for me, I mixed two drinks together!'"

Dr. Cox: "Arnold Palmer is a golfer."

J.D.: "I'm sure he has lots of hobbies, Perry - the man's a drink mogul."



Grenadine? ...check.

Ice-cold Coca Cola? ...check.

Untold deliciousness that is more than the sum of its parts? ...CHECK.

Now where are my maraschino cherries?

Five-Minute Fancy Bananas

This was kind of like a tiny-apartment-kitchen, no-torch-or-rum-available version of Bananas Foster. No comparison - but similar idea. And dang, it was good.

For two people (you can scroll down to the bottom to see one servine - it's on a dessert plate), I used:
-2 bananas
-3 tablespoons butter
-1/4 cup water
-3 tablespoons brown sugar
-pinch salt
-optional: Frangelico, or some sort of booze that would taste good in caramel sauce

1. Move the oven rack up close to the broiler. Preheat broiler.
2. Slice bananas into a bowl with enough room to stir a bit.
3. Heat butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat, watching carefully. As soon as it's melted, pour a little bit of it onto the bananas. Remove the saucepan from heat, but leave the burner on.
4. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of brown sugar into bananas, stir to coat (doesn't have to be perfect). If you have spray cooking oil, grease the broiler pan so the bananas won't stick (I didn't do this, but should have). Spread out banana slices on a broiler pan. Put bananas in broiler.
To make the caramel sauce:
5. Put melted butter back on heat. Lower heat to medium or a little above. Pour in water, sprinkle in remaining 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and pinch of salt. Stir constantly for 2-3 minutes or until caramel sauce is very bubbly (keep stirring, lifting and scraping occasionally) and light golden, but not burned. Pour in a splash of Frangelico or other liquor (if you want), and keep stirring. If caramel sauce, once removed from heat and calmed down, looks like the picture below before the bananas are nicely browned on the edges, remove the caramel sauce.




Once the bananas are golden-brown (they will be very soft), distribute them onto plates and pour caramel sauce over.

Ta-daa!

Fast Food = Balsamic Strawberry Goat Cheese Panino? That's some Burgerville lovin'.

Remember when the hipster crowd used to say, "For serious"? I can just feel myself reverting back to those days when I think of this sandwich. It was quite a treat. Balsamic-soaked strawberries (to which I am already partial, having made a strawberry-balsamic basil salad recently), arugula, and goat cheese. Pretty dang good.

The tagline for the sandwich is, "Proof that vegetarians aren't crazy." I don't know if we want to be making blanket generalizations, but one thing that is not crazy is Burgerville's new seasonal specials. They already had me with their pumpkins and blackberries and hazelnuts and sweet potatoes. Now they want to up the ante by showcasing a new flavor each month? Dang, Burgerville - stop throwing yourself at me. People will talk.

If I recall correctly, it all started with the rosemary garlic shoestring fries and rosemary chicken sandwich. I thought that was in March, but maybe I missed a month. Then in May, we had asparagus: in a melty provolone and tomato sandwich (which wasn't quiiiiiite as good as it sounds, unfortunately - the provolone was as gooey as ABC gum), and as "golden-fried spears." Now for June, we have strawberry griddle cakes (or something like that), and then this sandwich.

That's it. End post. Wait wait - just one more thing you may not know about Burgerville - they will make ANY of their shake flavors with non-fat frozen yogurt instead! You just have to order it as a smoothie, and listen to make sure that's how they repeat it back to you. My coworker told me about this, and it's true andthey'rereallygoodokaysigningoffforrealnow...

Coleslaw

I've never been a big coleslaw fan. I like it just fine once whatever barbecued item I'm eating with the coleslaw has dripped its spicy, tangy deliciousness onto the coleslaw. At that point, it's all just one dish. But enjoying coleslaw in its own right? Nah. As much as I love cabbage, I just don't like that weird fermented flavor that coleslaw in a bag has (for details on why claiming not to like "that weird fermented flavor" of a cabbage product makes me a total hypocrite, see my post on kimchi). And I have a fear of mayonnaise except under very specific circumstances. And did I mention that I don't like buying macerated produce in a bag?

So, now that we all know my coleslaw baggage: I made coleslaw last weekend. The recipe for pork tacos calls for a 16-oz bag of the stuff, and I figured I might as well make it myself, so that I could be sure about the mayonnaise. And here's the thing: it was good! I-wanted-to-munch-on -it good. I-would-offer-to-take-it-to-a-picnic good.

I used the Cooks Illustrated recipe and let the cabbage sit, draining (after having been salted), for the full four hours (they recommend 1-4). It's supposed to leave you with a less watery final product, and I think it did the trick. Here's the liquid that came out of the cabbage as it sat (it gets its orange hue from the shredded carrot that was mixed in with the cabbage):

I used Spectrum canola oil mayonnaise. Last time I faced my fear of mayonnaise (that would be the deviled eggs at Thanksgiving, thank you), I used Spectrum's olive oil mayonnaise, but this time I took a closer look at both labels and discovered that they're both canola oil-based, and the olive oil mayonnaise just has a little olive oil stirred in for flavoring. So, back to canola for me.

Here's the recipe (from Cooks Illustrated - originally published July 1995. I accessed it online):

Creamy Coleslaw

Ingredients
1 pound cabbage (about 1/2 medium head), red or green, shredded fine or chopped (6 cups)
1 large carrot , peeled and grated
2 teaspoons kosher salt , or 1 teaspoon table salt [Carrina's note: I'm pretty sure I used more than this when I salted the cabbage so that it could drain. I didn't have a bowl big enough to toss it around as much as I would have liked, and I wanted to make sure that it all got salted enough to drain. Note that you wash it all off later]
1/2 small onion , minced
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
Ground black pepper

Instructions
1. Toss cabbage and carrots with salt in colander set over medium bowl. Let stand until cabbage wilts, at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

Here are the cabbage and carrot just after I salted them and set them up to wilt:

Aaaaand, four hours later. As you can see, there was a huge reduction in volume.

2. Dump wilted cabbage and carrots into the bowl. Rinse thoroughly in cold water (ice water if serving slaw immediately). Pour vegetables back into colander, pressing, but not squeezing on them to drain. Pat dry with paper towels. (Can be stored in a zipper-lock bag and refrigerated overnight.)
3. Pour cabbage and carrots back again into bowl. Add onions, mayonnaise, and vinegar; toss to coat. Season with pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Coconut Lime Sorbet

I know, I know. The weather in Portland and the Puget Sound has gone to pot, so this tasty little confection won't sound nearly as refreshing as it did when I made it last week. But, you know - file it away for later or something.

This recipe was easy-peasy with an ice cream maker. But even if you don't have an ice cream maker, you could still make a granité by (carefully) pouring the mixture onto a cookie sheet or baking sheet, sticking it in the freezer, and scraping the mixture around every 10/15 minutes or so to prevent it from freezing in a solid sheet. It won't be smooth - but SnoCones aren't smooth, and they're still pretty dang refreshing. Mmm, SnoCones...

So, here's the recipe for the coconut lime sorbet. Mind you, it packs a pretty high-calorie punch because of the cream of coconut (yes, that's right - cream of coconut, not milk - it's the stuff they put in piña coladas). But you only need a little of this stuff, because it punches you in the mouth with sweet and tangy at the same time.

I found the recipe on Epicurious. If I actually persuade anyone reading this post into giving this recipe a shot, and you go to the original link on Epicurious, you'll notice that the reviews are mixed. Most people rave about it, but a few complained that it was horrible and bitter. All I can say is: Read the directions, people (not you - the Epicurious reviewers). It says "Cream of coconut" and even gives you a brand suggestion - Coco Lopez. A quick Google search of Coco Lopez tells you it's the stuff they put in piña coladas - which means you can find it in the mixer aisle. It is not the same as coconut milk - especially not unsweetened coconut milk.

Sorry for the tangent - people just amaze me sometimes. If there are three ingredients - and the first two are water and limes - you'd better make sure you get the third ingredient right. And if you don't, maybe you should take a brief moment to view your methodology with a critical eye, before slamming the recipe.

So, here we go.

Ingredients

• a 15-ounce can cream of coconut (preferably Coco Lopez)
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice [Carrina's note: I needed four limes for this (unfortunately, I purchased 7). They weren't large, but they weren't tiny. Definitely larger than key limes, and with thin skin, which always makes me think they've been allowed to sit and get ripe, creating more juice. I don't know if science backs up that assumption or not, though]

In a bowl whisk together ingredients. Freeze mixture in an ice-cream maker. Transfer sorbet to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

Done and done! So easy. And awfully creamy for a product that doesn't contain dairy.

(Fresh) Pea and Ham Soup

It sounds like regular (delicious) old split pea soup with a ham hock or bone thrown in, but actually, it was a little lighter than that. I got it from a new cookbook I picked up off the clearance cart outside St. Johns Booksellers while I was waiting for the bus this morning. It's called Seasonal Food, by Susannah Blake. It progresses through the four seasons based upon what's growing during that time of year. This soup was filed under "summer," and I know we're not actually there yet, but - close enough.

The recipe calls for prosciutto, but I don't really go for that prosciutto/pancetta stuff unless the recipe screams Italian and/or I'm feeling flush. We had a little leftover "root beer-ginger ham" (in quotation marks because I have no idea how those ingredients were incorporated into the ham, but it does seem to have a little "bite," much as Barq's does) from Sheridan. So I used that instead.

I also used chicken broth instead of vegetable stock. I just don't really like vegetable stock or broth much.

The recipe calls for creme fraiche (you can add the accent grave and hat yourself) or sour cream. Needless to say, I used sour cream.

So, here's the recipe:

Summer Pea and Ham Soup
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 T olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 18 oz shelled fresh or frozen peas (about 4 cups) [I used mostly frozen, but a handful of fresh thrown in as well as for garnish]
• 4 3/4 cup vegetable stock [or chicken]
• 6 T. creme fraiche or sour cream
• handful of fresh mint, chopped, plus extra for garnishing
• salt and pepper
• 4 slices prosciutto, cut into bite-sized pieces [or your cured-tasting pork product of choice]

Heat the oil in a large pot, add the onions, and fry gently for about 5 minutes, until soft. Add the peas and stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let simmer gently for about 5 minutes.

Let the pea, onion, and stock mixture cool slightly, then pour into a blender or food processor [or by all means use an immersion/stick blender, if you have one] and blend until smooth. Stir [more like "whisk," if you're using sour cream, at least] in the creme fraiche or sour cream and chopped mint and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Heat through, then ladle into four warm serving bowls. Sprinkle the ham and the fresh mint garnish over it, and serve.

Of course, you can't see the ham because it sank.

The most labor-intensive part was chopping the onion. On a ridiculously humid day like today, I can live with that.

Ribollita with Rosemary Croutons

Here's another oldie. We made this a couple of months ago. Ah, well.



My coworker brings me her old "FoodDay" inserts from The Oregonian when she's done with them, and that's where I found this recipe. It's actually a quartet of recipes: the end product is the ribollita (and no, I had no idea what a ribollita was before I made it), but you also get "Tuscan White Beans," "Spicy Garlic and Herb Oil," and "Rosemary Croutons" out of this article. I didn't make the oil - I like regular old extra-virgin just fine and didn't have the counter space.

The Matthew Card article (link above) describes ribollita as "a rib-sticking minestra, or thick stew, of white beans, vegetables, hearty kale and stale bread flavored with great lashings of garlic, pancetta and fruity olive oil." Hmmm... you had me at "stew." And then again at "kale." And a third time at "great lashings of garlic." Basically, I'm a sucker for everything in this dish.



Here's the recipe for the Tuscan White Beans. Of course, you could also just use white beans, but they were really flavorful made this way.

Ingredients
2 to 3 ounces pancetta, minced [I just used two strips of bacon from the freezer. Tasted great]
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium red onion, diced fine
1 large carrot, diced fine
½ large fennel bulb, cored and diced fine, or 1 stalk celery, diced fine [I used celery. As much as I want to, I just don't like the taste of fresh fennel].
Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
Pinch fennel seeds
Salt
1 pound Great Northern beans, sorted and soaked in water overnight
1 head garlic, top ⅛ cut off to expose cloves
1 bay leaf
6 cups chicken broth and/or water
Granulated sugar (if necessary)
Garnishes
Extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt
Grated Vella Monterey jack or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese[Carrina's note: or Parmesan from the green can]

Instructions
Combine pancetta and olive oil in a large Dutch oven set over medium-high heat and cook until pancetta has rendered its fat, 3 to 5 minutes. Add onion, carrot, fennel or celery, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds and large pinch salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown and sticking to bottom of pot, 12 to 15 minutes. Stir in beans, garlic head, bay leaf, and broth and/or water; bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, until beans are soft and tender (adding additional liquid as necessary to cover), 1½ to 2 hours.



Remove garlic and bay leaf from pot. Discard bay leaf. When cool enough to handle, squeeze garlic cloves from papery skins, mash to paste with back of knife, and stir into beans. Adjust seasoning to taste with salt and a pinch of sugar, if needed. Serve with desired garnishes.

And now come the rosemary croutons:
Ingredients
Half to three-quarters of a stale baguette or rustic loaf, cut into ¾-inch cubes (3 to 5 cups)
3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 sprig rosemary or sage
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Place bread in large bowl and toss cubes with enough water to make bread soft, moist and pliable, but not crumbly. Squeeze bread and drain excess water from bowl.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until just shimmering. Reduce temperature to medium, add bread and rosemary sprig,

and cook, stirring infrequently, until bread cubes are lightly browned, 7 to 10 minutes (you may need to use spatula to scrape any stuck-on bits of bread free). Remove rosemary and season bread generously with salt and pepper.

And now, the ribollita!
Ingredients
Salt
1 large bunch lacinato kale, stemmed, rinsed and chopped coarsely
½ to ¾ cup diced canned tomatoes, drained
4 to 6 cups Tuscan White Beans (see accompanying recipe)
3 or more cups Rosemary Croutons (see accompanying recipe)
Garnishes
Spicy Garlic and Herb Oil (see accompanying recipe) or extra-virgin olive oil
Lemon wedges
Coarse salt
Crushed red pepper flakes
Grated dry Vella Monterey jack or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Instructions
Bring large pot of water to boil over high heat and season liberally with salt.

Add kale and cook until tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Drain and cool under running water. Squeeze dry and chop coarsely.
Heat tomatoes and beans in Dutch oven set over medium heat to slow simmer (add splash of broth or water if necessary to loosen consistency). Stir in greens and croutons to combine. Divide equally among bowls and drizzle liberally with olive oil or Spicy Garlic and Herb Oil, and serve with other desired garnishes.