(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.

Noodle Bowl #4 - brown sugar-roasted green beans and celery

I don't feel like I've been in the kitchen any less than usual, but it seems like every time I reach for the camera to record the haps, it's either out of juice or MIA. Nevertheless, I've accumulated some acceptable pictures over month since my last posting, so here's my plan for hopping back on the weblog-wagon: immediately post 4 or 5 things that I made back in April, then rest on my laurels for another week until I feel like posting again (unless my camera is magically within reach and charged when I make this rhubarb chutney tomorrow - mmm... so good on lamb!)

So, here's another episode of "Pimp My Ramen" (hey, I kind of like that...). This time around, I had some old leathery green beans and just a teensy bit of baby celery, from the very inside of the group of stalks.

I smashed the heck out of some ginger, as is my routine... (mainly sharing this picture because my Ikea meat mallet looks like something out of one of my husband's role-playing games):

I tossed the celery and green beans in some vegetable oil, brown sugar, salt, and five-spice powder... (green beans not shown here)

...and roasted them at 450 for a few minutes - until I could tell that they'd been roasted, but they weren't blackened or anything.

...Stuck them in with the already-simmering water/chicken broth combo (the smashed garlic, ginger, and a star anise have already made it into the broth at this point as well)

...And from here, it's just a matter of following the instructions of Maruchan or Top Ramen, depending on who was on sale last time I stocked up: Boil noodles for three minutes, and serve!

No, we don't actually eat on the windowsill. It's just the only place in the apartment with good light.

Noodle Bowl #3 - Mustard Greens

Can I just say that I don't think I'll ever get sick of noodle bowls? They're the only thing I'm in the mood for on Saturday afternoons, and this week I realized that they also have the side benefit of helping me use up unruly produce that is just threatening to get slimey before I get to it.

That said, I don't really expect anyone else to share my interest in the whole thing. But since I've started taking pictures of them, I think I'll just keep doing it. I'll try to title the posts appropriately, so that anyone reading knows it's not an actual recipe.

I had some turkey lemongrass broth, left over from this recipe, sitting in my freezer for the last 4 months. Honestly, I had forgotten to label it and so wasn't sure if it was chicken broth, or turkey lemongrass. When its thawed scent revealed it to be the latter, I used it for a noodle bowl. Yay!

I used:
-2 cups broth
-1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder
-dash soy sauce
-a few drops Sriracha or some other spicy ingredient
-a few drops dark sesame oil
-1 carrot, peeled and sliced thin diagonally
-about 2 cups chopped mustard greens
-1 green onion, chopped
-1 wedge lime, squeezed (or dash seasoned rice vinegar)

Instructions:
Bring broth to a boil. Add five-spice powder, sesame oil, Sriracha, soy sauce, and carrots, and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Return to a non-spilling-over boil, and ramen, and cook for two minutes. Stir in mustard greens and cook for another minute or until wilted. Pour into deep bowl. Squeeze lime into bowl (or splash with rice vinegar). Sprinkle with green onion.

and winning the least-photogenic award: Cabbage-Potato Soup with Bacon, Beer, Smoked Ham, and Cheddar (16-hour part optional)

I've made this soup a few times, and cooked some up again last week. I'm going to say this right off: this most recent batch did not live up to my standards. I have an explanation, though: I started making it at 3 in the afternoon on Saturday, but still thought I would try cooking it in the crock pot on low. I knew it wouldn't be done in time for dinner, but I figured I'd cool it down and put it in the fridge just before bed, for us to have the next day (and the next, and the next... this recipe makes a lot!) I also hedged my bets and put the chopped potato hunks into the crock pot completely raw. I just really, really didn't feel like boiling water, and told myself that, given enough time, the potatoes would have to soften. Right? Well, NO. At 10pm they were a nice tan color to match the rest of the soup, but were just as tough as when I'd thrown them in. And - the real test - I left the crock pot on low OVERNIGHT - so, for sixteen hours - and the potatoes still might as well have been raw. They would have been okay for a stew intended to be eaten with a knife and fork, but they just didn't cut it for a soup that relies on crumbly baking potatoes to give it a creamy texture.

So, lesson learned, I've been bringing each batch to an almost-boil and letting the potatoes break down for twenty minutes. Then, I whisk in the cheese right before serving. But the instructions I will be providing below are for the non-crock pot version of the recipe. If you use a crock pot, boil the potatoes and cabbage together in water, then drain and add to the crock pot with the other ingredients. Yeah... I think that'll work. And be prepared for your house to smell like CABBAGE!

Note: I end up using two large pots for this recipe - one to boil the potatoes and cabbage, and one to saute the vegetables, to which the rest of the soup is eventually added. If you want, you can use a large skillet for the vegetables and then transfer everything to the pot with the potatoes and cabbage. Just be sure to add some liquid to the vegetables and bubble away any brownness on the vegetable skillet, so you don't lose any flavor.


• 1/2 of medium or 1 entire small head cabbage, chopped into two-inchish ribbons
• 1 smoked ham hock
• 6 oz light-colored beer (I used an entire bottle this last time around and the soup turned out too sweet, so I'm turning it into a teaching moment: easy on the beer)
• 2 strips bacon (optional, but yummy for flavor). If not using bacon, you'll need a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1.5 large onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar (smoked if you can find it!)
• About 48 oz chicken broth
• About 48 oz water
• 3 small baking potatoes

Instructions:

1. Bring the chicken broth and water to a boil with the potatoes in a large pot. Once it comes to a boil, stir in the cabbage and turn down heat to a healthy simmer. Simmer for 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are softened enough to use for mashed potatoes. MEANWHILE...

2. Heat a dutch oven or other big pot (big enough to hold 102 oz of liquid plus all of the solid ingredients in this recipe...) to medium-high heat and fry the bacon. Lower burner to medium; remove dutch oven from heat. Remove the bacon and chop it up. Return the dutch oven to the burner and return the bacon to the dutch oven (which should still be coated with the bacon fat) along with the carrot, celery, and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 8 minutes. Add minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove dutch oven from heat until the potatoes and cabbage are softened.

3. Add the potatoes, cabbage, and their cooking liquid to the dutch oven. Add the smoked ham hock and the beer. Bring to a boil. Turn heat down to a low simmer. Simmer, uncovered, for 2-2.5 hours or until the potatoes are completely tender and/or disintegrated into the soup, and the ham hock is falling apart.

4. Remove the ham hock, shred, and return the meaty pieces to the soup. Whisk the shredded cheddar into the soup, stirring constantly until way after you think it's all melted. Otherwise, you will end up with fatty cheddar globules.

5. Serve! Your soup will not look as brown as mine did (below), unless you go the insane and regrettable 16-hour crock pot route.

I found some butterleaf lettuce on sale at the Sheridan Fruit Company, so we had a salad with minneola and that chipotle-honey glaze I used on that jicama salad with the soba noodles a couple of weeks back.
Here's what the soup looks like once the potatoes and cheese are properly distributed into the broth:

Udon Noodles with Soy-Caramelized Shallots and Baby Bok Choy

Okay, I'm mainly posting this because I will never get my fill of pictures of noodles swimming in broth.

I was super hungry on Saturday and had a baby bok choy that had been sitting in the fridge for a week. I had planned to split it between Mike and me at some point during the week, but it kept getting pushed to the back of the fridge. So, I prepared it pretty much the way I did in an earlier post with the Coke-and-lime chicken: seared it on both sides in peanut oil, removed the bok choy and cooked the remaining oil, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, chopped shallot, and a few drops of sesame oil into a glaze, then turned the glaze onto the bok choy. I simmered some udon noodles in chicken broth, water, and some five-spice powder, then dumped the bok choy into the noodles and broth and added a little lime juice. Yum! I will eat udon noodles completely plain, but it's a bonus when they come swathed in something interesting.

Economical Swedish Furniture Makes Me Ravenous

... so I was ready to eat when I got back from Ikea at CascadeStation (ha! A mall that thinks it's an insurance company, by the sound of its name) this afternoon. When I drive back from the airport on Sandy, I go past soooo many intriguing noodle places - Ohana, Got Pho?, Thai Lao Bistro, Pho Gia - and those are just the ones I can think of right now. There are literally at least five more, and those are just the signs in English. I really, reeeeally wanted noodles - but I really didn't want to stop or spend money. So, I dressed up some Top Ramen! I brought water to a boil with a few tablespoons of leftover chicken broth, part of the spice package, and half of a leftover carrot, quartered. Once it got to a boil, I added the noodles, a handful of frozen corn (whew! Finally used up the last of the bag), a clove, and some Five-Spice powder (cinnamon, anise, fennel, ginger, clove, and licorice root. Hey, wait... Sun Luck, are you sure you want to call it Five-Spice - yes? Well, okay...). I have no idea if four minutes of simmering was enough for the whole clove to make any contribution, but the five-spice powder certainly did its share!

Once the carrots were soft enough to stick a fork through, I put it all in a bowl, added a dash of rice vinegar, a dash of soy sauce, and a couple of drops of toasted sesame oil, and some sesame seeds on top just for sass. And it was great, and psychologically so much more filling than a regular bowl of ramen!

My cheap and oh-so-good noodle bowl got me thinking. A couple of years ago, I discovered the USDA's online recipe-finder tool (http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/). It features a sizeable database of easy, generally healthy, and very economical recipes. Each recipe has been analyzed for cost and nutritional content. Many of the recipes are submitted by nutritionists who are trying to get people to eat healthily while using food stamps. This makes it a great place to go to find basic, bare-bones recipes that cost between 30 and 90 cents a person (some more). Then, if you decide that you want to splurge on kale or use leftover green onions, you can do that - but in most cases, you don't have to go out and buy something crazy just because it holds the recipe together. And, the database is incredibly searchable, since it's partly intended for social workers to use to get their nutrition messages across.

Here are just a few of the many ways you can search:

-Nutrition Education Topic (Calcium-Rich Food; Whole Grains; Less Saturated Fat, Trans Fat and Cholestorol)

-Theme (Ready in 30 Minutes Or Less, Food Resource Management)

-Menu Items (self-explanatory)

-Ingredients

-Ratings

-Audience (Parents of young children, Middle Eastern, Southern, Vegetarian)

-Cooking Equipment (Microwave, Wok, No Cooking Required, Stovetop/Hot Plate)

-Aaand: recipe cost! Yes, you can actually specify that your search results cost less than a certain amount per serving and/or recipe.

There are even official-looking Nutrition Facts with each recipe, as well as a shopping list feature (you can browse through recipes, click "Add to shopping list" when one looks good, and then view your list to see what you'll need).

In honor of our crappy economy, I've decided to start using this website a lot more. It's such a great tool! In fact, I may try to cook things from it every day this week. I'll let you know how they turn out.
So, tonight we're having Spaghetti With Lentils, which is kind of cheating because it's the first recipe I ever used off of this site when I first discovered it.

Pho, Interrupted

Disclaimer: This isn't really pho. I'm sure a closer title would be "Soup which superficially resembles pho, but whose broth was concocted in an inauthentic manner." But whatever it is, I love it almost as much as I love the bowl I get down the street at Pho Gia! So, I just wanted to get that off my chest: this broth has no beef knuckles or anything of the kind. It's just an approximation.

Aaaaanyway, I bought a knob of fresh turmeric the other day (grown organically in Hawaii! Who knew?) and was itching to use it in something. I don't think I've ever seen turmeric in its non-yellow-powder form before! Looked like ginger except for the whole orange factor. This picture doesn't really do it justice.

I've made my Splendid Table-inspired pho-proximation several times. The broth contains a bunch of broiled ginger. I figured I would use a little less ginger than usual, and add in some turmeric. The turmeric gave the broth a beautiful color!

The bad news: All of my pictures are showing up tiny, even though I select "Large"! What gives??

Here's the recipe:

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup With Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho)

From The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper

Cheater's Asian Broth (this name comes from the cookbook! not me)

-1 medium onion, thin sliced

-4 large garlic cloves, thin sliced

-One 2- to 3-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thin sliced

-6 whole cloves

-1 whole star anise, bruised; or 1/2 teaspoon anise seeds

-Fresh-ground black pepper

-Four 14-ounce cans chicken broth

-2 tablespoons sugar

-2 teaspoons Asian fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc nam)

Soup

-6 to 8 ounces linguine-style rice noodles

-6 to 8 ounces top round steak (chicken breast can be substituted), sliced extremely thin

Table Salad

-10 sprigs fresh coriander (okay, where I come from this is cilantro, and the Splendid Table isn't British so I'm not sure who they're trying to impress...)

-6 to 8 sprigs Thai or other fresh basil

-2 serrano chiles or jalape*os, thin sliced

-Generous handful bean sprouts

-1 large lime, cut into wedges

Sauces (I've never used these and haven't particularly missed them)

Hoisin sauce

Hot sauce

1. Position an oven rack 4 to 6 inches from the broiler, and preheat. Double a very large piece of heavy foil. Scatter the onion, garlic, ginger, cloves, anise, and 5 grinds of pepper on the foil.

Broil for 5 minutes, turning the pieces once. You want the onion to have some toasted edges, and the spices should be fragrant. Scrape everything into a 6-quart pot. Be sure to get all the anise seed if that's what you used.

2. Add the broth, sugar, and fish sauce, and bring to a gentle bubble. Cover tightly, and simmer for 20 minutes. [Carrina's note: stop right here! Every single time I make this broth, I end up simmering for closer to 40 minutes, because I forget to start soaking the rice noodles until the broth is done. Consequently, the broth always ends up being a little too, ahem, pungent. 20 minutes really is plenty of time for this method. Just sayin'. Now could you please tell my future self this, so she remembers the next time she makes this broth?]

3. Meanwhile, put the rice noodles in a large bowl, and cover them with very hot tap water [Carrina's note: hot tap water just did not cut it when I made this at my mom's house. We ended up just having to boil water at the last minute. I've started using almost-boiling water from a teapot instead, and it works much better. And yes, cover it!]. Soak the noodles for 10 to 15 minutes, or until they are tender but with a little more firmness than you want. Stir a few times. When they are ready, drain and rinse well with cold water. Divide the noodles between two large soup bowls.

4. While the broth is simmering and the noodles are soaking, arrange the table salad on a platter and set out the sauces.

[Carrina's note: also slice the meat at this point, if you have time! I used top round steak that had been frozen solid for a month, then thawed in the fridge for five minutes. It was like I was shaving the meat! I used my super-sharp, fairly new chef's knife, or this method probably wouldn't have worked.]

5. To serve, divide the beef between the soup bowls. Ladle the bubbling broth into the bowls [check out the beautiful yellow color the turmeric gave to the onions!]

Top each serving with selections from the table salad.