Category: Misc

Yesterday I made Carrot Soup with Ginger, from Wednesday’s soup recipe article by Joan Obra. It was delicious and simple; about 1 1/2 hours from start to finish, but each step was easy. You can start the onions and work on the carrots and ginger while they’re cooking, then start your water for the chicken broth when you toss in the carrots and ginger.

CREAM OF CARROT WITH GINGER SOUP
Makes 6 servings
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 pounds young carrots, peeled and sliced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
6 cups hot chicken broth
1 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
3 teaspoons salt or more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
For the garnishes:
Croutons fried in butter (see note)
Chopped cilantro leaves
In a pot, melt the butter over low heat, then add the onions and cook, stirring, until slightly softened, about 15 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-low, then add the carrots and ginger and cook, stirring frequently, until the carrots are softer, about 20 minutes.
Add the chicken broth to the pot, bring to a boil over medium heat, then cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. Remove the soup from the heat and add the milk. Transfer to a blender and blend, in batches if necessary, until it forms a puree. Return the soup to the pot, add the half-and-half, season with the salt and pepper, and cook until very hot without letting it come to a boil. Serve hot with one of the garnishes.
Note: Cover the bottom of a large skillet with 1/16 inch of olive oil. Heat the oil over medium heat for a few minutes, then add French bread cut into 3/4-inch cubes. Cook, stirring or tossing frequently, until the cubes of bread are golden brown, 5-7 minutes. Remove from the skillet and set aside. Optionally, you can add a crushed garlic clove to the heating oil and then remove and discard it before you add the bread.
-“The Best Soups in the World,” by Clifford A. Wright (John Wiley & Sons, $22.95)

I remember reading this a while back, but after discussing this with Jennifer this morning, I may move to incorporate a few of these into our routine.

From Your Morning Pizza

Uncovering this little-known fact has made the savory, grain-based breakfast a matter of routine for me. I do polenta with butter and Parmesan; steel-cut oats with peanut butter (sometimes with hot sauce); and, a recent favorite, brown rice with dried mushrooms and dried tomatoes.

In addition to the polenta “pizza,” and the wheat berry-soy-scallions bowl, which I eat in one variation or another at least once a week, you might consider this coconut oat pilaf, a spicy, aromatic dish that will change the way you think about oatmeal. As for the wild rice and quinoa dish, a kind of stuffing for breakfast, this — like the traditional post-Thanksgiving meal — is a perfect place for leftovers. As is breakfast in general.

We’ll probably start by trying the polenta as an experiment, and see where it goes. Who doesn’t want a few more options at breakfast?

Last night was my last chance to make a big batch of cookies before my early Christmas with Eric and family, so I seized it. I’m proud of my sequencing– though I should have taken pictures, I’ll add some in later.

I began by mixing up the snickerdoodle dough, because it has to be chilled before use. By making it first (and baking it last), I was able to make the cookies with thoroughly chilled dough, which made rolling them in the bowl with cinnamon and sugar quick and easy. (BTW, that’s my reminder for next year: bowl, not plastic bag. You can roll it easily and don’t have it stick to the bag.)

Once I made up the snickerdoodle dough, I kicked it into a container and tossed it in the freezer, scraped the bowl and used again it for the Toffee Bars. It’s a real simple toss everything in one bowl and mix recipe– so I did so. Then it goes in a pan in the over for 15 minutes. When you pull it out, toss chocolate chips on it and cover with baking sheets to keep the heat in, melting the chocolate chips and making it easy to spread. (Note: the 1/2 cup the recipe calls for is too little chocolate to cover the whole pan, particularly in the 10×15. 1 cup works much better.) Last night, the chocolate spread fine but didn’t cover everything, so I tossed it back in the over for two minutes with more chocolate chips, then smeared them throughout for a nice consistency. (The one drawback was that I’d already added the nuts, so the second spreading of chocolate spread over/through them, and it may clump.)

While the Toffee Bars were baking, I mixed up the persimmon cookies. I didn’t soften the margarine, which made the creaming take a little longer, but it eventually worked out. The 1 cup of persimmon pulp is almost exactly one persimmon’s worth, which is easy and convenient. [Also: Persimmons are peeled– I don’t have a note for that in the recipe, and probably should.] The first batch was made with rounded teaspoons full of dough– the result was small, resulting in persimmon bites. The remaining two batches I kicked up to very rounded 1/2 tablespoon– probably 1 tablespoon leveled.

When the second two dozen persimmons came out of the oven, I got the snickerdoodle dough out of the freezer and made my first two dozen slightly rounded 1/2 tablespoon balls. I popped them dough back in the freezer between batches. When they came out of the oven, the cookies went straight to a rack, I grabbed the next dough container from the freezer and made the next 2 dozen balls. When the new batch came out, I moved the racked cookies to a big ziplock, the sheet cookies to the rack, and made the next batch. At 1/2 tablespoon cookies, I made 8 dozen snickerdoodles.)

[Now with pictures below the fold.]