Thanks, Daily Soup

Tonight I made Daily Soup's winter minestrone for Bill, Bug, and the Foxes. I'd never had minestrone, let alone realized how easy it is to make. When I first saw the recipe called for cabbage and butternut squash, I couldn't imagine how the soup would taste, but after mixing everything together and adding the homemade pesto (Who knew this was incredibly easy to make, too?), the strong taste of pesto, garlic, and thyme was shining through. I probably could have eaten several bowls of this, but I held off.

While I don't own the Daily Soup cookbook, I really should. It's a winter staple for soup making with friends. While some recipes may seem complicated, the pay off of a good, solid soup is worth the time and effort of using a lot of ingredients. Go here to buy the cook book.

Here is the recipe for the winter minestrone:

Ingredients
2 Tbs olive oil
1 large Spanish onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 head cabbage, preferably Savoy, chopped
2 tsp dried thyme leaves
1 bunch fresh basil stems (leaves removed), tied together with string
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
8 cups basic vegetable stock
1 butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
4 red potatoes, cut into 1inch cubes
3 Tbs tomato paste
1 (3-inch) piece Parmesan cheese rind
2 cups uncooked spinach radiatore pasta, or any spiral pasta
1 cup prepared basil pesto*
1/2 cup chopped scallions

Directions
Heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sweat for 4 minutes, until tender.

Add the cabbage and sweat for 4 minutes, until wilted.

Add the thyme, basil stems, salt, and pepper and stir to coat the vegetables. Add the stock, squash, potatoes, tomato paste, and Parmesan rind and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, partially cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the pasta and cook for 10 minutes, until tender.

To serve, remove the basil stems and Parmesan rind, ladle the soup into bowls, and top with a dollop of pesto and the chopped scallions.

*Pesto Recipe

1 1/2 cups packed basil leaves (Use the leaves from the stems you put in the soup.)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
2 cloves garlic
salt to taste
1/2 cup olive oil

Put basil leaves, cheese, pine nuts, garlic, and salt in a blender or food processor and blend until ground. While blending, add the olive oil steadily until the mixture becomes a fine paste.

(Before going to the store to buy ingredients for the soup I suggested buying pesto, but this really is so easy to make that it's just silly to not make homemade pesto sauce.)

Obsessed

Dear City Gay:

You created a monster when you sent the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Last night was All-American Beef Chili night, which was scrumptious. I didn't let it simmer for as long as I should have because it was getting late and those helping to eat the chili would have killed me if I had said, "We just have another 45 minutes." However, the chili was fantastic and packed a nice punch with 1/4 cup of chili powder.

We should start investigating fun places to eat for our spring Not Quite the Gayest Trip Ever In a Fairly Non-Gay Place.

Love you long time.

Country Gay

O.M.G. Stew

Dear City Gay:

It's cold in the country, and a nice, homey remedy is a hearty beef stew. As I perused the America's Test Kitchen cookbook, the beef stew stuck out. One of the reasons, beyond its savory appeal, was the picture. The earthy look of the beef, potatoes, carrots, and peas seemed to jump off the page. While I wouldn't normally examine a close-up of stew, I love the texture of this stew.


Last night, I decided it was beef stew night. Making the beef stew is about a three hour process, but sweet Julia Child, it is worth the wait. The combination of flavors - most notably the sweetness of the red wine and thyme - create a flavor that conjures homestyle Sunday dinners.

Apparently, the stew gets better after a couple of days, so I'm excited about the possible taste explosion that waits for me tomorrow.

The recipe follows.

Come back to me, City Gay. I'm missing you something fierce.

Loves,
Country Gay


Beef Stew
Serves: 6 to 8
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 3 hours (includes 2 hours simmering time)

Ingredients:
1 (3-pound) boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes (I bought the stew meat already cut up even though the cookbook advised against it)
salt and pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 onions, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup dry red wine
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 pounds red potatoes (5 medium), scrubbed and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
4 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
1 cup frozen peas

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 300 degrees. Dry the beef with paper towels, then season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Brown half the meat, about 10 minutes, then transfer to a plate. Return the pot to medium-high heat and repeat with 1 more tablespoon of the oil and the remaining beef.

2. Add the remaining tablespoon oil to the empty pot and return to medium heat until shimmering. Add the onions and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly stir in the wine, scraping up any browned bits. Stir in the broth, thyme, bay leaves, and browned beef along with any accumulated juices. Bring to a simmer, cover, and transfer the pot to the oven. Cook for 1 hour.

3. Stir in the potatoes and carrots. Cover and continue to cook in the oven until the beef is tender, about 1 hour.

4. Remove the pot from the oven and discard the bay leaves. Stir in the peas and let stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Catchy Food Title

I think Disneyland wore out the gay owners of this blog. I seriously don't think I've cooked one thing since I returned, but I've been eating a lot of yogurt and drinking coffee in the morning. The country finally has a standalone Starbucks with a drive-thru, which means I've become their number one fan.

I did make taco soup tonight, which was filling. I also have enough to last through the winter.

I believe City Gay and I could be starting a weekly cheese feature. For me to participate, I would have to actually by an interesting cheese. While the smoked cheddar I bought the other day is delightful, there really isn't anything special about it. Look for something cheesy in the future though.

A meal in three courses

The wine has worn off, so I think I can give a fuller review of my meal last night. The meal was originally supposed to be a Frenchie affair with a viewing of Jean de Florette, but it ended up just being a dinner and conversation kind of evening, which, peut-etre, was even better. The meal is best described broken down into the three courses, and all recipes come from Vincent Price's A Treasury of Great Recipes.

Course One - soupe a l'oignon
When I was first introduced to the menu for the evening and saw onion soup, I immediately flashed to the beefy, oniony, cheesy soup I had one evening in Paris. I absolutely adore onion soup, but I do find it difficult to eat sometimes because of the amount of cheese and onions found in just one small bowl. How interesting, then, to notice this onion soup wouldn't look anything like the typical onion soup.

There are a variety of steps to the soup, but it really wasn't too complicated. The recipe (magically found online) follows at the end of the post. We didn't follow the last steps exactly as written. Instead, we simply put a piece of French bread in a bowl, sprinkled parmesan cheese over it, and then added the soup. We could have done some broiling, but we opted to skip it.

Course Two - apple and truffle salad
While the soup was cooking, we made a simple salad that tasted much better than I anticipated. The salad is supposed to be made up of apples and truffles, but it's hard to find truffles in the country, so we used some kind of mushroom that was reddish and natural looking. I have no idea what kind of shroom it was, but it added the necessary earthy flavor to the salad. The salad basically contains: four apples peeled, cored, and diced; some mushrooms; chopped hearts of romaine. These ingredients are tossed together with salt and pepper and the juice of half of a lemon. The dressing is made up of cream and sour cream, but I have no idea how much of each. This is mixed and then tossed with the salad. Add salt and pepper to taste.

We paused to have these two parts of the meal before making the main course. (However, there were parts of the main course recipe we did in conjunction with the onion soup because we had to make an onion paste.) The soup was oniony but had a peppery garlic kick to it that helped tone down the onion. The parmesan and bread also help temper the onion. The beef broth of a typical French onion soup was certainly lacking but not necessarily missed. The salad was surprising. The sour cream dressing added some tang, the apples added tartness, the mushrooms added hardiness, and the lemon added some sourness. The combination of flavors basically made for a refreshing follow up to the onion soup.

Course Three - noisettes de something
I'm going to have to be fairly vague about some of the parts of the main course. The basic ingredient was lamb chops (boned with the fat trimmed). Side note: there was much giggling over the idea of boning the lamb. While the onion soup was cooking, two large, diced onions were put into a pot of simmering water. I don't know if anything was added to this because I was too busy boning the lamb chops. Also simmering on the back of the stove were the bottoms of artichokes. I had no idea these even existed, but they can be found in the canned food aisle at the grocery store.

The most time consuming part of this recipe is creating an onion sauce/paste that resembles mashed potatoes. While the onions were simmering, we made a bechamel sauce, which is basically a white sauce. A blender was used, egg yolks figured in somewhere, and then part of the bechamel sauce was combined with the drained onions and blended again. This was set aside to cook the lamb.

I had never cooked lamb before, and it's rare that I actually eat it. We fried the lamb in butter for about three minutes on each side then removed to a plate. The next step was to make a Madeira sauce, so we added port and a touch of butter to the pan we fried the lamb in and simmered and stirred until the sauce had reduced by half.

It was then time to put it all together. The final step is to layer ingredients and broil for a few minutes. We placed some of the onion sauce on one of the artichoke bottoms, then stacked lamb on the sauce, and finally topped the lamb with a little more sauce. This was a little challenging since the artichoke bottoms kept sliding around. At this point I was still slightly wary of the artichoke bottoms since I'm not a huge fan of artichokes. The pan went under the broiler for a few minutes or until the top sauce was slightly browned. To serve, we put each collection o' lamb on a plate and put a bit of Madeira sauce over the top.

The best part came next. With a slightly chilled chardonnay, we began the main course. There was a moment of silence followed by a round of "Ummmm, oh my God." The slight sauce on the lamb added sweetness to the distinct lamb taste, which was an amazing complement to the artichoke and onion flavors. Everything just melted in our mouths. I thought the petit serving wouldn't be enough, but it actually ended up being the perfect amount. We were satisfied but not overly stuffed.

What was so lovely about this meal was the time it took to make it all. We started at about 3:30 and were eating the main course at around 6:30. Delightful conversation peppered the time spent prepping or enjoying the early courses. Because the courses were slightly spread out, there was time to digest and enjoy and imbibe. So often I am looking for a quick meal because I don't have time to cook, but this was a prime example of what amazing food can be made by setting aside the time to make something.

***
Vincent Price's Soupe a l'oignon
1 hour 15 min prep
Ingredients:

Change to: servings US Metric

3	tablespoons bacon drippings (you can substitute butter, if you have no drippings)
4	large onions, chopped fine
2	tablespoons flour
1/2	teaspoon salt
1/8	teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1	clove garlic, smashed
1	sprig parsley
1	pinch thyme
1	quart chicken stock
1	cup dry white wine
1	tablespoon cognac
6	slices toasted French bread
	olive oil
1	cup grated parmesan cheese, divided, for garnish (or more, to taste or according to recipe see below)

Preparation:

1. (Also needed: 6 oven-proof soup bowls.).
2. Over medium temperature, heat a deep skillet with the bacon drippings or butter.
3. Add the chopped onions and sauté until just soft.
4. Add the flour, salt, pepper, and garlic and cook until it is golden brown (careful not to burn).
5. Add the parsley sprig, thyme, chicken stock, wine, and simmer for 45 minutes, then remove from heat and add the Cognac.
6. To serve: divide the servings between the six oven-proof bowls, placing the bowls on a baking sheet, with 1 slice of toasted French bread in each bowl.
7. To make it Soupe à L'Oignon Gratinée: preheat your oven's broiler setting; you're going to make three layers of thinly sliced bread and Parmesan cheese in the bowl, pouring soup into the bowls, topping each layer with Parmesan and a little melted butter, then placing the bowls on a baking sheet under the broiler until the cheese melts and forms a golden brown crust.

I love Vincent Price

I just got home from a small dinner party I helped with, and while I have drunk too much to put together a clear picture of the menu, I will say it was one of the best meals I've had... hands down. The recipes came from a 1965 cookbook Vincent Price put together with his wife. I'll give more details later, but the basic meal consisted of onion soup, an apple and mushroom salad, and lamb chops with an onion sauce and port gravy on an artichoke bottom. As the food was being made I really didn't think it would taste as good as it did, but everything literally melted in my mouth.

Plus, I helped polish off three bottles of wine, which complemented the meal nicely.

More to come when my fingers aren't numb.