The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Curry Ginger Carrot Bisque

   

I've got a cold...congestion, aches, bit of a sore throat...nothing fancy, just feeling kind of lousy.  Yesterday, thinking about what to make for dinner, I nixed the idea of something like pasta and homemade sauce in favor of something a bit more soothing.  Soup.

You know how it is when you aren't feeling well.  You just want to feel better.  And in the meantime, you want to feel...nurtured.  Wrapped up in a blanket.  Cozy.  Cared for.

So then it was on to what kind of soup I should make.  I thought about miso soup with little cubes of tofu...or chicken noodle (no chicken on hand, though, so never mind that)...some sort of bean soup...butternut squash....

I settled on carrot.  I'd bought a big bag of carrots to make my nephew's birthday cake a couple of weeks ago, and I still had a ton left.  They're big carrots. 

So, okay, I'd make some sort of carrot soup.  What else would I put in there?  Besides the obvious - onion, celery...a little butter...garlic? yeah, garlic is good for you...what else...carrots are sweet...what would work with that...maybe some ginger?  yes, ginger and carrots...nice balance there...but it still needed something more...what else would go nicely with that...sweet and kind of sharp/spicy...ooh - curry kinds of flavors...cumin and coriander!  Yesssssss, that should do nicely.  I had some chicken stock in the fridge, too.  Perfect.

So here's what I came up with:

1/4 stick of butter (you could use less)

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

a 1" knob (approx) of fresh ginger, grated

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1  1/2 lbs carrots, peeled and chopped to coins about 1/2 inch thick or so

3  1/4 cups chicken stock (that's what I had)

3/4 cup white wine

salt to taste

Got that?  Okay.

Melt the butter in a large pot, then add the onion and celery and cook, stirring, about 5 minutes or so until the onion and celery soften.

Add the garlic and ginger, saute a minute or so, then add in the coriander and cumin.  Stir around for another minute.

Add everything else - the carrots, wine, and chicken stock.

Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then drop to a simmer and cook until the carrots are soft - about 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of your carrots.

Once the carrots are soft, puree the mixture (I started out using an immersion blender but ended up putting everything in my food processor) until smooth.  Taste, and add salt if you want to.

I think I should have cooked mine a bit longer.  The carrots could have been a bit softer, and I think my final product would have been smoother as a result.

But still.  It tasted very good.  The ginger and carrot are a nice combination, and the cumin and coriander provided a mild, warming undercurrent of flavor.

I also made some little rolls to go along with it.  You can see that recipe here.

The verdict?  Bill and I liked it, Julia said she liked it, but I think she was saying that to look good in front of Daddy, because Alex definitely did NOT like it and was quite vocal and dramatic about the whole thing.

Anyway.  If you've got a big bag of carrots in the fridge, some fresh ginger kicking around, and are in need of warmth and comfort, give this little soup a try.  (P.S. - I garnished the soup with a few dried ginger chips.)

If nothing else, it'll be great for your eyesight, right?

Easy Miso Soup - To Soothe Your Soul. And Your Stomach.

Bill has bronchitis and a sinus infection, both of which were accompanied by a bad sore throat for two days.  Ever since I've known him, there have been two things that soothe his throat and make him feel better mentally, if not physically.  One is tea with honey and fresh ginger.  The other is a bowl of miso soup.  And so, when Bill was feeling at his lowest earlier this week, I put together some soup for him. 

The lovely thing about making a miso soup is that all the flavor is right there, waiting for you in the miso paste. 

Miso paste is made from fermented rice, soybeans (and/or barley), salt, and Aspergillus oryzae, which is a fungus or mold used in the fermentation process in Chinese, Japanese and Korean cuisine.  There are a variety of miso pastes available, usually packaged according to color - white, yellow, red and brown are the ones I've seen and used.  For miso soup, we usually use brown, but this week I couldn't get brown at the store I was in, so I used red.

Here are the ingredients:

 

Left to right - about half a package of firm tofu, cubed...4 tablespoons of red miso paste (you can use brown)...3 scallions, chopped. 

The other ingredient, not pictured above, is water.

Pour 4 cups of water into a pan and bring to just under a boil.

 

Yes, me and my pictures of bubbles again. 

 

Aren't they interesting?  Like teeny tiny ball bearings, except they're air bubbles.

 

I almost got out my little close-up lens attachment to see how I'd do with that, but then I remembered...

 

"A watched pot never boils."

So I looked away until I could hear the bubbling begin.

At that point I shut off the heat and stirred in the miso.

Ordinarily I strain the miso by dunking the strainer into the hot water, pressing the paste through with a small rubber spatula.  But this time when I started to do that, the mesh broke and lumps of miso paste dropped into the water.  Ah well.  So I just dumped the rest in and whisked it until the paste had dissolved.  

It's not really necessary to strain the miso paste - all you're removing are the husks and small solid bits of the rice and soybeans and/or other solid ingredients from the fermentation process.  All are edible, so if you don't mind them, you can leave them in.

Once there are no more lumps of miso paste in your pot, add in the tofu and turn the heat back on just long enough to heat the tofu through.  

   

Now you want to ladle some of the broth and tofu into a bowl, sprinkle on some of the chopped scallions, and serve.

 

Mmmm...can you smell it?  Warm and savory and slightly salty.  Smooth and comforting with just a bit of zing and crunch from the scallions.  Healthy as can be.

 

Quick and easy comfort food.  Good for whatever ails you.

A Mess of Pottage (Lentil Soup)

I used to make this a LOT years ago.  I probably started making it when I was a vegetarian - the book it comes from is all vegetarian - and after making it once, apparently I started making it in larger and larger batches, because right next to the list of ingredients/measurements - there are columns with my increased amounts - for double, triple, and quadruple the recipe. 

It's really good, and even better, it's incredibly easy.

The recipe comes from an old (okay, 1975 - but the book is falling apart, so it seems older) small press cookbook entitled "Cooking with Conscience,"  by Alice Benjamin and Harriet Corrigan.  It was published by Vineyard Books in CT, and at the time this was published, it cost $2.00.  On the cover, it reads "A book for people concerned about world hunger."

There are 52 recipes in this slim volume.  The one I'm featuring is number Twenty-Two.  To be honest, I don't know if I ever bothered trying anything else besides this wonderful lentil dish. 

Anyway, here's what the authors wrote about this dish:

"We couldn't resist having one dish called "A Mess of Pottage."  According to some Biblical translations, Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for "a mess of pottage."  Other translations say "bread and lentiles" and still others say "bread and lentil soup."  In any case, it was lentils and probably cooked with onions, butter, and a few herbs.  Who knows? -- this might even be somewhere close to the original.  (Except those were red lentils, and brown ones are easier for us to find.  And he certainly didn't add powdered milk.)  Serve with any whole grain bread to help complete the protein and a plate of raw vegetables such as carrot sticks and celerey.  Serves 3 or 4."

I served this for dinner with a salad of mixed greens, sliced fennel, fresh basil, and diced roasted chicken (left from the previous night's dinner), and a warm baguette, some olive oil, and a couple of cheeses.  Alex, predictably, didn't like it on sight.  Julia tried it, liked it, but didn't eat much.  My husband liked it eNORmously.  And I took my first spoonful and wondered why it's taken me so long to make this again. 

Ready?

Here's all you need:

1 cup lentils

3 large onions, chopped (I sliced mine)

(Oops!  Those darned onions - they made my eyes water and I couldn't see clearly.  I'll try again...)

(That's better!)

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 stick butter or margarine

1 tsp cumin powder

3 T dried parsley

1/2 tsp paprika

2 tsp salt

3/4 cup powdered milk (I used liquid milk from the fridge.  I didn't have any powdered.)

And here's all you need to do:

Put lentils in large pot with a quart of water. 

Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer.  Meanwhile, cook onions and garlic in butter until golden

and add them and all other ingredients,

except the milk, to the soup. 

Cook until lentils are tender and stir in powdered milk.

Isn't that simple?  And lentils cook pretty quickly, so really, in the time it takes for the lentils to finish cooking, you can throw together a salad.  And if you start warming some bread when you start cooking the lentils, it'll be nice and crusty (and perfect for dunking) by the time everything is ready.  For very little cost or effort, you get a hearty, delicious, healthy meal.  Definitely worth trying.

Leek and Potato Soup

I love leeks.  I love everyone in the onion family, but I have a special affection for leeks.  I tried to describe why, but it sounded like really bad middle school creative writing, so I deleted it.   So we'll just skip that and move on to the cooking part.

I bought a couple bunches of leeks at the store earlier in the week, and potatoes, so that at some point this week I could throw together the soup.  It's one of the simplest things to make, and it's warm and comforting on a cold wintery evening.

The recipe I followed is from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I., by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck.  It's the first entry in Chapter One - Soup.

Potage Parmentier (Leek or Onion and Potato Soup)

"Leek and potato soup smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to make.  It is also versatile as a soup base; add water cress and you have a water-cress souop, or stir in cream and chill it for a vichyssoise.  To change the formula a bit, add carrots, string beans, cauliflower, broccoli, or anything else you think would go with it, and vary the proportions as you wish."

~~~~~

Here's what you need:

3-4 cups or 1 lb potatoes,

peeled,

and sliced.

 

3 cups or 1 lb leeks,

 

thinly sliced, including the tender green

* A few things to keep in mind about leeks - first of all, you want to trim the darkest green parts away - easiest way is to cut them on an angle while you rotate the leek on your cutting board.  You can see that inside the darker parts the green is lighter and kind of yellowish - this part is okay to use.  The darkest part tends to be drier, kind of like the skin you peel off of an onion, only not AS dry. 

Also, leeks tend to have dirt or sand in between their layers, and the best way to get rid of that is to slice the leek cross-wise

and soak it all in a deep bowl of cold water.

Swish the leeks around in the water to help loosen the dirt.  The leek will float, and the dirt and sand will sink to the bottom.

And you'll also need

2 quarts of water

1 T salt

And that's IT.  How simple can you get?

Place everything in a 3-4 quart sauce pot

and bring to a boil. 

Drop the heat down, partially cover the pot and simmer for 40-50 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

Mash the vegetables with a fork or run them through a food mill - or use a food processor an immersion blender to puree everything.

Taste it, and add more salt if you think it needs it, and add pepper to taste.  Ta da!  You're done!

Now, if I had thought ahead, I would have picked up a baguette to serve with the soup.  But I didn't think that far ahead, and I didn't have time to make bread, so I found a recipe for a Quick Onion Flat Bread in a little cookbook called "Fast Breads!" by Howard Early and Glenda Morris.  It was published in 1986 and I think it's now out of print.  I've posted that recipe after this one, in case you don't remember to get a baguette while you're buying the leeks.

Oh - and below - I swirled in some half & half to make it look pretty.  The book calls for whipping cream or sweet butter stirred in before serving, and a sprinkling of parsley on top, but I didn't sprinkle parsley.  Sorry.