Simple sweet potato soup for spring

This is a light, fresh soup just right for spring. You can pull it together in minutes with just two pantry basics: a sweet potato and a can of coconut milk, which adds creaminess without overwhelming the flavor.

Add a little something extra — a touch of vinegar, a stalk of lemongrass and some time, if you have it, or a few drops of hot sauce — and you have a refreshing soup that's a perfect bridge from cold-weather curries to summertime gazpacho.

I threw this together after coming home from a long holiday to a mostly-empty pantry. Spring showers called for soup, but all I had for veggies were some lettuce and a lone sweet potato.

I zapped the potato in the microwave, opened a can of light coconut milk, and pulled a stalk of lemongrass from the garden. (I know, lemongrass is hardly a pantry staple. But if you have some, use it!) Everything went into a pot for half an hour, and I stirred whenever I passed through the kitchen. A splash of vinegar and a squeeze of lemon, and it was ready to go.

The result is a little sweet without being cloying — the vinegar really elevates the taste. Adults and spice-happy kids might like it with a drop or two of Sriracha. This one is definitely going into regular rotation: Even my coconut milk-averse, sweet potato-hating husband liked this and helped himself to a second bowl. (He says it doesn't taste like sweet potato; I say it does, and he just hasn't given sweet potatoes a fair chance.)

Springtime Sweet Potato Soup

To cook a sweet potato quickly, prick it several times with a fork and set it on a plate in the microwave. Cook on high for 8-10 minutes until soft, turning once halfway through. Let cool and peel.

The vinegar and lemon/lemongrass aren't essential, but they elevate this soup from good enough to mighty tasty.

1 medium sweet potato, cooked and mashed
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup water (or broth)
1 to 3 teaspoons cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper
2 stalks lemongrass, stalk only, peeled and split in half lengthwise, and/or a squeeze of lemon juice
Sriracha (optional)

Stir together mashed sweet potato, coconut milk, and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Add lemongrass stalks, if using. Warm to barely a simmer, stirring occasionally. If using lemongrass, keep on the burner for 20 to 30 minutes, then remove the lemongrass stalks.

Purée soup with an immersion blender (or blend in batches, carefully, in a blender or food processor). Stir in vinegar, a teaspoon at a time, until it has the right amount of zip to suit your taste. (If you're adding lemon juice, this is the time to do it.) Season with salt and pepper. If it's too thick, stir in a little more water, broth, or coconut  milk.

Optional:  Serve with Sriracha for those who want to add a little more heat.

Liquid Pumpkin Pie

If you are still inspired to make pumpkin-based food, here's a little recipe tested many times at school. The reviews were very diverse but surely all children from our Cooking Club enjoyed making a very different version of a pumpkin pie, to celebrate Thanksgiving season.

The whole experience was exciting: First some kids were not very happy to smell both pumpkin and butternut squash, but were very enthusiastic when they saw the other ingredients. It was unanimous that  most of them loved sugar, graham crackers, and condensed milk. Uncertainty was present when asked about coconut milk and coconut flakes. Curiosity, though, was also there, and even if some kids refused to go further after a first spoonful, they at least had tried something different.

Smashing the pumpkins, punching the bags with graham crackers and using the dangerous-looking hand blender were the high points of the class. After the experience, the teacher asked the kids what they thought about the recipe, gathering some adjectives on the board. As you can see, it was a wonderful way of understanding that, after all, it's all a matter of taste.

Liquid Pumpkin Pie

I will soon freeze a batch in an ice cream machine to test the outcome. Probably it will be sweet enough to be in our repertoire for next Thanksgiving!

1 cup mashed sweet pumpkin (can be organic from a can)
1 cup freshly baked or cooked butternut squash
2 cups coconut milk
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
4 tablespoons sugar (preferrably brown, but kids preferred white sugar)
Condensed milk, to garnish
Toasted coconut curls or grated coconut to garnish
3 graham crackers, broken into small pieces in a plastic bag

Place pumpkin and butternut squash chunks on plates and mash with a fork. In a bowl, combine mashed pumpkin and butternut squash with coconut milk and set aside. Punch the bag full of graham cracker to transform them into cookie crumbles.

Mix everything together with a blender until smooth. Serve in bowls topped with graham cracker crumbles, a swirl of condensed milk, and coconut to add texture and interest to the soup. Enjoy cold. 

5 soups for summer

For light summer fare, few things beat soup made with freshly picked treats straight from the garden (or a neighbor's garden or local farm). Savor summer with these soups: a fun twist on classic gazpacho, a few packed with chunky vegetables, and a brightly flavored sweet soup that tastes like a tropical breeze.

Golden Gazpacho

Sunshine-colored tomatoes and bell peppers star in this brightly flavored cold soup.

Purple Soup

Purple onion + purple cabbage = purple soup! Tomatoes, zucchini, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese round out the supporting cast.

Minestrone

Take whatever's growing in your garden, add some beans and pasta, and magic — you can make minestrone. This is a terrific soup for using up odds and ends ... or hiding some of those veggies you wouldn't mind bidding adieu until next summer. (I'm looking at you, zucchini.)

Garden Vegetable Soup

Look, kids! More zucchini! This soup makes the best of it by immersing garden bounty in a savory broth studded with turkey meatballs.

Tropical Cold Sweet Soup

This incredible soup is, of course, more of a sweet: orange juice, peaches, coconut, and yogurt come together in a creamy, tropical treat. (We enjoyed it with equally delightful Orange Paprika Chicken.)

The Mystery Soup Game

It looks like sweet potatoes, carrots, or maybe pumpkin cream. But after tasting it, all were curious about its different flavors and textures and started to try to figure out its ingredients.

That's how our table-dinner-game "Guess what's in the mystery soup" began here, and it's become a successful and fun way to coax kids to eat a second serving — or maybe even a third — of something they usually are not so interested in!

We've played the game every Monday since winter began, and the kids' repertoire of ingredients (and even mine) is growing. After tasting one spoonful of soup, the players can guess one ingredient. If it's correct, we add to the list. The one who makes the most correct guesses can choose a treat for dessert.

Next week, the winner of the most challenges will get to take part in preparing the soup, and I hope it will be lots of fun. The boys also talked about Ratatouille, the movie, and could not stop thinking about watching it again to try to figure what was in the soup cooked by the little chef, the rat.

I believe any soup is good for the game, as long as you process it with a blender before serving. For now, our recipe for a soup that had amazing reviews here:

Mystery Soup Number 1

I cook the soup in a pressure cooker to make sure the vitamins won't fly away. If using a regular stockpot, double the cooking time.

1 tablespoon olive oil
a little flour

1/2 leek, chopped

1 cup yellow split peas
2 cloves garlic
Salt to taste
4 cups water
1 teaspoon dry basil
1 cup your favorite recipe (or jar) of tomato sauce

Heat olive oil and add flour, mixing it to prepare the base of the soup. When almost brown, add leeks and let them cook until transparent. Add minced garlic and then split peas, and mix well with a wooden spoon. Add salt, then water and tomato sauce.

Cook for 35 minutes in a pressure cooker or just over an hour, until all the ingredients are soft. Process with a hand blender and serve with a swirl of Greek yogurt or cream.

Cooking with Kids: "Snowballs" Winter Soup

Isn't it nice when something happens at random while you're cooking and leads to a surprising solution? That just happened while we were cooking with kids at school: The original plan was to cut snowflake shapes from slices of baked potatoes, add them to a very colorful vegetable soup, and play with their imagination. But the project of cutting the potatoes with the cookie cutters didn't work:  The potatoes were too mushy to allow the neat plan.

So, instead of getting disappointed, I was taken by a very fast experiment that ended up working perfectly: They mashed potatoes with their own hands and made snowballs with them. Roasted cauliflower was cut in thin slices to make the  pretend-to-be snowflakes. All was fun when the kids enjoyed throwing the "snowballs" and "snowflakes" into a pot filled with hot soup, also adding some white corn kernels. At the end of the process they were all surprised to see how the snowballs had "melted" into the soup.

The book read to inspire the kids to cook was the adorable Perfect Soup, by Lisa Moser, found in the local library by Carla, a mom and a teacher who volunteers with me in the Cooking Club at school. It's very easy reading for kindergartners and first-graders and has lots to offer to the kids. Something like the gift of sharing. Perfect to begin the new year with a good story and lots of inspiration for a new start (and more vegetables on our plate!).

Snowballs and Soup

By chance we've found that russet potatoes are good to roll the balls. Bake them in the oven or even microwave with the skin, so that the chefs can have extra work. I am still testing firmer potatoes to cut with cookie cutters. 

4 cups vegetable or chicken stock (if not homemade go for higher-quality ones from cartons, low-sodium and preferably organic)
2 cups water
1 cup tomato paste or your favorite tomato sauce
Kosher salt to taste
1 cup white corn kernels
3 baked russet potatoes, mashed with hands and shaped into "snowballs"
2 cups roasted cauliflower florets (with garlic powder and salt)
Parsley or cilantro leaves (to dress it up)
Japanese "snowflake" shape rice crackers (optional)

Heat vegetable broth and water and simmer while preparing the other ingredients. Mix in tomato paste, salt, corn, potato snowballs, and cauliflower. Continue to simmer for about 10 minutes.

Serve in a bowl and top it with cilantro and add rice crackers to add some crunch. 

Healthy Holidays: Chestnut Sage Soup

If you're looking for the perfect side dish for your holiday table, this is it.

I love the delicacy of this soup, the mix of savory and sweet, the smoky bacon. I don't love the prep work, however: It will be a lot easier to make if you use vacuum-packed, ready-to-go chestnuts. Peeling hot chestnuts is tough work, and certainly not the kind of work I want to be stuck doing amid holiday celebrating. If you go the fresh route, consider peeling the chestnuts ahead of time and stashing them in the freezer.

Chestnut Sage Soup

Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld, The Herbal Kitchen

If you don’t buy peeled chestnuts, I recommend peeling them in advance and freezing them until needed. The diced bacon also can be cooked ahead of time, to save on-the-spot prep.

1 pound chestnuts, fresh in their shells, or 1/2 pound dried chestnuts, or two 7-ounce jars vacuum-packed peeled chestnuts
1 medium onion, chopped
1 ½ cups celery, sliced
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
4 cups vegetable broth
¾ cup apple cider or apple juice
¼ cup coarsely chopped fresh sage leaves
1 bunch thyme sprigs, tied with string
2 bay leaves
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup half & half
¼ cup sherry, dry or medium-dry
dash kosher salt
dash ground pepper
2 ounces bacon or pancetta, diced
1 tablespoon sage leaves, chopped
½ apple, unpeeled, cored and diced

If using fresh chestnuts, bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Carefully cut the chestnuts in half with a sharp knife and put them in the freezer for 10 minutes. Add the chestnuts to the boiling water; boil for 8 minutes, then drain. Squeeze each half to pop out the meat, along with the dark brown pellicle surrounding it. This is much easier to do while the chestnuts are hot; you might want to do this in batches.

If using dried chestnuts, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the chestnuts and simmer 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let soak for an hour.

Vacuum-packed chestnuts can be used straight from the jar.

To make the soup: Cook the onion, celery and 1/4 cup coarsely chopped sage leaves in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until onion and celery are soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in all but 1/2 cup of the chestnuts along with the broth, cider, thyme, and bay leaves. Cover and simmer over very low heat for 45 minutes. Remove and discard the thyme and bay leaves; stir in vanilla.

Purée the soup in batches (an immersion blender is great for this) until very smooth. Stir in cream and sherry, and reheat to simmering. Add salt and pepper as needed.

Cook the bacon in a medium skillet — don’t let it get crisp. Drain excess fat, then add in the reserved chestnuts and cook another minute. Stir in apple and cook until warmed through.

Spoon soup into bowls, topping each with the apple-chestnut garnish.

Bad Bears' Blueberry Muffin Soup

My boys are big fans of Irving and Muktuk, the two bad bears of Jill and Daniel Pinkwater's Bad Bears series. They are indeed bad polar bears, and not to be trusted, but they are very funny. We first met the blueberry-muffin-loving pair in Bad Bears and a Bunny, in which Irving and Muktuk are excited to go to a party where the culinary delights include, among other happy things, blueberry muffin soup.

So, fresh on the heels of Anna's literary-inspired Stone Soup, here's what we imagine Irving, Muktuk, and their friends enjoyed.

Bad Bears' Blueberry Muffin Soup

Look for wild blueberries in the frozen food section. I like the small berries better in these tiny muffins. If you want to make this more of a dessert, Anna suggests adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

2 cups white whole wheat flour (or 1 cup each all-purpose and whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
lemon zest (optional)
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 1/4 cups frozen wild blueberries

For the soup:
1 cup plain yogurt
3-4 tablespoons blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1/4 to 1/2 cup berry or orange juice

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and prepare a mini muffin pan.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, salt, cardamom, and nutmeg, then stir in the lemon zest. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, then whisk in the milk, oil, and yogurt. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, stirring just enough to incorporate the ingredients. Gently stir in the blueberries.

Fill muffin cups and bake about 15 minutes, until the tops feel springy, or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool.

To make the soup, blend together blueberries and plain yogurt until smooth, adding juice until you get the consistency you like.

To serve, ladle soup into a bowl and add one or two muffins.

Stone Soup: A Recipe From an Old Folk Tale

Few things in a kid's universe fascinate me more than children's stories. They can be so inspiring that they can lead to new ways to play - even in the kitchen.
The recipe below - our 200th - was developed based on the book Stone Soup, a version of the folk story retold and illustrated beautifully by Jon J. Muth, chosen by one of my son's school teacher.

So, before taking this recipe to be prepared by the group of kids in the Cooking Club at school, I tried to make it with the boys of our playgroup.  First I thought about carving chicken bouillon cubes to transform them into little stones, but that was not as easy as I imagined. So I asked Darienne if she thought they they could pretend that those cubes were stones. And she was mostly sure they could.

She was right.

During our playdate the kids got interested in the preparation of the soup and listened carefully to the old  folk tale. They were all happy to cut, chop, break and throw the ingredients in the pot of the slow cooker.  Too happy to pour a huge amount of garlic powder in the pot ... Afterward they were too busy to try it - but we did. The test here made me adjust the presentation of many of the ingredients and to make it easier to cut  and chop.

Like what happened with the Scissors Salad: Kids at the school Cooking Club  were motivated not just to contribute with one of each of the ingredients but also to eat more than two servings each. We were all so happy with all that celebration! They each had a packet of ingredients. Every step of the process was related to parts of the book, so that they could see that the soup was getting better and smelling good. I hope that this recipe is also going to make part of their childhood memory when they grow up, as the story that inspired it.

Stone Soup

I pre-cooked frozen peas and carrots to shorten the time for cooking the soup. I cooked both with water in the microwave for six minutes in high power.

8 cups boiling water
4 cubes (or "stones," if you want to pretend!) of chicken bouillon (I used one without  MSG -- monosodium glutamate -- from Herb-Ox)
1 packet instant noodles (discard soup base, use just noodles)
1 bowl instant rice noodles (discard seasoning packet)
4 mushrooms, sliced
4-6 leaves bok choy, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 cup firm tofu, cut in cubes
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dill
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground peppercorns
2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce

Bring water to a boil, and add to the slow cooker, setting it on high. Add bouillon cubes and close the lid. Gradually add each ingredient, and at the end stir the soup to mix all the ingredients and help dissolve the cubes. Return pot to the slow cooker. Let it cook for about 10 minutes or until noodles are ready. Enjoy!

A Few of Our Favorite Things: Chestnut Sage Soup

This is a surprisingly delicate, complex soup, sweet and savory, with nice texture. It can easily be the star of a holiday meal.

How much work it is depends on the chestnuts: Vacuum-packed chestnuts from a jar are a perfectly acceptable shortcut, one I recommend. Fresh chestnuts are lovely, but peeling them is quite a project. You can peel them ahead of time and freeze them until it's time to make the soup.

Chestnut Sage Soup

Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld, The Herbal Kitchen

This is a lot of work if done all at once. If you don’t buy peeled chestnuts, I heartily recommend peeling them in advance and freezing them until you need them. The diced bacon also can be cooked ahead of time, to save on-the-spot prep.

Serve with a simple, straightforward main dish, such as roast chicken.

1 pound chestnuts, fresh in their shells, or 1/2 pound dried chestnuts, or two 7-ounce jars vacuum-packed peeled chestnuts
1 medium onion, chopped
1 ½ cups celery, sliced
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
4 cups vegetable broth
¾ cup apple cider or apple juice
¼ cup sage leaves, fresh, coarsely chopped
1 bunch thyme sprigs, tied with string
2 bay leaves
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup half & half
¼ cup sherry, dry or medium-dry
dash kosher salt
dash ground pepper
2 ounces bacon or pancetta, diced
1 tablespoon sage leaves, chopped
½ apple, unpeeled, cored and diced

If using fresh chestnuts, bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Carefully cut the chestnuts in half with a sharp knife and put them in the freezer for 10 minutes. Add the chestnuts to the boiling water; boil for 8 minutes, then drain. Squeeze each half to pop out the meat, along with the dark brown pellicle surrounding it. This is much easier to do while the chestnuts are hot; you might want to do this in batches. If using dried chestnuts, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the chestnuts and simmer 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let soak for an hour. Vacuum-packed chestnuts can be used straight from the jar.

Cook the onion, celery and 1/4 cup coarsely chopped sage in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until onion and celery are soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in all but 1/2 cup of the chestnuts along with the broth, cider, thyme, and bay leaves. Cover and simmer over very low heat for 45 minutes. Remove and discard the thyme and bay leaves; stir in vanilla.

Puree the soup in batches in a blender (be careful not to overfill) until very smooth. Pour back into saucepan, stir in cream and sherry, and reheat to simmering. Add salt and pepper as needed.

Cook the bacon in a medium skillet — don’t let it get crisp. Drain excess fat, then add in the reserved chestnuts and cook another minute. Stir in apple and cook until warmed through.

Spoon soup into bowls, topping each with the apple-chestnut garnish.

Playdates Past: Lemon Balm Pesto

We took a few days off to celebrate Mother's Day with our families. While we're on break, we're revisiting some favorite recipes from the archives. We'll be back with something fresh in a few days! This is one of my favorites from last summer.

Classic basil pesto has long been one of my favorite ways to dress up a simple pasta dish. Who doesn't love the bright flavors of summery basil beautifully blended with Parmesan, olive oil, and garlic?

Everyone else in my family, apparently.

But that hasn't stopped me. I work basil into much of my summer cooking, but more often than not my pesto features other flavors my boys enjoy more. Begin by thinking of it as green sauce and then start playing. Experiment with mint, cilantro, parsley, sage, lemon thyme -- keep going, you can think of more. Try them alone or in combination. Incorporating spinach is a nice way to get some extra-good veggies into your kids. As for nuts, try walnuts, pistachio, pumpkin seed, or leave the nuts out entirely.

It's easy to get snobby about pesto, insisting everything must be hand-chopped and that you must grate fresh Parmesan and use a lovely olive oil and mash it together by hand. But I find it easier to be practical and remember that I'm cooking for preschoolers, and a husband who eats like a preschooler. I use the Parmesan in the green can for family meals and mix everything up in the food processor. And I always make way more than I need, freezing leftovers in an ice cube tray for a quick and easy taste of summer all year long.

Lemon balm pesto has become our hands-down favorite. Our favorite preparation involves tossing the pesto with Trader Joe's tri-color ribbon pasta; a cup of shredded, cooked chicken; and a cup or so of halved cherry tomatoes from the garden. It's a rare no-complaints dinner for our family -- and the boys' friends devoured it at our playdate. Every single child, however, rejected the pan-roasted green beans I served with it. Can't win them all.

Lemon Balm Pesto

You can add pine nuts or walnuts if you wish. I sometimes throw in a bit of lemon verbena for an even sunnier taste.

3-5 cloves garlic (more or less depending on taste), peeled
3 cups packed lemon balm leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup olive oil (or more)
a squeeze of lemon
6 ounces grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 1/2 cups)
pepper to taste

Rinse lemon balm well. Pat dry with a kitchen towel or paper towels and remove leaves.
Set up food processor (you could also use a blender). With machine running, drop in garlic cloves and continue running until garlic is minced.
Add lemon balm leaves and salt to food processor. Process until finely chopped. While machine is still running, slowly pour in olive oil and add a squeeze of lemon. Adjust olive oil according to your preference.
Add Parmesan cheese and process briefly. Add pepper and more salt as desired.

Second Helping: Gefilte-Matzo Ball Fusion Soup

Some might think that I just went crazy. The idea of putting together on the same plate matzo balls and a twisted gefiltefish came while I was trying to sleep. And this is why... After I got married, Seder was planned so much in advance that its preparation became something like a delicious process with family traditions and memories. Before kids and marriage it was only the occasional luck of being invited to celebrate with some of my friends, like Sheila, who introduced me to a very nice Sephardic Seder, with an unforgettable Charoset, the best I ever tasted in my life!

This year is just the contrary. Not having any family around makes me sad, but also gives me some room to dare. My imagination is that a very well-flavored fish and vegetable broth and a matzo ball with something else could work fine.

So, after some reading and research I tried this new thing. The basic recipe is from a Manischewitz Matzo Meal packet, but I adapted a little bit, using also the excellent matzo ball recipe published by Jewish Holiday Feasts (by Louise Fiszer and Jeannette Ferrary) as a reference.

I don't want to change tradition or challenge the best matzo ball soups I ever tasted before. Also, this is a good way of introducing kids to gefiltefish. And finally I just want to try something new. As I learn every year, Passover is the celebration of Freedom. Happy Passover, Chag Sameach!

Matzo Fish Ball Soup with Lemon Zest and Ginger

The recipe was developed last week and tested once. My husband, who loves traditional matzo ball soup, described it as a happy fusion of three of his grandmother's delicious food: matzo balls, gefiltefish and borscht.

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided in three
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1/2 white onion, chopped
12 ounces white fish fillets (I used wild-caught orange roughy, and tilapia might be a good choice)
2 gallons water, divided
Kosher salt to taste
2/3 cup matzo meal (good for Passover)
3 eggs, beaten
zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons fresh dill
1 medium carrot, cut in swirls with a peeler
horseradish and beet to garnish (Chrain)

In a heavy-bottomed large stock pot, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and garlic. Add celery, fennel, ginger and onion, frying them without browning. Add fish fillets and shallow fry with vegetables and ginger. Add  8 cups of water and simmer for 50 minutes. Remove fish and let it cool. Simmer broth, with remaining vegetables, for 20 minutes more.

When fish has cooled to room temperature, shred it finely and reserve. In another bowl, mix matzo meal, eggs, 2 tablespoons of the fish stock, and remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add shredded fish and dill. Mix to a uniform dough and let it rest for at least 15 minutes in the fridge, or more if indicated by your matzo meal package.

In another large pot, bring about one and a half gallons of water (24 cups) to a boil. Reduce heat and immerse balls of matzo mix (each about 1 tablespoon) to the water. When balls reach the water's surface, simmer and cook for about 35 minutes. Remove and refrigerate balls.

When serving, heat matzo fish balls in the strained fish and vegetable broth, adding more water, if necessary. Serve with lemon zest, a dollop of horseradish and beets mix, 2 to 3 carrot swirls, and a branch of fresh dill.

Second Helping: Lazy Chicken Stock

I use broth shortcuts all the time: granules, cubes, cans, boxes. But when chicken broth has a starring role, as in the Chicken Tortilla Soup we posted last week, it's well worth the minimal effort to make your own stock.

Making chicken stock is one of those things I didn't do for a long, long time. Because making it takes a long, long time. Which I figured meant it took a lot of work.

To the contrary, I realized, chicken stock makes itself. All you really need to do is hang around the house for hours and let the stock do its thing.

Use leftovers from a roast chicken. Or throw in chicken pieces (with bones), remove the meat once it's cooked, and return the bones and scraps to the pot. Or stockpile leftover chicken bits -- bones and skin -- in a large bag in the freezer. Keep adding to it, and when it's full, make stock. Be sure to set aside a bit of leftover cooked chicken to go into the finished soup.

Lazy Chicken Stock

Put chicken in a large stock pot. Make sure you have lots of bones in there. Bones are important.

Add vegetables, chopped into large pieces: onions, carrots, leek, and celery are all good options. I usually just toss in an onion.

Pour in some white wine if you'd like -- I use half a cup.

Add a tablespoon or two of vinegar. The acid dissolves the calcium in the bones, enriching your stock. Cool, eh? Don't worry, you won't taste the vinegar.

Tuck in some herbs -- sprigs of fresh thyme or oregano, a bay leaf. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper. (Save the strong seasoning for when you reheat the finished stock to make your final soup.)

Fill your pot with water and set it on the stove. Bring it to a strong simmer, reduce the heat, leave uncovered, and simmer 5 to 6 hours (or more). Add a little water if chicken bones start sticking out above the surface, but not too much -- you want it to reduce. Stir when you feel like it. Don't bother skimming the foamy fat that rises to the surface. You'll do that later.

When it's done, strain out the solids and set the broth in the refrigerator. Leave it there a few hours or overnight. When you check on it, you'll find the fat has conveniently congealed on the surface. See! It does the work for you! Scoop off it off with a shallow spoon or spatula to reveal ... chicken jelly?!

Do not panic. Be proud: You've done well. The bones add gelatin, and that's what makes the stock taste so good. (Gelatin is protein, too.) The gelatin will melt as you heat your stock, leaving you with a deep, rich, silky stock.

Use the stock soon, or freeze it for quick, tasty soup another day. Use ice cube trays or muffin tins to freeze small amounts. You might want to add water to the stock when making soup.

Playdate Special: Chicken Tortilla Soup

The domestic front has been a scene of chaos, with sweeping and dish washing and laundry and tidying all ignored as I plow through an intimidating pile of work. In the background, there's been the low buzz of disgruntled parents trying to figure out if, when, and where they can get flu vaccine to their kids, and fretting over the slightest colds.

This calls for soup. Chicken soup, specifically.

A deep, flavorful stock is essential for this soup. If you've never made your own stock, this is the time to try it. (It's easy, honest. Here's how to do it.) Orange peel adds a lovely bright note, and this particular dish included the very last of the cheerful persimmon tomatoes from the garden. The fact that it looked like a bowl of sunshine almost made up for the last-minute discovery that I had no cilantro to finish the soup. Phooey. But with stock this flavorful, it didn't matter. Much.

Soup satisfied the moms. The kids were offered quesadillas on the side, just in case they turned up their noses at the sight of vegetables. But most of them enjoyed the soup, and one even asked for seconds. Success!

Dessert was a simple apple pie, studded with raisins and currants and baked in a disappointing but serviceable refrigerated crust. It looked much better once it was dished out onto adorable Curious George tea set plates.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Good broth is essential to making this soup sing. Use homemade stock, if you can. To bake your own tortilla strips, lightly brush corn tortillas with vegetable oil, cut into strips, and bake in a 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
6 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 can diced tomatoes, drained, or about 1 1/2 cups fresh tomatoes peeled, seeded, and chopped
4 strips of orange peel, each about 1/2 inch by 3 inches
1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced or shredded
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans
juice from 1/2 a lime
fresh cilantro, chopped, to taste
salt and pepper
1/4 cup queso fresco cheese, crumbled (this Mexican cheese can be found in your grocery or at Latino markets)
baked tortilla strips or chips (see note)

Heat oil in stockpot over medium heat. Add onion and carrots and saute until onions begin to soften. Add stock, tomatoes, and orange peel. Simmer for 25 minutes.
Remove orange peel. Add chicken and black beans, and simmer 3 minutes. Stir in lime, cilantro, and salt and pepper to taste.
Spoon soup into serving bowls. Encourage the kids to top their soup with a sprinkle of queso fresco and tortilla strips, with a generous handful of tortilla strips to enjoy on the side.

Playdate Special: Golden Gazpacho

It's been a weird summer in terms of weather, with a cold start and a steamy hot finish. The cherry tomatoes began appearing in July. Most of them have disappeared directly from vine to mouth -- my boys find them wonderfully sweet and tasty and pick them greedily. I rarely need to pick any myself, but I do need to hunt to find any left. Finn grabs empty strawberry baskets and heads out "to get my 'matoes," then leaves little half-filled baskets all over the yard.

My handful of heirloom tomato plants, however, have been slow to yield ripe fruit. It wasn't until late August that I was able to count on a few tomatoes each week. The most generous plant has been the giant persimmon tomato, yielding gorgeous orange fruits that can clock in at nearly a pound each.

Temperatures had been in the 90s for a full week. Between that and the late bounty of tomatoes, there was no question I'd be making gazpacho this week. I prepared it the night before, and by morning it was tasty but a little flat. Anna has saved several of my dishes in the past: I asked her to taste, and she recommended sun-dried tomatoes. Perfect.

To go with the gazpacho, I split a loaf of Pugliese bread in half and spread it with goat cheese, then spread some fresh basil pesto, and finally topped it with chopped sun-dried tomatoes. I popped that into the oven to toast a bit.

I tried making baked spinach balls in a desperate attempt to get my kids to eat something green. I added a bit of chopped lemon balm to make them more interesting to me, at least -- but they were left mostly uneaten. Couldn't get the kids to even try one. I ended up making some tortellini for the kids, dressed with a bit of the pesto, and they wolfed it down.

The kids didn't think much of dessert either -- balls of honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon with a bit of lime juice, honey, and mint. Must have been the flecks of green.

Golden Gazpacho

Gazpacho is very forgiving of experimentation. Play around with this one. You can puree it in a food processor or with an immersion blender. Some insist on straining with fine-mesh sieve, but I don't bother.

4 ounces white bread, crusts removed
two large orange tomatoes
1 San Marzano tomato (optional)
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sun-dried tomatoes, divided
1 yellow or orange bell pepper
1/2 cucumber, peeled
1/2 small red onion
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

Tear or cut bread into 1-inch chunks and place in small bowl. Add water to cover, then drain and squeeze water out of bread. (If using stale bread, let it soak in the water for a few minutes.) Add bread to work bowl of food processor.

Coarsely chop fresh tomatoes, 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, onion, and garlic. Add to food processor along with vinegar and olive oil, and process until smooth -- a few minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Refrigerate at least an hour, or overnight. Taste before serving and adjust seasoning as needed.

To serve, chop remaining tablespoon of sun-dried tomatoes and sprinkle on top of each bowl of gazpacho.

Second Helping: Welcome, Purple Soup

We've all felt like melting on a hot pot while eating delicious pizza and sipping wine last Friday. The end of Summer surprised us with a punch of heat. But never mind. It was wonderful to be with friends talking and day-dreaming about the near future, while kids were tamed by Herbie Rides Again , the movie. But today is Monday and all that hot atmosphere seems to be left behind. I've been thinking all day to become vegetarian, vegan or something else that excludes animals. And then I rushed to the kitchen to prepare a soup. A Purple Soup. On the back of my mind I knew I would have the help of nice and expensive Reggiano Parmeggiano and nice pasta for the kids.

Purple Soup

Probably whatever is available in your fridge will make this soup a huge success as far as you have purple cabbage, purple onion, and some celery, and good grated cheese -- the predominant ingredients. Darienne asked me last time if a pressure cooker would be a good acquisition. If you aim to have one, I recommend a Lagostina, Italian, sturdy and not dangerous. I've been using mine since 2003, and gosh that pot rocks!

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 purple onion, sliced
1/2 purple cabbage, chopped
4 celery stalks, chopped
1 clove garlic, halved
2 yellow zucchinis, chopped
1 (12-oz.) can organic diced tomatoes
1/2 gallon of filtered water
4 tablespoons of kosher salt
2 cups of kid's dry pasta (alphabet, stars, rings, or any small, kid-friendly pasta)
baby spinach to garnish
shaved Reggiano to garnish

In a stock pot or pressure cooker, stir-fry onions, cabbage, and celery in hot olive oil. Add all ingredients and fill pot with water (from 1/2 to one gallon depending on the capacity of pot). Cook over medium heat for 25 minutes in a pressure cooker and about 50 minutes in a normal stock pot.
Add pasta and cook for 8 more minutes.
Top each bowl with spinach and cheese.

Favorite Recipes: Minestrone

At first it seemed crazy to try to host a lunch playdate mere hours before packing up the family for a long weekend away. But necessity, of course, is the mother of invention, and this mother finally struck upon an old favorite that made the busy day a breeze to pull together: Soup.

Soup is one of few things that seems to equally please children and adults at the table. I don't know why a child who can't stand to have different foods touching each other on the plate will happily dig into a bowl of soup, or why one who gags at the sight of beans won't notice them immersed in broth. It's miracle food, and a great way to get kids to devour protein and vegetables.

Calvin wanted to prepare a favorite from his kids' cooking class, a bread braided with sausage and cheese. He did much of the work preparing it the day before our lunch date, but left the shaping to me. (For something similar, try this recipe.) That night, after packing the kids' suitcases, I rooted around in the fridge and began making minestrone.

Minestrone is a year-round favorite of mine. It's a versatile soup, adaptable to the season, and it can be served piping hot in winter or at room temperature in summer.

Luckily, I had just enough vegetables to pull it together: carrots, onions, green beans, potatoes, and the first zucchini from the garden. I chopped and diced, stirred and simmered, and set the nearly done soup in the fridge just after adding the beans.

The next day, I had little to do but enjoy good company. Close to lunchtime, I warmed the soup and cooked the pasta, then put the foil-wrapped bread braid in the oven to warm. I finished the plates with an easy salad of baby spinach, sliced strawberries, goat cheese, and a raspberry vinaigrette.

For dessert, the kids had snowballs. In the morning I had used a melon baller to scoop small balls of vanilla ice cream, rolled the balls in shredded coconut, and then set them on a plate in the freezer to firm up. Ice cream as finger food! And it only took about 10 minutes.

An hour after our satisfied lunch guests departed, the dishes were washed, the last suitcases were packed, and we were off for our holiday weekend. The fridge was bare, but the freezer held leftover minestrone to welcome us back home.

Minestrone

For a bright, summer taste, I use lemon thyme and lemon basil from the garden. Play with the seasonings -- the herbs, salt, and pepper -- to suit your taste. Use different vegetables according to your preference and the season. The list here reflects what I happened to have on hand, but other options include new potatoes, leeks, spring garlic, and spinach. If you find all the slicing, dicing, and cubing intimidating, a food processor is a big time-saver; alternatively, you could use frozen veggies. I used Trader Joe's Organic Alphabet Pasta as a kid-pleasing touch.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
2-3 carrots, scrubbed well and cubed
2 celery stalks, diced
1/4 pound green beans, trimmed and coarsely chopped
2 small zucchini, cubed
1 1/2 cups green cabbage, shredded
1 can (14.5 oz) broth (vegetable or beef, preferably, but chicken broth works too)
2 cups water
1 can (14.5 oz) crushed tomatoes (you can substitute whole or stewed tomatoes, just mash them a bit)

fresh, chopped herbs: thyme (about 8 3-in. sprigs), basil (about 2 4-in. sprigs), and rosemary (about 3 3-in. sprigs) or marjoram (about 3 3-in. sprigs)

1/2 tablespoon coarse salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 can beans, such as kidney, navy, or cannellini, rinsed (or substitute 1 1/2 cups cooked beans)
3/4 cup small pasta
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Toss in the onions, stir, and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to turn golden (about 15 to 20 minutes). Continue to cook, uncovered and stirring occasionally, until the onions are nicely caramelized.

Toss in the potatoes, carrots, celery, and green beans, stir, and cook about 10 minutes. Add zucchini and cabbage and cook 5 minutes more.

Stir in the broth, water, tomatoes, herbs, salt, and pepper. (If you're using basil, set it aside for now and stir it in when the soup is nearly finished.) Cover and simmer over low heat for an hour and a half, then add the beans.

Cook the pasta according to the package directions, drain, then add the pasta to the soup.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with a sprinkling of cheese.

Second Helping: Smoky Tomato Bean Soup

This is my take on Jerry Traunfeld's Smoky Tomato Bean Soup. I rarely have great bacon on hand — I have a hard time controlling myself with bacon, so I usually have low-sodium turkey bacon in the fridge. It worked well enough here. Traunfeld's recipe calls for a hearty dose of smoked paprika, but there was none left in my spice cabinet. I substituted chipotle chile powder — much hotter, of course, but a very little goes a long way. I added just a dash and set the spice on the table for diners to add if desired. The sage brings a lovely earthy note to the soup, and a dash of liquid smoke, magic in a bottle, deepens the flavor.

Smoky Tomato Bean Soup

Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld, The Herbfarm Cookbook. Omit bacon for vegetarian version.

4 ounces bacon, preferably smoky variety, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
3 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tablespoon chipotle chile powder
3 pounds tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and diced, or substitute 3 14.5-oz. cans diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon if using canned tomatoes)
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
1 1/2 cups white beans, cooked, or one 15-oz. can, rinsed
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke, or more, to taste

Cook bacon in olive oil over medium heat in large saucepan, stirring often, until it renders and begins to crisp. Pour off about half the fat. Add onion, sage, garlic, and chile powder and continue to cook until the onion softens, a few minutes longer. Stir in the tomatoes and salt, then partially cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in the oregano and beans. Season with salt, pepper, and liquid smoke to taste.

Playdate Special: Chestnut Sage Soup

Just before Christmas, Anna — cleaning out her kitchen before traveling home to Brazil for the holidays — presented me with a pound of chestnuts. I planned to roast them, per tradition, but on a whim I plucked one of my favorite cookbooks off the shelf and peeked in the index. Yes, a chestnut recipe! Wait, chestnut soup? Hmm. Might be too weird. But I had all the ingredients on hand, so I decided to give it a try. The original recipe in Jerry Traunfeld’s The Herbal Kitchen calls for steeping the soup with bay laurel leaves, but then he suggests an alternative with sage. I set off to pluck leaves from the squat, young sage by our front door and prepare the soup for Christmas Eve.

The preparation of fresh chestnuts was far more difficult than I expected. I sliced up my thumbnail trying to hack chestnuts open, and it took a long time to peel them. But the resulting soup was delightful. So the day after Christmas I shelled the remaining chestnuts and froze them for our next lunch date, and made a mental note to buy vacuum-packed, ready-to-go chestnuts next time.

This is a surprisingly delicate soup. I love the complexity of the sweet notes in the soup itself, the chewy richness of the bacon, and the sprightly apple. It was a wonderfully warm accompaniment to our holiday meal, and I thought it would work for a January playdate.

But by the time my turn to host rolled around, it didn’t feel like mid-winter. We had been basking in spring-like weather for a week. Would the soup still work on a sunny, 70-degree day? I forged ahead with my plan, but decided to incorporate some of the meager winter bounty from the garden as a nod to the good things to come this spring.

I didn’t want anything else to compete with the soup, so I chose a straightforward accompaniment: roast chicken. I followed the Cook’s Illustrated Simplest Roast Chicken, brining an organic bird for an hour in the morning before roasting it. A cooked bird from the market would be a decent substitute, but roasting your own is easy enough that I pass on the sodium and additives and prepare my own when I can. I don’t usually shell out the extra buck per pound for an organic chicken, but I was feeling all fancy this week.

In addition to the front-door sage, I brought in a few more things from the garden: broccoli just beginning to flower, with a squeeze of fresh lemon from our tree. I picked some lemon thyme, then dug up a few purple dragon carrots and shredded them into bagged salad greens.

For the kids, I made my Whatever Noodles -- a simple, quick preparation of Asian noodles. The big hits with the kids: an herbed loaf of crusty bread, no butter needed, and hard-boiled eggs.

Chestnut Sage Soup

Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld, The Herbal Kitchen

Love this soup! Complex flavor, not too heavy — worked beautifully with a holiday meal and on a day that felt like early spring.

This is a lot of work if done all at once. Which I did the first time. Ugh. If you don’t buy peeled chestnuts, I heartily recommend peeling them in advance and freezing them until you need them. The diced bacon also can be cooked ahead of time, to save on-the-spot prep.

When I make this, I serve it with a simple, straightforward main dish — for our playdate, it was a simple roast chicken with salad greens and broccoli. This soup works as the star dish.

1 pound chestnuts, fresh in their shells, or 1/2 pound dried chestnuts, or two 7-ounce jars vacuum-packed peeled chestnuts
1 medium onion, chopped
1 ½ cups celery, sliced
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
4 cups vegetable broth
¾ cup apple cider or apple juice
¼ cup sage leaves, fresh, coarsely chopped
1 bunch thyme sprigs, tied with string
2 bay leaves
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup half & half
¼ cup sherry, dry or medium-dry
dash kosher salt
dash ground pepper
2 ounces bacon or pancetta, diced
1 tablespoon sage leaves, chopped
½ apple, unpeeled, cored and diced

If using fresh chestnuts, bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Carefully cut the chestnuts in half with a sharp knife and put them in the freezer for 10 minutes. Add the chestnuts to the boiling water; boil for 8 minutes, then drain. Squeeze each half to pop out the meat, along with the dark brown pellicle surrounding it. This is much easier to do while the chestnuts are hot; you might want to do this in batches. If using dried chestnuts, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the chestnuts and simmer 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let soak for an hour. Vacuum-packed chestnuts can be used straight from the jar.

Cook the onion, celery and 1/4 cup coarsely chopped sage in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until onion and celery are soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in all but 1/2 cup of the chestnuts along with the broth, cider, thyme, and bay leaves. Cover and simmer over very low heat for 45 minutes. Remove and discard the thyme and bay leaves; stir in vanilla.

Puree the soup in batches in a blender (be careful not to overfill) until very smooth. Pour back into saucepan, stir in cream and sherry, and reheat to simmering. Add salt and pepper as needed.

Cook the bacon in a medium skillet — don’t let it get crisp. Drain excess fat, then add in the reserved chestnuts and cook another minute. Stir in apple and cook until warmed through.

Spoon soup into bowls, topping each with the apple-chestnut garnish.