This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India. Très confus? Dorie admits this is neither French bistro fare nor authentically Indian. It’s a Greenspan concoction. While walking through a Parisian Indian neighborhood she spotted and bought several tiny sachets of mixed spices. Adding them to a rather conventional root vegetable and barley potage kicked its flavoring out of France and up a notch.
Author Brigit Binns, who has written 28 cookbooks, welcomes us to her first cooking class of the season.
The veggies are predictable: onions; carrots; and, parsnips. The spices are not: garlic; fresh ginger; turmeric; red pepper flakes; and, Garam Marsala (coriander, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, kalonji, caraway, cloves, ginger and nutmeg). Chicken broth and pearl barley complete it. The recipe for this heart-healthy dish is included in this recent ChicagoTribune article, Cook Along with French Fridays, giving we Doristas our 15 minutes of fame.
Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India
The Two Cheese Mavens: Lindsay Dodson-Brown of Justin Vineyards & Winery (L) and Alexis Negranti of Negranti Creamery (R) prepare for class.
Last weekend I attended author Brigit Binn’s first cooking class of the season at Refugio, her home in Paso Robles. Binns‘ twenty-eighth cookbook, The New Wine Country Cookbook, Recipes from California’s Central Coast, has been my tour guide and culinary bible since arriving here in January. I barely made the cut of the chosen twelve but for two whining e-mails to Brigit and a last minute cancellation. Who says begging isn’t helpful?
The most difficult thing about making ricotta cheese in an outdoor kitchen on a windy day is to keep the burner’s flame lit. Brigit and her husband, Casey, try to block the wind!
Everyone in the class got to play.
The class was entitled Two Cheese Mavens. Lindsay Dodson-Brown of Justin Vineyards & Winery and Alexis Negranti who owns Negranti Creamery helped us make mozzarella and ricotta cheeses. But this was a teaching lesson with sideshows. While we were making cheese, Binns and her husband, Casey, were creating delicious, homemade flatbreads dressed in tasty toppings, roasted baby artichokes and those olives, all made in their wood-burning outdoor oven. Butler poured her 2013 Rosé as well as a 2012 Viognier, and a 2010 Carignan. (More about Winemaker Butler next week.) Do you understand why I humbled myself and groveled?
This flatbread is the best I’ve ever tasted. Briget shared the dough recipe so I will share also if you contact me.
Casey made his scrumptious olives in their outdoor oven. Mine tasted almost as delicious with my conventional one. Just as tasty the next day, served cold. Quoting from page 274 of Binn’s cookbook: “Toss brine-cured or oil-cured olives with a little olive oil, scatter with some springs of fresh thyme and rosemary, and a little lemon or orange zest. Roast in a shallow pan for 10 to 15 minutes at 425 degrees until the olives are shriveled, aromatic and slightly crisp.” [Between this recipe and Dorie Greenspan’s Herbed Olives, avoid the high-priced olive bars and turn plain, inexpensive olives into Fancy Nancys – Mary]
Casey’s Olives, roasted in the outdoor oven
My olives (a different kind) with herbs, olive oil and seasoning, ready for my 425 degree oven
Just Right
The cauliflower in my farmer’s market is gorgeous so I couldn’t resist this purchase. I recently found a recipe by Chef Chad Colby for Sauteed Cauliflower Wedges with Bagna Cauda on this blog. Since I’d never made the Italian dipping sauce, Bagna Cauda, before, it was worth a try. Yummy. More about Bagna Cauda-Love in a later Post.
Sauteed Cauliflower Wedges with Bagna Cauda
About my dessert. First, you milk a ewe. Now I didn’t have to do that because Alexis Negranti and her husband, Wade, already had. Negranti, who taught us how to make mozzarella, also chit-chatted about her passion, creating different flavors of sheep milk ice cream – Chocolate, Black Coffee, Raw Honey, Salted Brown Sugar, Pumpkin, Fresh Mint – using fresh produce from local farmers. There’s much to tout about this dish of deliciousness but, for now, be satisfied that its fat content is less than 8%. As I mentioned, this was a feast…with leftovers.
Blueberry and Cinnamon Swirl Sheep Milk Ice Cream. Killer. I’m a convert.
Today’s French Fridays Post is a double-header featuring Butter & Rum Crepes, Fancy & Plain and Garbure from the Supermarket. The savory garbure is this week’s recipe choice. I’m tardy with the crepes. My crepe pan stayed behind in Colorado. Since my daughter, Melissa, visited me this week, she brought hers.
Missy last spent a week with me in June 2012, after Michael died. Our time together then was bittersweet as we closed a 26-year chapter of our lives. Since then she’s opened her own business, juggling her family’s lifestyle to accommodate this new schedule. In the past 20 months I’ve packed up, moved to Colorado and done some juggling of my own.
I can only imagine the hoops she jumped through to leave her girls, husband and work place to make that six-hour drive from Bishop to Cambria. But, she needed a break and I raised my hand. Last Saturday afternoon she happily arrived at my doorstep.
Butter & Rum Crepes, Fancy & Plain
Melissa’s Arrival last Saturday. Note that her outfit matches her car.
During her earlier visit she’d put together two French Fridays posts for me, over-baking the Hazelnut Biscotti but preparing darn good Crunchy Ginger-Pickled Cucumbers. She had resigned herself to more mother-Dorie-daughter kitchen time so we got busy with the crepes soon after she arrived. I mixed together the batter, which included grated orange and lemon zest, dark rum and Grand Marnier, for an overnight in the fridge. Early the next morning Missy oiled her pan and made the first here’s-how-you-do-it-Mom crepe before handing the pan off to me. I batted .666. Pas mal.
Missy, making the first crepe. Because I was not going to include her in the photo, crediting her with this crepe, she inserted herself into the picture, singeing her hair tips.
For breakfast we just sprinkled powdered sugar on our crepes but Dorie suggests making a yummy honey-orange sauce (recipe here) for a pour-over or a lemon curd filling. Any topping/filling will do but with this batter sweet works over savory.
A Daily Early A.M. Jaunt on the Moonstone Beach Boardwalk
Now, the garbure. “Essentially this is a hearty vegetable soup made heartier with the addition of meat (pork, duck and beef sausage),” Dorie explains.
Hiking the Point Buchon Trail located near Montana de Oro State Park. When the tide is out (and, it was) you can explore the underwater caves.
We like the local mom/pop restaurants. Sunday breakfast at Cambria’s Creekside Gardens
Soups and stews, I love, and this garbure is no exception. Simmering, at least three hours, is the key to unlocking its flavors. The result is memorable. Here’s the recipe. Don’t be dismayed by the ingredient list. (A tip: if you don’t have Piment d’Espelette, use cayenne pepper.) With a baguette to sop up the broth, it’s a meal.
We ate the best Thai lunch at Noi’s, a tiny spot located on a side street in Los Osos
These women turn out delicious food in their little kitchen. I will never complain about my space again. Promise.
Choosing veggies for the garbure at the Los Osos farmer’s market
As many of you know, Mother-Daughter relationships are twicky. I didn’t raise a shrinking violet and I’m no soft touch so there are always detours to navigate around, through, up and over. Love is the easy part. What Life throws in our paths, not so easy. We’ve found what works for us, as you can see in these photos, is to always find the Laughter.
We ate our lunch, sitting inside on two of the three available stools, and watched the women navigate the kitchen. I loved my Red Curry.
Our favorite place for coffee, Top Dog in Morro Bay. Some java is especially necessary before walking into the book store located next door. (Please note that you can also get married at the bookstore. I did not do that.)
At the new&used bookstore, I gave Melissa an unlimited budget and she exceeded it.
We spent our last night having a few beers at Cambria’s Ale House, the locals’ pub (seven stools). Last week Lady Gaga spent a “pleasurable”, sake-filled evening there. She was here while filming a video at Hearst Castle.
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s “Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours.” If you would like to look at our group link, go here. If you wish to know more about Lady Gaga’s visit to the Ale House, go here.
A gift from Missy. TO MOM: BECAUSE WHAT WE DO BEST IS LAUGH
According to the National Resources Defense Council, an amazing 40% of our country’s food is thrown out every year. Now that you’ve digested that number, here’s another. The cost of that wastage translates to a whopping $165 billion.
Seems crazy, doesn’t it, that almost fifty million Americans do not have access to enough food every day. Seventeen million of those are children. For seniors, the number, 10% to 11%, is rising quickly. Welcome, Boomers.
If you’re wondering what this had to do with today’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice,Christine’s Simple Party Soups, here’s the deal. Dorie’s Parisian friend, Christine Vasseur, serves an exquisite hors d’oeuvre triumvirate of pureed soups. Each vegetable, asparagus, red pepper and broccoli, stars in its own soup extravaganza. Served together, in their individual shot glass and topped with a dollop of spiced whipped cream, this is sure to impress any guest. Oh, yes, three spoons, please.
Christine’s simple party soups, asparagus, red pepper and broccoli (foreground) as pictured in Dorie Greenspan’s, “Around My French Table.” Photo by Alan Richardson
Still with me? My only resolution this year is to eliminate waste in my kitchen. Since I’ve not yet adjusted to cooking for One, I either give away or toss away too many of my extras. My garbage sends me on a guilt trip. That’s why this week I decided to make only one soup, the tangy, electric-red, cream-coifed bell pepper soup variety. My Dorista colleagues will be making the additional asparagus and broccoli soups so visit them at this link.
I even cut the red pepper soup recipe in half but still managed to make three different variations of it by adding shrimp to one portion and raspberries to the other. I usedtiny canned cocktail shrimp in one. For the second, I made Chilled Red Pepper-Raspberry Soup, Dorie’s Bonne Idée She nails it when remarking, ‘the berries add both acidity and mystery to the flavor.’
Spiced cream-topped Red Pepper Soup
Because this delightful first course can be made the day before (add the shrimp at the last moment) and served hot or cold, here are my suggestions for making all three reds for your Valentine’s or next dinner party. Pour the soups into demitasse cups or tall shot glasses and let your guests – who may want to try more than one kind – decide which most tantalizes their taste buds. A conversation starter, whether in the living room or at the dinner table.
Chilled Red Pepper-Raspberry Soup
Here’s a tip. Since I enjoy a thicker soup than Dorie, more bite in each spoonful, I used a ratio of one cup of liquid to one cored and seeded plump pepper. While you can easily add liquid to any soup, it’s more difficult to add thickness.
You can find the recipes for all three soups here. The technique is simple and the same for all three vegetables. Cook each in its own broth (vegetable, chicken, or even bouillon cubes with water), bring first to a boil and then let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Liquefy the mixture in your blender, pour into the container of your choice and plop some frothy, spiced whipped cream on top. Voila!
Red-pepper with Shrimp Soup
Tonight I will finish my red pepper with shrimp soup for dinner. A FFWD week with no leftovers. Hooray, yahoo, give this gal a gold star.
French Friday’s with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s “Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours.”
From the get-go, when Chestnut-Pear Soup was chosen to be the November 15th French Fridays with Dorie recipe, I put myself in the not-going-to-happen column. This soup, to my thinking, was a bubble off.
But having taken the pledge to not be a doubting Dorista, I finally sourced a 16-ounce jar of chestnuts ($26.31 at Aspen’s Butcher Block), picked up two ripe juicy pears, onions, leeks and celery and pulled out my Dutch oven. Within an hour, I sampled a most delicious and complex winter soup. Because I prefer my cold weather soups a tad chunky, I cut my broth (chicken or veggie) by 2 cups. Your choice.
For a cold winter’s day, I’m smitten with Chestnut-Pear Soup.
Chestnut-Pear soup now hangs out with Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake and Moules Marinière as my top three fave recipes in Dorie’s Around My French Table Cookbook. A tip, serve it steaming hot.
For a light dessert, I served Compote de Pommes Two Ways with Greek yogurt.
Since I was traveling last week, I made but wasn’t able to post Compote de Pommes Two Ways. In the Midwest we always called this applesauce, something my mother made and my daughter and I still often make during the fall/winter seasons. The French cook their compote longer and tweak our Iowa-version by adding brown sugar, vanilla, and…….. butter. Adding anchovies to pot roast is one thing but butter to applesauce? Not so sure. It was tasty, however, and even better when mixed with Greek yogurt.
No post last week because my friend, Donna Grauer, joined me on a 2500-mile odyssey to visit three presidential libraries for an ongoing research project of mine. Our destinations were Abilene (Eisenhower), Independence (Truman) and Little Rock (Clinton). Since Donna is from Little Rock and still has family there, I asked her to join me. Occasionally I have lightbulb moments and including Ms. Little Rock on this trip was just that.
Day One: WE CAN DO IT. Leaving cold, snowy Colorado and headed 650 miles to Abilene, Kansas.
First, it’s important to know that Donna is an accountant (now retired) who worked for a huge Houston-based real estate firm that developed one of our local ski areas. That translates to her being organized, thorough, meticulous and, well, just accounting-ish-like. And, that translates to this entire trip being laid out on a spread sheet. (I am not kidding.)
Day Two: I Like Ike. We toured the tiny house where Ike and his 3 other brothers were raised.
Although AAA mapped our trip, Donna used Mapquest to calculate our daily mileage needs for programming my car’s Garmin GPS. She researched and booked Bed&Breakfast lodgings and also put together an invaluable trip notebook. We each bookmarked not-to-be-missed restaurants. Prior to leaving, I read McCullough’s tome on Truman while she read Jean Edward Smith’s book on Ike. We brought along CD’s on Clinton, Churchill and World War II – enough material for 2,500 miles.
Day Three: Give ‘Em Hell, Harry. A life-sized Harry Truman at his most impressive library.
Since our itinerary was ambitious and with safety in mind, this trip needed to work like clockwork. We not only spent a day each in three incredible libraries but also savored our side trip to Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Donna graduated from Little Rock High so she guided me through that school’s civil rights history and the monuments honoring it.
Day Four: A Cultural Side Trip. Alice Walton’s new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Donna and I got up early to hike the beautiful Art Trails at the Museum before it officially opened. The museum is free with no admission charges at all.
As these pictures demonstrate, it was a week’s journey through the histories of two world wars, two centuries of American art and the civil rights movement. Even Donna and I were amazed we could make it happen. Since she and I are all about fun and laughter, it was also hilarious at times. What I continue to believe is these presidential libraries are indeed the uncrowned, ignored jewels of our country’s memories. I also realized there is still much for me to see and learn about this country, even in the plains of Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas.
Day Five: DG’s Home Town. The very impressive Clinton Library.
A somber stop at the State Capital to honor the Little Rock Nine.
And, it seems, I’m not alone. According to food historians, the main ingredient of the earliest soups on record, dating to 6,000 BC, was hippopotamus. (To keep that in perspective, Cleopatra lived from 69-30 BC.) Most cultures proudly claim their own particular classic. To scroll through more than forty of them, from Erwtensoep (Netherlands) to Kimchi jigae (Korean) to Pho (Vietnamese) is a unique culinary experience.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, Asparagus Soup, seems rather ho-hum by comparison. Au contraire. It’s finally Springtime in the Rockies. Delicate, young asparagus stalks stand proudly in our produce bins, ripe for the plucking. I grabbed the 2 1/2 pounds necessary for this delicious soup and got to work. Yes, I was supposed to be in Paris this week, the first of my three-week trip to France. I’m not. More about that later.
Instead, I had time to trim off the woody bottoms of the asparagus stalks, boil the remaining parts for 4 to 5 minutes in a large pot of water and then blanch them. Although Dorie suggests retaining the asparagus water for the liquid, which I did, you could also choose to use vegetable or chicken broth.
You see scrumptious roasted mini-veggies. I see frittata. Bernie Grauer Photo
After cooking leeks, onions, shallots and garlic in olive oil and butter, everything but the asparagus is thrown together and left to simmer for 15 minutes. The asparagus comes to the party for the last 5 minutes.
Working in batches, I pureed the soup in my food processor. To be fair, I blitzed the heck out of it for a smooth but thick result. Salt. Pepper. Done.
My Veggie Frittata to accompany Dorie’s Asparagus Soup
Since I didn’t go to France last Friday, I was included in a special birthday celebration on Saturday. My friend, Charlotte, who is not only an extraordinary musician but also a Weber whiz, sent me home with the leftovers from her roasted mini-vegetables platter. The resulting frittata worked wonderfully with this soup. Thanks, Char.
A perfect lunch on my Aspen porch. Creme fraîche and crispy bacon topped the soup.
About France. Last Thursday afternoon I drove to Denver, checked into an airport hotel, confirmed my flight and booked the early morning 5am shuttle to catch my plane. Later in the evening I decided this was not a good time for me to travel. Better to stay on this side of the Pond than the other for now. Yikes. But I went with my gut feeling, folded my wings and returned to Aspen. A disappointing decision in many ways but the right one.
It’s Birthday Time Bernie Grauer Photo
Ruth’s Carrot Cake, the Birthday Boy’s favorite Bernie Grauer Photo
The Birthday Boy, His Cake, and His Cupcake Bernie Grauer Photo
Orange-scented Lentil Soup garnished with a dollop of Greek yogurt and fresh pineapple bits
I am neither Catholic nor Argentinean. However, the selection of a new pope, like the election of an American president, coronation of an English royal or the FIFA World Cup competition, understandably captures global interest and attention.
Last Wednesday I suspect many of us joined with the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics in celebrating Argentinean Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s peaceful election as the first pontiff from Latin America. We’ll now know him as Pope Francis. That our FFWD colleague, Paula Montenegro, who blogs at Vintage Kitchen Notes is from Buenos Aires, makes this more exciting.
Hopeful that His Holiness possesses a sense of humor, I submit that this week’s FFWD recipe choice, Orange-Scented LENT-il Soup was in anticipation of White Smoke billowing out of the Sistine Chapel. Congratulations to the new pope and may he guide his followers wisely and with compassion.
Thinly sliced onions, carrots and celery stalks
“Lentil soup seems to have a lock on French hearts,” Dorie explains.
Dorie’s version of lentil soup
Yes, every French cook seems to have a version of his/her very own. Lentil soup chez Greenspan has its own flavor surprises, a touch of ginger and a prominent fragrance and taste of orange. For the legumes, try to find Lentils du Puy (French green lentils), found in high-end grocery stores, speciality culinary shops or on-line.
This is a simply made soup. Soften thinly sliced onions, celery stalks, and carrots in olive oil before adding broth, lentils, and spices. Bring to a boil and then simmer, covered, for 60 to 90 minutes or until the lentils soften. Season with salt and pepper and then puree to a smooth or chunky texture. I prefer chunky.
Oatmeal & Honey Bread, beautifully made and photographed by Michelle Morgando
Although the soup anchored many-a-meal for me this week, my first lunch was the most delicious. I toasted a slice of Oatmeal & Honey Bread, an elegantly scrumptious gift from my neighbor, Michelle Morgando. On the toast I piled smashed avocados sprinkled with lemon and salt, a treat suggested by Joy the Baker. I garnished my soup with a dollop of Greek yogurt topped with tiny slices of fresh pineapple. Yummy combo.
A perfect toasting bread for smashed avocados sprinkled with salt and lemon juice
Orange-scented Lentil Soup is a winner for me. To see what my colleagues mixed up this week, go here. If you want to add this to your own soup recipe collection, go here.
