Good afternoon!

Now that I’m entering the home stretch of pregnancy, I’m hit with a double whammy. I’m too tired to cook many nights, but I also want to make sure we have a good store of freezer and pantry meals ready for the little one’s arrival in a month or so. This has resulted in a lot of boring, but nutritionally sound, meals that just aren’t that much fun to talk about. Mostly, . . . → Read More: Preparing for Baby with Soup]]>

Good afternoon!

Now that I’m entering the home stretch of pregnancy, I’m hit with a double whammy. I’m too tired to cook many nights, but I also want to make sure we have a good store of freezer and pantry meals ready for the little one’s arrival in a month or so. This has resulted in a lot of boring, but nutritionally sound, meals that just aren’t that much fun to talk about. Mostly, a TON of soup. Since most soup recipes serve 6-8, one batch will yield enough for Erik and I to eat for two meals plus one or two quart jars of soup in the freezer. Not exciting, but very practical.

We finally did hit on a meal that is both. This wild rice soup is based on a recipe from the very “ladies who lunch” River Room at Dayton’s in St. Paul. Yep, Dayton’s. It was hard enough to call it Marshall Fields, although I finally got used to it, but I am NOT calling it Macy’s. Anyway…I digress. We’d sometimes meet my dad there for lunch on special occasions when we didn’t have school, but he had to work. I always felt pretty special and grown up. This is, hands-down, the best wild rice soup out there. It’s not overly rich, but is nonetheless silky and delicious. If you’re feeling very indulgent, make some popovers and have a real River Room experience.

Note I: I’ve tweaked the recipe to use a very unattractive leftover roast chicken.

If you don’t happen to have one sitting in your refrigerator, you can use homemade or canned chicken stock and some sort of pre-cooked chicken – grilled or poached breasts or thighs would work well. You could also pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner and then make this the next day. The possibilities abound!

Note II: You’ll need to pre-cook the wild rice. My favorite way to do this is to mix 1 cup of wild rice with 3 cups of water in a covered baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour to an hour-and-a-half or until the rice has absorbed the water and is nice and fluffy. This will give you WAY more rice than you need for this dish, but I happen to like having extra in the refrigerator. It makes a quick side dish or an interesting addition to oatmeal in the morning.

Minnesota Wild Rice Soup

Makes about 6 servings

Directions

1. Pull the remaining meat off of your roast chicken. Aim for about 1-1/2 cups, but more or less won’t ruin anything. Refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Combine the chicken bones and 8 cups of water in a pot or slow cooker and simmer for as long as you can. In the slow cooker, I aim for 8 hours on low. On the stove, I let it go for at least a couple of hours, but it depends on when I have to leave the house or go to bed.
3. Strain the chicken broth through a colander to remove the large bits and then a lint-free towel to catch the smaller pieces. You should end up with about 6 cups of broth. If you have more, hurray! Save it for later. If you have less, just add a bit of water to make up the difference. Refrigerate until ready to use.
4. Chop up all your vegetables.
5. In a large pot, melt the butter and add the onions. Saute over medium heat until the onions have started to soften, 5 minutes or so.
6. Add the scallion, mushrooms, and carrots to the onions and cook until softened, about another 5 minutes.
7. Sprinkle the flour over the veggies and stir until the flour and butter form a paste coating the vegetables, about a minute.
8. While whisking, pour the chicken broth into the pot. The flour will help thicken the broth, but could also make it chunky. Whisking and slow pouring help to create a smooth soup. Simmer for 20 minutes (more or less…this is soup, after all, not wedding cake).
9. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer until warmed through, another 5 minutes or so. Enjoy!

My brother was in a band in high school called The Unmundane. They were pretty good and had a nice little following. I have a couple of their CDs and a t-shirt I wear running. I also have the word “unmundane” in my vocabulary now. It snuck in there at a time in my life when I used either “random” or “sketchy” to describe just about everything.

I probably also used “wicked” a . . . → Read More: Unmundane Lentil Soup]]>

My brother was in a band in high school called The Unmundane. They were pretty good and had a nice little following. I have a couple of their CDs and a t-shirt I wear running. I also have the word “unmundane” in my vocabulary now. It snuck in there at a time in my life when I used either “random” or “sketchy” to describe just about everything.

I probably also used “wicked” a little too much, as in “lentil soup is wicked boring”. Because of that narrow mindset, I almost didn’t make this one from Art of the Slow Cooker, probably because the combination of spices seemed random. But, I was trying to eat less meat and this seemed to fit the bill. I was prepared to choke down a bowl in the name of self-righteous healthiness, but I was surprised on the first bite by its unmundaneness. It wasn’t common, ordinary, banal, OR unimaginative. Instead, it was thick and full of spices and lemon.

Now that we’re definitely entering winter in Boston, it’s time to pull out the slow cooker and some tasty soup recipes. I think the smell of soup cooking all day warms up the house. Can a smell make you feel warmer? Why not? So this afternoon, I’m sitting on the couch covered with a blanket recuperating from a cold and watching The Usual Suspects, smelling the onions browning, because my awesome husband is making dinner for me. I’m counting the hours until I can dig in with a spoon and a big piece of crusty bread. It’s supposed to warm up on Sunday, which is good, because we’ll be out of soup by then.

Unmundane Lentil Soup

Makes 6 servings

Directions

1. If you want to get fancy, use whole coriander and cumin seeds. Toast them in a hot skillet for a couple of minutes, until slightly browned and fragrant, then grind. I don’t usually get fancy and the soup is still great.
2. Chop the onions.
3. Heat the sunflower oil in a large skillet and cook the onions over medium-high heat until starting to brown. This is the foundation for your soup, so take a little time, maybe 5-8 minutes.
4. In another pot, heat the broth until boiling.
5. While the onions are browning, measure out and combine all the spices except for the red pepper flakes.
6. Add the garlic and spices (except for the red pepper flakes) to the onions and cook until you can smell the garlic.
7. Add the tomatoes and juice to the onion mixture. Break up the tomatoes and cook until the juices boil.
8. Once the onions and broth are boiling, dump both into the slow cooker. Heating the ingredients to boiling speeds the cooking time and keeps the food away from the Danger Zone, e.g. the temperature range in which nasties thrive. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 8-10.
9. When you’re ready to serve the soup, stir in the red pepper flakes, lemon juice, and fresh herbs. Top with a dollop of yogurt, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Regarding the amount of stock: Red lentils disintegrate and really thicken the soup, so if you use a full two cups of red lentils, you’ll want to use 7 or 8 cups of broth. More broth = soupier soup. Less broth = stewier soup. If you use red lentils and another type of lentils, you can use 6-7 cups of broth.

To make this work on a week day, I cook the onions, garlic and spices the night before, letting them cool down before covering and storing them in the refrigerator. In the morning, I add the tomatoes to the onions and bring them and the broth to a boil while I’m eating breakfast and getting ready for work. Pour everything in the slow cooker, plug it in, leave the dishes in the sink, and run out the door.

This is a fast, delicious, and tasty soup. It’s a one-step recipe and a quick, light meal using the best of summer.

Creamy-Spicy Blended Gaspacho

Makes 2-4 servings

This is definitely the best vegetarian chili I’ve ever had…at home or a restaurant. Thank you, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, for the great recipe. I’m usually a little disappointed in vegetarian chili. I eat it and feel virtuous for having a Meatless Monday, or whatever, but it’s nothing I get excited about. But this is amazing!! I swear you won’t miss the meat. The cocoa gives it incredible richness, but the chocolate flavor is very . . . → Read More: Holy Mole Chili]]>

This is definitely the best vegetarian chili I’ve ever had…at home or a restaurant. Thank you, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, for the great recipe. I’m usually a little disappointed in vegetarian chili. I eat it and feel virtuous for having a Meatless Monday, or whatever, but it’s nothing I get excited about. But this is amazing!! I swear you won’t miss the meat. The cocoa gives it incredible richness, but the chocolate flavor is very subtle. The heat level is perfect for us, but you might want to cut down on the dried chiles if you’re sensitive.

I’ve been traveling a lot for work, so we’ve fallen into a little pattern. Erik and I cook a couple of times over the weekend and then he finishes any leftovers while I’m gone. It didn’t seem fair that I had to eat room service junk while he got to eat this, though, so I made him promise to save me a bowl.

If you can’t eat gluten or if you prefer meat in your chili, see the notes at the end of the recipe.

Holy Mole Chile
Makes a big pot, but it reheats well

Ingredients

Directions:

1. Add the oil to a large pot, preferably a Dutch oven, and warm over medium-high heat.
2. Once you feel heat in the pot, add the onions and both types of peppers. Sauté until the onion is translucent, 2 to 3 minutes.

   

3. Add the garlic and seitan and cook for 6 to 8 minutes. The seitan will stick to the bottom of the pan, so stir occasionally.

   

4. While the seitan is cooking, prep the rest of the ingredients in two groups.

   Group 1 = chile powder, cinnamon, and cumin

Group 2 = tomatoes (open the can, but don’t drain), cocoa powder, and molasses. Note: The molasses will be much easier to measure if you use the oily measuring cup and just fill it 3/4 of the way. (4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup)



5. Once the seitan has cooked, add the spices in Group 1 and stir for a minute or so until you start to smell them.

   

6. Add the Group 2 ingredients (tomatoes, cocoa powder, and molasses). Stir, breaking up the tomatoes with the spoon.

   

7. Add the beans and vegetable broth.

   

8. Cover and bring to a simmer. Cook for about an hour or until the beans are tender.

   

9. Once the chili is done, try to wait 15-20 minutes before eating it, so that it can cool down and thicken up

   

Possible substitutions:

• I think you could subsitute a pound of any sort of protein for the seitan, as long as you’re mindful of the fat content. If you use ground beef, for example, it might be a good idea to decrease the oil to a few teaspoons.
• You could also use pre-cooked or canned beans and cut the cooking time to 30 minutes or so.

Yum!

This recipe is our first foray into the new cookbook Slow Cooker Revolution from America’s Test Kitchen. If you like learning about what works in cooking and why, you will love America’s Test Kitchen (on PBS). It’s like Alton Brown but without the goofy theatrics (don’t take that as a knock, Alton). Their research into this book is essentially a reinvention of how to use a slow cooker to make easy but awesome meals. . . . → Read More: How to Make Fully-loaded Potato Soup]]>

This recipe is our first foray into the new cookbook Slow Cooker Revolution from America’s Test Kitchen. If you like learning about what works in cooking and why, you will love America’s Test Kitchen (on PBS). It’s like Alton Brown but without the goofy theatrics (don’t take that as a knock, Alton). Their research into this book is essentially a reinvention of how to use a slow cooker to make easy but awesome meals. We’re excited for it.

That being said, this recipe isn’t what I would consider a hands-down winner. The end result was very good; that’s not the issue. The problem is that the preparation, while not difficult, completely tosses aside the usual advantages of the slow cooker. Usually there is only a little prep (which you can do in the morning) and it cooks for 8+ hours in the slow cooker, so you can go to work and come home again to a finished dish.

This recipe takes more than 1.5 hours of work before walking away from the slow cooker, and then it only cooks for 4-6 hours. Although it can be a meal unto itself, this soup is not a weekday dish. Given that fact and the general effort involved, there are other recipes that I would put in the queue ahead of it.

What this meal did do was give us something interesting and new to try during Dark Days, which are almost over soon (we’re ready for them to be!).


Slow Cooker Fully-loaded Potato Soup

Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Peel the potatoes. Cube them into 1/2 inch pieces. Don’t underestimate this step. Look at the pictures. It’s a lot of potatoes!

   

2. Peel and dice the onion into small pieces. Mince the garlic, and put it and the onion aside in a dish with the thyme. Chop the uncooked bacon into 1/2 inch pieces. I chopped ours straight out of the freezer, so it was easy. Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat and cook the bacon until it is crisp (5 – 10 minutes).

   

3. Preferably using tongs, remove the bacon from the pan and put it aside on a plate lined with paper towel. Refrigerate it for use at the end. Pour most of the bacon grease out of the pan, except for about 2 Tablespoons worth.

   I actually measure two TBsp of water into a bowl so that I could eyeball it. Remember to use oven mitts because the cast iron will be hot! Put the pan back on the heat and add the onion, garlic, and thyme.

   

4. Cook the aromatics (that’s the fancy name for what’s in the pan right now) for about 10 minutes, until the onions brown lightly, stir occasionally so they don’t burn. Add the flour, thoroughly stirring it in, and cook for 1 minute.

   

5. Add 1 cup of the broth/stock. Deglaze the pan by scraping all the bits off the bottom and into the cooking liquid. Stir everything together thoroughly. Once the mixture has become a gravy-like base (after a minute or two), transfer it to the slow cooker. Add in the remaining 3 cups of broth and stir to combine. Add the potatoes and stir to distribute everything evenly. Cover and set to cook on low. Let it cook for 4-6 hours.

   

6. When the 4-6 hour period is nearly over, shred the cheese. This is one case where using a food processes may come in handy. Because it will be melted in, the texture doesn’t matter. Sometimes hand-grating is preferable, but in this case it isn’t. Shred or grate a little additional cheese for garnish on top of the soup.

   

7. Once the long cook is complete, fish out about 2 cups of potato cubes, which should be relatively soft by now, and transfer them to a bowl. Mash them until smooth.

   

8. Add the mashed potatoes back into the slow cooker. Stir in the cheese until it’s evenly melted. Then stir in the half-and-half or cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Let the soup heat for an additional 5 minutes.

   In the meantime, reheat the bacon bits in the microwave on the paper towel-lined plate, for about 30 seconds. Plate the soup and on the top of each bowl of soup add a small portion of bacon, additional cheese, and, if you are using them, scallions.

9. Note: I cooked the soup for 6 hours, and the potatoes were just mushy enough by the end, although the hear of your slow-cooker may vary. That being said, my soup was a little dry. You can see from the picture below how lumpy it is. It should be a bit smoother than that.

   If necessary, add additional water or broth into the slow cooker before serving, a little bit at a time, and stir. Repeat until you get to a smooth consistency. If necessary when reheating, you can do the same on a per-serving basis. I’m usually timid with such things for fear of making a watery mess, but ith this recipe, you don’t need to be scared of adding additional liquid to thin it out. It will re-absorb it nicely.

   

Our food storage situation was getting out of control. Half a duck fell out of the freezer and landed on my shoe-less toes. Random bags of grains leftover from this fall made getting the breakfast granola a daily battle. And somehow we had a whole shopping bag full of mushrooms in the refrigerator. Time to take charge!!

We sautéed two chopped onions (Paffenroth Gardens) with some garlic (Keith’s Farm) in sunflower oil (Stolor Organics). . . . → Read More: Dark Days: Attacking Food Storage Clutter]]>

Our food storage situation was getting out of control. Half a duck fell out of the freezer and landed on my shoe-less toes. Random bags of grains leftover from this fall made getting the breakfast granola a daily battle. And somehow we had a whole shopping bag full of mushrooms in the refrigerator. Time to take charge!!

We sautéed two chopped onions (Paffenroth Gardens) with some garlic (Keith’s Farm) in sunflower oil (Stolor Organics). To that, we added a mountain of sliced mushrooms (Bulich Mushroom Farm) and sautéed them until soft with a little salt and pepper and a splash of Riesling (Chateau Renaissance). Then poured everything into the slow cooker.

We trimmed any excess fat and skin off of the duck parts (Hudson Valley Duck Farm) and used the same pan to brown them for a few minutes on each side (just until the duck released easily from the pan). Into the slow cooker it went, topped off by small handfull of farro (Cayuga Pure Organics), a few red sunchokes and a couple of handfulls of little potatoes (Berried Treasures) and covered in water.

We let it cook on high for six hours. We then removed the bones, shredded the meat, and returned it to the slow cooker for another two hours on low.

Served up with some (failed and very flat, but tasty) sourdough bread (flour from Cayuga Pure Organics, yeast from the Manhattan air) it was a very satisfying improvisation.

We’ve been making this about every two weeks, but that’s kind of . . . → Read More: How to Make Vegetable Broth]]> This is an incredibly simple, mindless vegetable broth. It mimics the boxed or canned brands, but is salt-free (a standard 1-cup serving contains 20-25% of your daily sodium allowance!) and allows you to control the quality of the ingredients. It also takes advantage of my favorite appliance, the slow cooker, so you can throw it together with about 15 minutes of hands-on time.

We’ve been making this about every two weeks, but that’s kind of atypical. If you don’t use it up all at once, I recommend freezing it in zip-top bags in 2- or 4-cup servings. You could also freeze it in a muffin pan for smaller (~1/4 cup) servings. Pop out the portions once they’re frozen and store them in a large zip-top bag.

Basic Vegetable Broth
Makes 10-12 cups, depending on the size of your slow cooker

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of carrots, scrubbed and chopped into big chunks
• 1 large celeriac (10-12 ounces), peeled and chopped into big chunks (see this post for directions)
• 1 pound of onions (about 3), quartered but not peeled
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
• 6 whole sprigs of parsley or 2 TBsp chopped parsley – We chopped and froze a ton of parsley in ice cubes at the end of the summer, so that we could have local parsley all winter.
• 3 bay leaves
• 10 black peppercorns
• 1 tsp dried thyme

Directions:

1. Dump everything into the slow cooker and fill it up with water. My slow cooker can handle 10-12 cups of water, depending on how bulky the veggies are.

   

2. Cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or low for 8 to 10. It really won’t be hurt by extra time, so don’t worry if you leave to have brunch with a friend, have an second cup of coffee, and get home late.

   

3. Put a colander on top of a large bowl (make sure it’s big enough to hold all the stock. Wet a piece of cheesecloth and wring it out well. Lay the cheese cloth over the colander. Use a ladle to transfer the contents of the slow cooker to the colander.

   

4. You can let it drain just like that or bundle up the cheesecloth and hang it over the bowl. We use this little set up to let broth and jelly strain hanging from the cabinet. Give it a little squeeze every now and then to get all the liquid out.

   

5. Once the dripping has stopped (probably in less than an hour), store the broth in the refrigerator or freezer or use it right away.

This recipe comes from a great book called Art of . . . → Read More: Dark Days: Pumpkin Bisque]]> We spent the week in sunny Texas, but got home yesterday to dreary drizzle. Blech. Luckily, we had fun brunch plans and all the ingredients for a steamy soup ready for today. There’s really nothing better, in my opinion, than a warm bowl between your hands on a dark winter night. Even better if the contents of that bowl are sprinkled with bacon.

This recipe comes from a great book called Art of the Slow Cooker, which we use pretty often. I substituted a few ingredients to stay within the Dark Days SOLE requirements and made a few other modifications to make my life easier. It is deliciously creamy and satisfying, but pretty healthy and quick to make.

My slow cookerwas indispensible for this soup. I used it to make the vegetable stock a few weeks ago, which I froze, to cook the pumpkin overnight last night, and to make the soup this afternoon. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you could make the stock and soup in a heavy pot on the stove and follow the oven roasting method for cooking the pumpkin.

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven.
2. Add the onion and saute over medium heat until the onion is soft and translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook briefly.
   
   Note: The onion is dark in the photo above because we crisped the bacon first and then used the same pot for the onion to add a little exta bacon-y flavor. This is a good method if you want to garnish with bacon, but it’s not necessary.
3. Stir in the pumpkin, broth, nutmeg, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil.
4. Transfer to a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker and cook on low for about 8 hours (or high for about 4).
   
   Be careful when pouring the soup into the crock. It splashes!
5. Just before eating, add the half and half and cheese and use an immersion blenderto puree the soup. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a blender, but be very careful. Blending hot liquid can lead to an explosion, so please let it cool down for some time before you blend.
6. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the parsley and bacon or toasted nuts, if desired.

Any leftovers can be frozen. We served this with homemade crackers.