porky chickens

Last Saturday night I wanted to cook dinner and I wanted to do something sort of easy. I teetered and tottered back and forth between making meatballs and sauce or roasting a chicken. In the end chicken won because we really were feeling like eating something healthy. And if you don’t eat a load of cheese and crackers before dinner (guilty) munch on the salty, crispy chicken skin (double guilty) and dip hunk after hunk of bread into the pan drippings (thrice guilty) this is sort of a healthy dinner?





EASY ROAST CHICKEN

You will need:

One whole chicken, preferably free range, organic, steroid free (seriously, I could go on about this but read Fast Food Nation, see Food, Inc. and you will never mess with chicken of unknown origin again. You might even become a vegetarian, but I am just not that good). A 3-4 pound gal will feed two to three people. There were four of us for dinner so I bought a 6 pounder.

Olive oil
One lemon
One white onion
A few gloves of garlic, peeled but not smashed or diced
Carrots (optional)
Salt and pepper
Old Bay Seasoning (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Open your chicken over the sink, letting all the gnarly chicken water run down the drain. Remove the giblet bag (shudder) and toss. Some people save this for gravy because they know what to do with it, I am not one of those people. Pat chicken dry both inside and out and let sit while you prepare the vegetables. Now normally, I’m not much of a carrot fan. My mantra when it comes to carrots is “it’s not that I hate them, I just don’t prefer them” especially when they are julienned and therefore, impossible to remove from your salad plate in their entirety. My exceptions when it comes to carrots are this: perfectly roasted ones and carrot sticks are cool with me. Otherwise, I won’t make a stink if they’re in a dish but expect to see them laying in a limp reject pile on the side of my plate. I digress. But anyways, on Saturday I came up with another exception to my dislike-of-carrots rule: I like them if they’re cute. I happened to find some adorable Bugs Bunny style cartoon carrots, complete with leafy greens attached. I decided that they would go well with some hunks of onion as a make-shift rack for my chicken to sit on while she roasted.





So I trimmed the ends of my carrots, peeled my onion and cut it into large chunks. I then quartered a lemon. The lemon quarters, along with a few of the chopped onions and few peeled garlic cloves (I used 4 or 5) went into the bum of my chicken.





The remaining onions and carrots were tossed with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper and they got placed into a roasting pan in a single layer.





Once the veggie “rack” was in place, I tended to my chicken. If she’s still a bit damp pat her dry one more time, drizzle olive oil over and rub it into her skin. Follow with generous shakes of salt and pepper. Normally all I use is salt and pepper on my birds and really, you can’t go wrong. This particular go-round I decided to also dust her with Old Bay Seasoning as well. It was good, but I can’t say I’m totally sold. It made the skin almost too salty. Completely oil, salt and pepper all sides of the chicken. Then place your chicken on top of your veggies and send her into the oven. Cooking times will vary according to the size of your bird, but it usually works out to about 20 minutes per pound. My bird was 6 lbs. so she took about two hours to cook (obviously use a meat thermometer you don’t want undercooked chicken). This is what I call hands-off cooking. Your house smells delicious, a meal is forthcoming but you have plenty of time to indulge in a nice Syrah and the Top 100 Hard Rock Videos of All Time on VH1 Classic. I served my chicken with some garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach. By the time the bird was cooked through the carrots and onions in the pan were melt-in-your-mouth caramelized, which made for some incredibly delicious pan juice to spoon over mashed potatoes and dip loads of bread chunks into.





HOMEMADE CHICKEN STOCK

Now when you eat a homemade chicken, chances are you’ve got a picked over, relatively meatless chicken carcass in your fridge. Do not throw it away, in a few hours you can have great homemade chicken stock and you will feel so superior to your store-buying counterparts every time you defrost a container of Your Very Own Stock, I promise you it’s soooo worth it. No but seriously though, it’s cheap! And easy! And less waste! And, between you and me, you can do it while you waste away on the couch watching DVR’d episodes of Bridezillas (we all have our guilty pleasures).

Simply take your chicken bones/body/carcass and place her into a large stock pot. Top with water and add a few whole black peppercorns, a few peeled, whole cloves of garlic and some dried parsley or thyme. You can use a bundle of herbs of your choice, but in my opinion, just the peppercorns, garlic and parsley do the trick, along with a good dose of salt and pepper. Another option is to add vegetables like carrots, celery or onion to the stock as well.

Bring your pot up to a boil and then turn all the way down to a simmer. Let simmer for a few hours. Last time I think I cooked mine for about three. Allow the stock to cool, skim any pools of fat off the top and transfer into Tupperwares to store in the fridge or freezer. Or, if you are like my friend Michelle, be extra Martha-y about it and freeze into ice cube trays so you have individual stock portions ready to go for when a recipe calls for it.

P.S. When you get a pickin’ chicken pre-made from the deli at your supermarket (you know what I’m talking about, right?) you can use those to make stock too! I did. The first time I ever made my own stock it was from one of those birds and it came out just great.

believe in butternut squash

Butternut squash is one of those things that I feel like even if you think you don’t like it, I’ll bet that you will, you just haven’t had it the right way. I know because until recent years, I was pretty much positive that I did NOT like butternut squash, or any squash or squash-related vegetables. Then something changes, either you grow up and get better taste in food or you give it one more try and the right kind of cooking method, or the right amount of saltiness changes your mind. This is the way I feel about almost all of the vegetables I love now that I hated for most of my life. When prepared just right, they’ll make you into a believer.



So anyways, when I think of fall cuisine my mind gets all sorts of butternut squashy. And I have been thinking extensively about all things fall cuisine lately. Call it an end-of-summer coping mechanism. On the down side, I have to retire my flip flops and once again fade into a nearly translucent shade of pale BUT on the other hand there’s soups and pies to be made and eaten and those ridiculously ah-doorbell baby white punkins at the grocery store again (do you know by the way that the technical name for those is “munchkins”? Come on! If they were any cuter I’d punch them!) You ever wonder if baby punkins and apple cider donuts are god’s pacifiers to ease us into the long dark winter months? Like “here, quit your fussing, eat this donut.” I dunno about you, but a distraction of the fresh baked donut kind works on this lady every time.



This Sunday afternoon I had a hankering for something light but snuggly. Does that make sense? It was a raining sideways and I wanted something savory and warm BUT something healthy, since I ate my weight in chips and onion dip while playing Balderdash the night before. A nice fall supper was in order.



Plus when I got to the grocery store guess who called out to me? Look at this guy. He actually ASKED me to take him home! How could I refuse his giant chin? A clearer look:



So butternut squash soup it was and now I’m here to share. This has got to be one of the easiest soup recipes going. Actually, I want to take this opportunity to share my opinion that soup may possibly be the best thing about fall/winter cooking. It’s cheap, easy and delicious and you always have a truckload of leftovers. I’m thinking about starting a sub-segment on here exclusively dedicated to soups. We’ll call it “Nuts about Soup: A Soup to Nuts Guide to Cooking Soup” (too much?) or I could just call it “Soupy Dickens” I’m open to suggestions, either way.



BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP with PARMESAN SAGE CROUTON

One butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced into (approx.) 1” cubes
Two Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced into (approx.) 1” cubes
Two shallots, thinly sliced
Two small cloves garlic, chopped
One large container (or about 32 ounces) chicken (or veggie) stock
Splash half and half
Salt and peps
Olive oil
1 teaspoon butter

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium to med-high heat. Drizzle in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add shallots and sauté until translucent, stirring often. Add garlic and butter, let butter melt and garlic turn golden, but do not burn the garlic! Add diced squash and potatoes and stir everything together. Pour in chicken stock. Turn heat up to medium-high and bring to a healthy simmer. Cook until the vegetables are fork tender (I let mine cook for about 40 minutes, periodically testing my veggies. You want them very tender, since you will be blending them. Plus it makes all the flavors much tastier, the more they meld together).

Now you’re going to want to blend everything together. The best thing about using starchy veggies like butternut squash and potaters is that when blended they make a deliciously creamy soup, without adding say a roux or a truckload of heavy cream or any other diet destroyers. You can do this one of two ways: the first is to remove your soup from heat and then carefully, in batches, puree in your blender. Don’t use a food processor because they can’t handle huge volumes of liquid. The second, and my preferred way, is to turn the heat off of the soup and use an immersion blender to puree the vegetables. You have to be thorough and hit all the sections of soup and take care not to just swish your blender about all willy nilly. Seriously though, BE CAREFUL! Or you may (as I did) end up with teensy squirts of searing hot soup on your delicate neck meat. Once your soup is pureed to your desired consistency, add salt and pepper to taste. I used homemade chicken stock, which tastes more chicken-y but less salty so I added a good dose of salt to this. Then, to finish I swirled in just a tiny bit of half and half. Ladled the soup into some cute bowls my Ma bought me and topped each bowl with a parmesan sage crouton.

FOR THE CROUTONS:

Sliced ciabatta bread
Shaved parmesan cheese
Dried sage

Since parmesan and sage pair naturally with butternut squash, I thought it might be nice to make a oversized, cheesy crouton to garnish the soup. This soup would also pair well with any kind of grilled cheese sandwich, but letsbeserious, what wouldn’t pair with a grilled cheese sandwich on a rainy Sunday? So I fired up my broiler and toasted a thick slice of ciabatta bread. When side one was done, I toasted the second side and then topped it with some shaved parmesan and just a little sprinkle of dried sage. Popped it back under the broiler until the cheese melted and then topped each bowl of soup with one of the croutons. These were so tasty and they happen to work nicely as makeshift edible spoons for the first half of your bowl of soup. For the second half you may use a traditional spoon or you may cut off another hunk of bread and get down like that. Heck, I know I did.

recipe rave: corn and tomato pie

So I did mention a life altering pie when talking about last week's dinner party, did I not?





Have you ever seen on Saturday Night Live when Will Ferrell does James Lipton’s Inside the Actor’s Studio? In one sketch Kate Hudson is Drew Barrymore (which, incidentally made me like Kate Hudson a lot more, because she was very funny) and there's a point where they are talking about the movie E.T. Will Ferrell/Lipton says in classic, overdramatic Liptonian run-on sentences: “If you have not seen this film go right now to a store where videos are sold and rented and rent it or buy it and WATCH IT.”





Well, if you have never had Corn and Tomato Pie go right now to a place where tomatoes and corn are sold or rented and buy some or rent some and tuck them into a biscuit crust and pile them with shredded cheddar cheese and bake them, and EAT THEM. I am not going to dial down the drama here.





This pie could best be described as "stupid", "incredible" and my personal favorite, "straight ridiculous." The recipe I used was in last month's Gourmet. And the directions can be found online here.

Even though I think it is tedious and annoying to peel and seed tomatoes, you're going to want to take those extra steps in this case. I read another food bloggers account of making this pie and the only complaint voiced was that it was very soupy. And my friend Stevie made this pie as well and she said that it was, in fact, soupy.





So I heeded the suggestion to seed the tomatoes, even though to me that always feels like a total mess and a whole lot of work and makes the tomatoes look all ugly and stuff but in this case, it's merited.




My pie was not soupy. It was creamy and crusty and savory and delicious. I am counting the minutes until it's acceptable for me to make this again. You should make it. Quick before all the corn and tomatoes are gone!

just about the best

There is a photo album you can buy from somewhere that says on the cover “My friends are prettier than your friends.” I think that’s kind of a bratty thing to say, but sometimes when I see cute photos of MY friends, I can’t help but think that. They really are pretty. But it’s not their cute haircuts or stylish outfits that I love the best (although I truly appreciate both very much) it’s their guts, their insides, their souls, if want to get new agey about it (and I would rather you didn’t). I just love ‘em and whenever I get the chance to see my favorite out-of-town friends in person I want to squeeze their cute guts right out of them. I also, like with everyone I love, want to stuff their guts full of delicious foods. And my guts too, naturally.





So this past weekend found two of my favorites visiting and they brought with them two very awesome reasons to celebrate. Val, brave soul that she is, offered to be the first of our clan to enter the age of 31. Go Val! Happy Birthday! And Shawn, Nina’s main squeeze, gave us an equally squeal-worthy reason to clink glasses when last weekend he up and decided to make an honest woman of our Neens. Lucky boy.





We had a celebratory dinner on Friday night (don’t worry I’ll cover the menu and the RIDICULOUS pie eventually) but when my ride turned into a pumpkin around midnight I found myself eager to lengthen the visit. So I offered to host breakfast in the morning.


I think breakfast is just about the best meal you can make for people. There’s something really fun about taking the time to prepare a proper meal in the morning when we all too often just jam a bagel down our throats. Having company before noon is pretty nice. For one, it’s an excuse for me to make my bed for once in my life and it’s kind of nice to see the table set first thing in the morning.





I really never gave breakfast enough credit until my 20s. In fact, I used to be one of those ninnies that thought “oh, but if I eat breakfast I get so hungry and then I end up eating more throughout the day.” Um, not if you eat a proper breakfast, dummy. Plus, when you deny yourself breakfast, you deny eggs all of the incredible possibilities that they have to offer. Behold the frittata. My mom, sister and I love us a frittata. If we had our own reality show you could play a drinking game in accordance with how often one, if not all three, of us brought up frittatas, made frittatas or just voiced our general approval of frittatas. When telling both of them about my Saturday breakfast menu they both sort of clucked approval and nodded (well I could hear my sister nodding from California) “Frittata. Way to go” and “Yup. Can’t go wrong with a frittata.” It’s kind of obnoxious. In fact, as a write this I’m beginning to loathe the word “frittata” (drink).





But in all seriousness. You really can’t beat this. I never made a f------a for this many people. All I did was up it to twelve eggs instead of six. It took a bit longer to cook but it puffed up beautifully and cut effortlessly, like a giant egg pie, if you will. Trust me on this: frittatas are your friend. We also had homefries, bacon, English muffins and a pitcher of mimosas. But truly the frittata was the star of the show.





HEIRLOOM TOMATO and FRESH HERB FRITTATA
Serves 8 (you can easily scale this back to six eggs, and it serves 4)


12 eggs
1 small white onion, diced
1 large heirloom tomato, thinly sliced
1 small clove garlic, minced
Olive oil
Handful of chopped fresh herbs (I used parsley, garlic chives and basil)
Cheese of your pleasing (I used feta, shredded cheddar and a sprinkle of parmesan)

Heat oven to 350. Spray an oven safe skillet with olive oil, drizzle some additional oil in the pan (about 1-2 tbsp.) warm over medium-high heat. Saute onion until translucent, just a few minutes, add minced garlic, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Crack eggs into large bowl and whip aggressively with a wire whisk. The fluffier you get your raw eggs before you transfer them into the pan, the lighter and fluffier your cooked eggs will be. Pour eggs into sauce pan. Lower heat. Add sliced tomatoes and some more salt and pepper. Add cheeses. Sprinkle the top with the herbs. Remove from burner and place into oven. Bake about 35 minutes (maybe longer). I originally set my timer for 15 and it wasn’t even close. I added another 15 and then periodically checked on my pan. If you grab the handle and give it a wiggle, it should not jiggle in the middle. I kept checking on mine and the minute the center appeared firm, I took it out and cut it into wedges. The result was moist, not dry, but also cooked through, so none of my dear guests ran the risk of salmonella. And I couldn't do that to them. They're too good looking after all.








SPICY, SAVORY HOMEFRIES
Serves 8

3 large Yukon gold potatoes, chopped into 1 inch cubes
1 small white onion, diced
vegetable Oil
seasoned salt, chili powder and Old Bay Seasoning

Cover potatoes with cold water and set to boil on the stovetop. Test a larger chunk at about 10-15 minutes. Once the potatoes are fork tender, remove from heat and drain. Heat a good drizzle of vegetable oil in a nonstick pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté for a few minutes, until translucent. Add potatoes to the pan. I did drizzle in a bit more oil at this point, as the taters tend to soak it up.


Homefries are probably the first thing I ever cooked myself when I was little. The key to delicious, red tinged, smoky homefries is paprika. Lot’s of it. When I realized I was out, I improvised. I read the ingredients on my Old Bay seasoning and paprika was one of them. Sold. I used generous sprinkles of that, along with a smaller pinch of chili powder and about a ½-1 teaspoon of Lawry’s seasoned salt. I have never in my life purchased seasoned salt before. Frankly it scared me a little bit, but it was an ingredient in my mac and cheese last weekend. Funny enough, it came in handy once again as a really nice way to salt up these homefries.





While I was cooking this particular breakfast, I turned the heat on these down to medium-low and just gave them a turn every once in a while. They are low maintenance and it’s kind of nice to just let them cook and let the flavors merge together while you prepare the rest of breakfast. Plus I really like when there are little burned bits of potato and onion in my homefries, but that’s personal preference.

triumphs and failures...a tale of two porkies

Holy cow. Do you EVEN KNOW what I just did? Something with enabling JavaScript and involving cookies. I got on the interweb this morning and tried to log in to post a blog. I got an error screen referring to both my cookies and my JavaScript. I wanted to slap it right in its fresh mouth, but instead I took a deep breath, did my best to focus my brain on the instructions I was shown to rectify the situation and you know what? IT WORKED! I know this is probably common knowledge for most people and the most basic thing ever, but for a technotard like myself, accomplishing this on the first try makes me feel like a Mad Genius! I didn’t even swear once! Anyways, it’s a good thing that worked itself out because I had one of those commutes to work this morning where you pretty much get convinced by what you see that the people of the world, specifically the people who drive Route 3 South from 7:45-8:45 (I’m talking to you Ford Taurus) are made of sheer liquid evil and I really get so mad at society and myself when I let a couple bad drivers make my blood pressure raise before my morning coffee. ANYWAYS, enough of that. I have been a neglectful blogger in recent days. Honestly, I swear, I had a full blog post with a recipe and everything set to go at the end of last week, but I just totally forgot to post it. Then when I read it again I deemed it unworthy. Honestly, it used Bisquik and I got embarrassed.

While we’re speaking of my flaws as a blogga, let me just tell you what I did this past weekend? Saturday was my mans’ 31^st birthday and I thought it would be fun to throw him a little birthday dinner. So I lovingly sent out an email invitation to parents and buddies alike. I plotted, schemed and recipe planned. I decided on a delicious, inexpensive and somewhat low maintenance meal so that I could maximize face time with guests. I wanted to wow on a budget. I washed the floors, set the table and bequeathed upon my Squeeze, a fresh birthday tee shirt.

I brought my mom’s china up from the basement and washed it, stacked it artfully on the table and set up a buffet.

I walked down to Michelle’s and snipped fresh herbs from her window boxes, I used my mortar and pestle for the first time in my everloving life. I marinated pork tenderloins and made croutons and Caesar dressing from scratch. I prepped, prepared, cleaned and chopped. I garnished the freaking hummus for god’s sake. And I smugly thought to myself, I could so totally write for Real Simple. I mean what is that magazine except common sense tips coupled with good art direction, really? I could do that, I thought.

And then, I took absolutely ZERO photographs. Of the food, of the people, of the cake, of anything. I completely failed to document the process all together. I got one shot of the macaroni and cheese as I made the sauce. That’s it. I can go out and take 75 pointless photographs over the course of a weekend, but I actually do something I live to do, like throw a dinner party, with all intentions of blogging about it and then completely space. Apparently five two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc were more captivating than my little Canon. So sorry about that.

The food came out great. You’ll have to take me at my word on this one, because well, that’s alls I’ve got. My mom brought crab cakes and clams casino, which were fantastic. I found two incredible recipes on Pioneer Woman’s website. One for a decadently garlicky Caesar salad and the other for the Most Ridiculous Mac and Cheese You’ve Ever Had. The only cooking photo I took that night:

You can find both these recipes, here and here. I made a big corn bread in my cast iron skillet, which I have been snacking on ever since and I made herb rubbed pork tenderloin with shallot jam along side. It was delicious, and fortunately was great for sandwiches, because even after packing up generous to-go containers for Paul’s buddies, I was still swimming in leftovers, including a carrot cake from White’s Bakery which could have been the death of me, if I had not brought the remaining half to my aunt’s house for Labor Day. All in all it was a great success but next time, I’ll remember to pay more attention to my camera and less attention to my wine. It’s better for everybody.

HERB RUBBED PORK TENDERLOIN with SHALLOT JAM

(shallot jam was found on thekitchn.com, pork tenderloin, I made up on my own. I also tripled this recipe (okay, quadrupled) to serve my crowd)

For the jam:

1 tablespoon olive oil

5 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

½ cup chicken broth

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

2 heaping tablespoons apricot preserves

salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium high heat; add shallots, season with salt and pepper and brown well, stirring often for about five minutes. Turn heat up to high and pour in chicken broth, simmer on high while broth reduces, using wooden spoon to scrape browned bits of shallot off the bottom of the skillet (again, about five minutes). Turn the heat down to med-low and pour in balsamic. Simmer for another five minutes and stir in apricot jam or preserves. My apricot preserves were low sugar, so I added a few generous pinches of cane sugar. The mixture will thicken a bit but remain very stirrable. I made this the day ahead and refrigerated it until I was ready to cook my pork. Then I heated it up and served it on the side. It was tasty. A little too tangy, so next time I might dial down the vinegar and up the pinch of sugar to a teaspoon. Or let the vinegar cook off more. This jam keeps well in the fridge. I have been putting it on leftover pork sandwiches all week.

For the pork:

1 pork tenderloin

Olive oil

Chopped fresh sage

Chopped fresh rosemary

Salt and pepper

I snipped my fresh sage and rosemary into a wooden mortar and pestle. I added a generous amount of sea salt and crushed black pepper and a light drizzle of oil. I then crushed it into a sort of chunky herby paste.

Remove pork tenderloin from packaging and pat dry. Generously salt and pepper both sides and then rub with the herb mixture. Place in a freezer bag and drizzle with enough oil to coat. Let marinate for anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Heat oven safe skillet over med-high heat and coat pan with olive oil. Sear the tenderloin on all sides until brown. Place skillet directly in oven. Cook until thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat reads 160 degrees. Remove from oven, let rest a few minutes. Slice and serve.

black bean soup

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of things since college. About 90 pounds of pizza weight, my blonde hair, a lot of less-than-adult behavior. I finally tossed a certain green striped rugby shirt that stuck around for about a decade too long. I’ve gotten four different, smaller and better cell phones and I’ve passed my penchant for malt liquor drinking back down to the younger generations, where it belongs. One thing that has stuck around however is this total cheater of a recipe I adapted from an old roommate. I must confess that this recipe is sort of shameful in a very Sandra-Lee-Semi-Homemade kind of way. I like to scoff at her sometimes because it seems like a lot of her recipes include her defrosting something, tossing some chopped onions on top, fixing a cocktail and calling it dinner. However, this particular semi-recipe is win-win-win. “And with win-win-win we all win, even me.”

By win-win-win I mean this soup is cheap-fast-tasty, my personal favorite trifecta of weeknight meal criteria. The cheating with canned goods parts helps out a lot in all of these categories and for that, I can’t fault this soup for being very Semi Homemade.

This is a chunky, spicy black bean soup so thick you could ladle it into a tortilla and make a lovely, messy burrito. It’s so thick in fact, that Rachel Ray might call it a “stoup” (an adorable combination of soup and stew) but I think that word is stoup-id *Ba dump ba ching! I’ll be here all week!*. The secret weapon to this soup is one word two syllables: Goya. There simply is no substitution.

I have tried to make this with organic soups and black beans and it’s just not the same. So drink plenty of water, because I’m sure the sodium content is off the charts, but I promise you, if you’re in a location where it’s socially acceptable, you will lick the bowl.

BLACK BEAN SOUP

(serves five generously, with leftovers)

2 cans Goya Black Bean Soup

2 cans Goya Black Beans

1 red bell pepped, chopped into a large dice

1 yellow pepper, chopped into a large dice

1 medium sized white or yellow onion, chopped into a large dice

1 small clove garlic, minced

1 generous tablespoon cumin

1 pinch chili powder

Hot sauce

1 teaspoon flour (optional)

Olive oil

Accompaniments:

Sour cream

Shredded jack, cheddar or Mexican blend cheese

Flour or corn tortillas, warmed

Mas hot sauce

Heat a good drizzle of olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add onions and garlic to pan to sweat. Add both peppers (also, green works just fine, I just prefer the taste and looks of red and yellow). Lower the heat slightly, add salt, pepper, a generous amount of cumin and a pinch of hot chili powder. Stir to combine. Sauté for a few more minutes. Stir in all four cans of both the soup and black beans. Combine a teaspoon of flour with some warm water in a small bowl. Stir to dissolve the flour completely and add this slurry to the soup, along with a generous dose of hot sauce. At this point, I like to crank the heat up, almost to high, to combine all the flavors, stirring frequently for about five minutes or until I’m convinced any flour-y taste will be dead and gone. Adjust seasonings to your taste, I use a truckload of salt, but that may be personal preference. I also almost always add additional cumin and hot sauce as well. Lower heat to a simmer a let cook for a bit longer. It will be ready to eat, but somehow I’m convinced an extra 10-15 minutes on the burner makes it that much better.

Ladle soup into a bowl, add a layer of shredded cheese, another ladle of soup, a bit more cheese, a dollop of sour cream and splash of hot sauce. Serve with warm tortillas, or tortilla chips. This soup is super filling, salty, spicy and delicious. Great the day it’s made but even better the next.

wednesday night dinner: a photo essay

Chilled avocado soup, chopped Greek salad, pan seared cod.

As a rule, I don’t like cold soups. Gazpacho is the only one I have extensive experience with and eating that always makes me feel like I’m eating a bowl of salsa. And frankly, if I’m going to eat a bowl of salsa, I’ll take the salty tortilla chips, glass of sangria and platter of mole poblano that should rightly accompany it. But still a creamy avocado soup called out to me yesterday. It was beautiful to make and super simple.

Two ripe avocados and one half a large English cuke, diced



Thrown into the bowl of my trusty cuis’ (pronounced kweeze):



Add half a container full fat Greek yogurt,



The juice of half a lemon,



And puree. My first taste test led me to add a lot more salt and pepper, a teensy splash of half and half, a drizzle of olive oil and a dash of Cholula and puree some more…



The end result was beautiful to look at…



I mean I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it, but I ate about six bites and was all set. It was just a little bitter, I guess. My squeeze said it tasted like an under ripe banana, but he cleaned his bowl anyways. Nice work, buddy.

Fortunately some other exciting things happened in my dinner last night. Like a chopped Greek (sans lettuce) the making of which was easy and simple and no stove was required. Tomatoes and cucumbers:



Finely diced red onion…



Coarsely chopped Greek green olives (pitted and marinated and kind of expensive), crumbled feta cheese, salt, pepper and a small drizzle of olive oil. Peep my action shot!



I did a victory dance after I captured that one and then chuckled out loud when right at that moment Paul yelled from the living room “you takin’ pictures of this shit or what?” Am I taking pictures? Am I ever. That slick drizzle of olive oil in action just made my night (dork). I tossed my chopped greek together and placed it and my creamy green soup in the fridge to chill for a bit. Watched Gordon Ramsey call a couple a restaurant owners stupid cows and then made some pan seared cod. If you’ve got a nice piece of fish (or scallops) all they need are two things to make them delicious:



Old Bay before the cooking, lemons immediately after. Oh! And of course plenty of Salt n Pepa.



I generously salt, peppered and Old Bayed each side of this lovely cod fillet.



Then seared it in olive oil at medium high heat. It tended to fall apart and stick a bit, but once I plated it up and squeezed some lemon, it didn’t look quite so messy. And it was delicious!