Vegetable Soup Formula

Vegetable soups are quickly becoming my savior as I enter my first, cold New York winter. I used to bring salads to work in Los Angeles year-round and they proved sufficient for a quick meal at my desk. I tried that here in New York during the first few weeks of November and it turned out to be less than satisfying. So much so that when faced with the green leaves staring back at me from the office refrigerator, I quickly turned and walked out the door in search of something warm and a bit more comforting.

The main problem with my new lunchtime ritual is the detrimental effect it has had on the snugness of my wardrobe. Add that to the battle already underway with the culinary school bulge and it is a recipe for disaster. One more trip to Guy & Gallard for lobster bisque and no amount of Saturday morning boot camp in Central Park is going to bring me back.

Enter the humble vegetable soup. This is the perfect comfort food compromise. It is warm, thick and packed with the flavors of fall, but if you keep the ingredients to vegetables, stock and a few key flavorings, it is supremely healthy and nourishing.

This recipe, as with most, is just a guideline. Be sure to experiment with your favorite flavors. Keep this simple formula in mind and you will produce a successful soup every time:

1. Sauté diced onions in a bit of oil. After the onions soften add any garlic, ginger or other such flavorings (not herbs) and sauté a bit more. Season with salt and pepper.
2. For a roasted vegetable soup, dice the vegetables and roast at 375˚ until tender. Alternately, you can add the vegetables to the pot with the onions and sauté a bit to achieve some color. If roasting, add the vegetables to the pot with the softened onions after roasting.
3. Add enough vegetable stock to cover everything, toss in any herbs you want to use and simmer for at least 30 minutes. If you did not roast the vegetables, make sure they are tender before proceeding.
4. Remove the herbs and use an immersion blender or a standard blender to purée the soup.
5. Return the puréed soup to the pan and season to taste with salt and pepper.

There. You just made delicious and healthy vegetable soup. The only thing I must insist on is that you, if at all possible, make your own vegetable stock. It is so simple, yet it adds so much to the final product. Not to mention that it is a great way to use up vegetable scraps. For a refresher on vegetable stock, go here. If you are not quite ready to experiment on your own, here is the recipe for my latest concoction, carrot ginger pear soup.

Carrot Ginger Pear Soup
Makes about 2 quarts

1 small onion, diced
2 T vegetable oil
1 pound carrots
2 ripe pears
2 slices fresh ginger
1 1/2 quarts vegetable stock
Salt and pepper

Heat a medium pot over medium high heat. Add the oil and diced onion and sauté until soft. Add the ginger slices and continue to sauté. While the onions are sautéing, peel and roughly chop the carrots and pears. Add the carrots and pears to the pot and sauté until beginning to soften, five to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables and simmer for 30 minutes until the carrots are tender.

To temper the spice of the ginger, remove the slices before pureeing. If you want more zip, leave the ginger in. Purée the mixture using an immersion or standard blender. Return the purée to the pot and season with salt and pepper to taste. If the soup is too thick, add a bit more vegetable stock to thin it out. Serve or cool and divide into containers for storage.

Dem Bones

I used to love the knowing looks butchers would flash my way when I would ask for beef bones, chicken carcasses or offal. I once received a marriage proposal after requesting three pounds of oxtail. Rather, I think the butcher told my boyfriend, who was with me at the time, to ask me to marry him right away. ‘Put a ring on that,’ may have been the exact words. You get the point.

That was at least four years ago when I first started making my own stocks and needed to ask butchers for things like chicken carcasses. Those days are pretty much over. It seems it is no longer uncommon for someone to make their own stock or request lesser known cuts of meat. This, in itself, is a good thing. I love that the food revolution has carried quality product and more homemade—fewer processed—ingredients into the kitchen of your average home cook. However, if I am being totally honest, I miss the knowing looks. And the marriage proposals.

One key thing I have learned about stocks at The French Culinary Institute, is that any kitchen without veal stock is an ill-equipped one. On occasion I have the opportunity to bring home from school a quart container of veal stock, or excess demi glace (veal stock that has been reduced by half), but last week I found that all of my reserves had been used up. It is getting cold here in New York and I am going to need a freezer full of stocks to accommodate all of the soup and stew making I have planned for the coming weeks. Unfettered by the lack of butcher attention received in recent years, I set out last week to gather the ingredients for a batch of veal stock.

Though not a difficult task, veal stock is slightly more complicated than the chicken or vegetable stock I make. Since I make a brown veal stock, I have to roast the bones and mirepoix before leaving everything to gently simmer on the stove for hours. Still, considering what a difference using a homemade stock makes in the final flavor of many, many dishes, the effort is minimal in relation to the payoff.

The recipe included below does not need to be followed exactly (I try to use up whatever vegetable trimmings I have stashed in the freezer when making stock), but a good guideline is to aim to include mirepoix (carrots, onion, celery) equivalent to about 20 percent of the weight of bones being used. So, for my seven pounds of veal bones, I included about one and a half pounds of mirepoix.

Once the stock has simmered for roughly eight hours, cool it down quickly by breaking it into smaller containers and chilling them over an ice bath. Once cool, place the containers in the fridge if you are planning on using the stock in a day or two. Otherwise, store them in the freezer for the next soup, stew or braise you make, all of which can benefit from a little homemade stock flavor.

Veal Stock
Makes about 5 quarts

7 pounds veal bones
Vegetable oil as needed
1/2 pound carrots or carrot trimmings cut into 3-in lengths
1/2 pound onions or onion trimmings, peeled and quartered
1/2 pound celery or celery trimmings, cut into 3-in lengths
Greens from one leek, thoroughly rinsed
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup tomato trimmings or 1 plum tomato, roughly chopped
6 cloves garlic, smashed
Bouquet garni (bay leaf, thyme sprigs, peppercorns, parsley sprigs)

Preheat oven to 450˚
Place a heavy bottomed roasting pan in the oven to preheat. Coat the veal bones in oil and place in the pan. Roast the bones for 30 minutes then turn the bones over and continue roasting for 30 more minutes. Toss the carrots, onions, celery and leek greens with the tomato paste and add them to the roasting pan for the last 15 minutes of cooking (after the bones have been roasting for 45 minutes). Place the roasted bones and mirepoix in a large stockpot. Deglaze the roasting pan with some water to loosen the browned bits, scraping them up if necessary. Add the water and browned bits to the stockpot along with the tomato trimmings. Add cold water to the stockpot until the bones are fully submerged (about 6 quarts of water depending on the pot) and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and skim well. Add the tomatoes, garlic and bouquet garni. Continue to simmer for eight hours. It should be a very low simmer with just a few bubbles breaking the surface every few seconds. Continue to skim the surface while the stock is simmering. Removing the scum that floats to the surface will result in a clear stock - a sure sign of success in a finished stock.

After the stock has simmered for eight hours, strain it and place in smaller containers to cool over an ice bath. I plug up my sink and fill it with an ice and water mixture. I then pour the stock into metal bowls and place the bowls in the ice bath to cool. Pour the cooled stock into quart containers and freeze or place in the refrigerator for later use.

Tarte Aux Pommes

Lest all of you think that I skipped out of town with my extra copy of the Thinkfood cookbook, I think it is high time I announced the winner. Thank you all for the beautiful stories you shared in the comments section on the last post. I love hearing about other people's food memories.

I used a random number generator to select a number between 1 and 25 (I know this is a cop out, but there were just too many good stories and I was having a really hard time choosing just one). The web site selected number seven, so, Saint Tigerlily, you are the winner! I will get in touch with you to arrange delivery of the cookbook.

In the meantime, as fall is most certainly upon us here in New York City, I think it is time to get down to some apple business. My friend Tanitra, FCI classmate and fellow food blogger, brought me a bag of apples from her recent apple picking outing to Mead Orchards. They are delicious, juicy and just the right balance of sweet and tart. I am using some of them this afternoon to make the Apple Vinaigrette from Phil and Lauren Rubin's new book, The Comfort of Apples. I will be sure and share that vinaigrette and the resulting salad with you shortly, but first I want to get to the apple tart that we are now making nightly in level 3 at The French Culinary Institute.

Get all ideas of apple pie out of your head before you make this tart. There is not a lot of sugar in this filling. If you are looking for a sweet, syrupy interior, stick with your favorite apple pie recipe. However, if you love recipes that let the natural flavor of ingredients shine, definitely give this a go. The tartness of the apples really comes through in the final product.

Tarte Aux Pommes

4 large Granny Smith apples
2 T water
4 T sugar
2 Golden Delicious apples
4 T butter, melted
1/4 cup apricot jam
2 T water, more as needed to thin the jam
Lemon juice as needed
1 recipe of your favorite tart or pie dough

Preheat oven to 400°
Roll out your dough and fit it to an 8" tart shell and place it back in the fridge to rest. If you have just made your tart dough, be sure and let it rest in the refrigerator for an hour before rolling it out.

Peel the granny smith apples and roughly chop them. Add them to a saucepan with two tablespoons of water and 4 tablespoons of sugar. Loosely cover and cook until the apples start to break down. You want the mixture to be approaching applesauce consistency, but with some remaining apples chunks. Set aside to cool.

Peel and core the golden delicious apples. Cut them in half vertically. Cut each half into very thin slices, no more than 1/8". These slices will be used to decorate the top of the tart. If you are not decorating the tart right away, toss the slices with a little lemon juice to prevent browning.

Remove the tart shell from the refrigerator and fill it with the cooled apple filling. The filling should come about 3/4 of the way up the tart shell. Arrange the thin apple slices in two concentric circles. No filling should show through the topping. Place in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350° and continue cooking for an additional 50 minutes.

Combine the apricot jam and two tablespoons of water in a small pan. Heat gently to thin out the jam. Use a pastry brush to glaze the tart with the jam. Let the tart cool to room temperature before serving.

Thinkfood Cookbook Giveaway

This past summer I was asked to contribute a recipe to the Thinkfood Cookbook published by Posit Science. I was thrilled to be invited to participate and had so much fun working on the project. One of the highlights of the whole experience was hearing from a Posit Science contact that while out at a dinner in the Bay Area, she was discussing the cookbook with her dinner companions when she was interrupted by someone at the table next to her. The woman wanted to tell her that she had heard about the Thinkfood cookbook from a blog she reads, Apples and Butter (I would love to know who you are if you are still a reader!). So many great things have happened as a result of this project, but I do not think anything could match the thrill of seeing the published cookbook for the first time a few weeks ago.

It is a beautiful book, filled with delicious and brain-healthy recipes. I would tell all of you to head over to the Posit Science site to order your copy today (which you should all do), but I am more excited to tell you that I have one copy to give away here today.



I created the recipe included in Thinkfood for my boyfriend. I was trying to satisfy a craving for a dish he had enjoyed many times in England with his father when he was growing up. We could not find proper lamb kofta in Los Angeles so I came up with this recipe to appease him until we made our next trip to London with his family.

Have you ever had to recreate a dish at home for someone you love, in an attempt to satisfy their food craving? Were you successful? Tell me about your story in the comment section and one reader will receive a copy of the Thinkfood book, lovingly shipped by yours truly. Bonus points if you are willing to share your recipe so we can try it out on Apples and Butter!

In the meantime, the original recipe for lamb kofta can be found on the Thinkfood cookbook page. If you stopped by today as a result of the Posit Science newsletter, thank you for visiting and please leave a comment with your recipe story so you can have a chance at winning the cookbook!

A Healthy Breakfast to Combat Culinary School's Pastry Section

Last night was day two of our two-week section on pastry. The French Culinary Institute believes that culinary students should have at least a background in pastry, and I couldn’t agree more. Take Top Chef as a prime example. Every season at least one, if not two, competitors get sent home for the ill-advised action of taking on a dessert course. We culinary students need to earn our chops in the fine art of dessert-making.

I have an insatiable sweet tooth and while it usually craves chocolate, I am happy to oblige it with a couple of weeks of pastry crèmes, tarts, ice creams, mousses, soufflés, puff pastry and crepes. Unfortunately, I can feel my pants tightening just from writing that list. That, in conjunction with the aftereffects of a serious sugar high in class last night, left me craving something good for my body this morning (when I say serious sugar high I mean serious. By the end of class, no one could stop laughing long enough to listen to the instructor, and after I got home at 11:30 pm, it still took me two hours to be able to go to sleep).

Luckily, in addition to the many food magazines I read, I also have subscriptions to a number of health and fitness publications. Someone who loves to eat as much as I do needs all the help she can get making sure she does not need to buy a new wardrobe every few months. These blueberry pancakes are from Health Magazine’s September issue and a part of their new CarbLovers Diet. I am not someone who has ever in her life been able to stick to a diet (please see previous comment about loving to eat and did I mention I am in culinary school?). However, I do love to take some of the best, healthy recipes from publications like Health, Cooking Light, Family Circle and others, and incorporate them into my cooking routine to bring balance back to my meals. These blueberry pancakes are delicious and easy to make, a combination that should earn them a repeat appearance in your cooking repertoire. At least, if like me, you need a healthy addition to your diet every now and then.



Blueberry Oat Pancakes with Agave-Sweetened Yogurt
Adapted from Health Magazine
Serves 2

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
2 large eggs
1 t vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
1 cup blueberries
Cooking spray
3/4 cup 0% Fage (or other low or non-fat Greek yogurt)
1 T agave (or maple syrup as the original recipe calls for)

Combine first four ingredients (through vanilla) in a blender and process just until smooth (if you take it too far as I did with my first batch the pancakes will turn out gummy). Place the batter in a medium bowl and stir in the blueberries. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat and coat with cooking spray. Spoon a few tablespoons of batter per pancake into the pan. Cook until golden, about three minutes per side. Combine the yogurt and the agave or maple syrup and serve with the pancakes.

Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh is a go-to dish when cleaning out the vegetable bin which I seem to be doing a lot these days. I am still learning to adjust my shopping list to more appropriate levels for someone who is in culinary school. Three nights a week I get fed at school and I bring home leftovers of all the foods I prepare during class. There is a surplus of food in my fridge and sometimes I forget to purchase less when I head out to the store.

Even if you don’t need to clean out the veg bin, tabbouleh is a great dish to have on hand. It keeps well, and even gets better as the flavors meld together over the course of a day or two. I snack on it throughout the day and if you need a quick side for dinner, it is always great to have this sitting in the fridge waiting for you. Love those time savers.



Tabbouleh is traditionally made with bulgar wheat, which is what I used here, but I often use couscous, wild rice, wheat berries or basically any grain (or pasta in the case of couscous) that I have on hand. Traditional vegetables include tomatoes and spring onions with a healthy does (usually an entire bunch) of chopped parsley, but since I use this salad as a dumping ground for leftover vegetables, I do not always stick to the traditional and neither should you. In this rendition I use tomatoes, cucumbers and shallots, but in the past my tabboulehs have also included zucchini, eggplant (cooked), celery, squash and so on. The only real guidelines you should follow are to chop the vegetables small - I usually aim for a similar size to the grain I am using – and to use lots and lots of parsley.



Tabbouleh

1 cup bulgar or other desired grain or pasta
1 cucumber
3 roma tomatoes
1 small shallot
1 bunch parsley
Juice from 1 lemon
Olive oil to taste (start with 3 T and add from there)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Cook the bulgar or other grain according to package directions. Spread the cooked grains out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet to cool quickly. While the grains are cooking, chop the cucumber, tomatoes and shallot finely. Sprinkle the vegetables with salt and pepper and set aside. Chop the parsley finely, rocking your knife back and forth through the herb to make quick work of the bunch. Once the bulgar has cooled, combine it with the vegetables, parsley and lemon juice. Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil. You want the salad to seem moist, but not oily. If necessary, add more olive oil. Taste and add more salt and pepper to your liking. The salad is ready right away, but gets even better after some time in the refrigerator.

Years That Answer

There are years that ask questions and years that answer. So says the text on the card I received from my parents today for my 30th birthday. According to my mother, I am in one of those years that answers.

At the moment, I still feel as though as I am asking a lot of questions. Where will this year of culinary school take me? Where will I be working? At the end of this year will I get to stay in New York or head back to Los Angeles? Or somewhere else?

At least one question has been answered. Will I ever go to culinary school? Yes. In fact, I am doing that at this very moment. Every now and then I have to stop and remind myself that I am, in fact, doing that very thing. I have been putting this dream together for years and it is so easy to forget that I am finally here living it.

I feel particularly grateful today. It is 1:30 in the morning and I am up late riding the adrenaline of a day that included the 30th anniversary of my birth and the practical and written finals for level one of culinary school. As we were waiting in the hall at school for our exam to begin, a man walked by and asked if there was a final going on. I glanced up and realized that Jacques Pepin was standing in front of me wishing our class good luck. “Cook from the gut,” were his final words as he continued down the hall after graciously posing for pictures with some of my classmates.

Chef Pepin is a dean at FCI, but it’s not as though the man is there every day roaming the halls. It was, without a doubt, a celebrity sighting. I had already decided it was very apropos that I should spend the night of my 30th birthday chopping vegetables during the level 1 final, but Chef Pepin provided the icing on the cake for a notable evening.

There is a bit more icing in my life right now as I lay in bed eating the slice of devil’s food cake I picked up on my way home from school tonight. Final or no final, a girl has got to have cake on her birthday. Lest you start thinking I eat cake every night, I am including the recipe for one of my more common evening snacks.

By the time we finish with school and I catch the subway home, it is usually at least 11:30 pm. To help myself wind down from a busy and late night in the kitchen, I make a quick snack of pears on rye toast with ricotta and agave nectar. The pears and rye feel judicious after an evening that inevitably includes a butter-enriched something and the ricotta and agave sufficiently satisfy my sweet tooth to spare me yet another visit to Billy’s Bakery and a subsequent trip to the gym.

If you are not a fan of the combination of savory and sweet, you can leave out the salt and cracked pepper, but I think it would be a mistake. The more pepper the better and make sure it is freshly ground. It is the perfect offset to the creamy ricotta and sweet agave.

Pear and Ricotta on Rye Toast

1 large slice of rye bread
1/2 small pear
1/3 cup fresh ricotta
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Agave nectar for drizzling

Toast the rye bread. Slice the pear thinly and place the slices on the rye bread. Spread the ricotta over the pear and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle the agave nectar over everything.

Ice-Pop Diaspora

It turns out that if you like to cook, you have a secret weapon when it comes to making friends in a new city. People like to eat and if you happen to throw say, an ice cream party, and have a bunch of people over to your house and feed them, people will like you for letting them eat good food for free.

I didn’t plan my ice cream party as a ploy to make friends, but in hindsight, it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea. It was meant to be a housewarming party, but really any party, at its base, is just a chance to get together with friends, strengthen relationships and hopefully make some new ones. I think the ice cream succeeded in bringing everyone together which, by the way, is what I love about food and cooking

I made a couple of my favorite frozen treats that you can find on Apples and Butter (lemon thyme sorbet, olive oil gelato and apple pie frozen yogurt) and one new recipe courtesy of Saveur Magazine. If you have made it even just a few pages into the current issue of Saveur (The Greece Issue) then you probably noticed the article on the ice-pop that changed a town in Mexico. We were not changing the social makeup of any town or creating a popsicle diaspora at our party, but the unexpected flavors (at least for American palates) of sweet mango and ancho chile powder did manage to start a few conversations. In other words, they served as the perfect icebreaker.

If you like the idea of salty and sweet combinations, then this combination of spicy and sweet won’t be too much of a reach for you. If it seems a little daunting, cut back on the amount of ancho chile powder so that the spiciness is more of an aftertaste. I will be making these again exactly as Saveur suggests. I think the recipe is perfect as is.

Mango-Chile Ice Pops
Saveur Magazine

1 cup store-bought mango juice or nectar
1/4 cup sugar
2 t fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup water
1 t ancho chile powder
I large mango, peeled, seeded and diced

Heat mango juice, sugar, lemon juice and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Chill mixture in the refrigerator. Stir in the ancho chile powder and mango chunks. Transfer mixture into popsicle molds of your choice and freeze until solid.