A Practical Guide To Healthy Living

Baking?  In July?  Yes, friends, it was in the low 70’s here in Boston yesterday and I had a couple lovely, fresh zucchini from my Picadilly Farms CSA share.  No one but me in this house’ll eat zucchini as a veg, so I thought I might try the sweet approach.

I used this recipe from Elise Bauer’s super site, Simply Recipes and made it in a 12-muffin muffin pan.

There was a little left over, so I buttered up 2 little ramekins and baked that off.  Before baking, I sprinkled the muffin tops with turbinado sugar, so they’ve got a sweet little crunch to ‘em.  Oh, and I added the optional cup of raisins and chopped walnuts to these puppies, too.  These are nice – moist, nice crumb, not too sweet and they require no special equipment to make (although I confess to grating the zucchini in the Cuisinart – it’s just so fast!).  These are delicious alone, or warmed with a schmear of butter, or a drizzle of honey, or a schmear of butter and and drizzle of honey . . . .

And are you like me?  With a portion control issue with baked goods?  These pups will freeze well.  I intend to put at least a 1/2 dozen into a Ziploc and stow ‘em . . . you can defrost them individually for a treat, or en masse for a get-together. 

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

© 2010, Semi-Sweet. All rights reserved.

Wednesdays are CSA share distribution days for us, and therefore Tuesdays are the days I freak about the stuff that’s still hanging around my fridge(s).  This week, there was a lot – we went away for the weekend and so I didn’t cook for a few nights.  I didn’t want to waste the precious bounty, so – here came this kitchen-sink green soup to the rescue . . . this soup will help you get your frugalista on, big-time.

My mother was poking around at the library and found a great cookbook called Love Soup by Anna Thomas, the author of the roundly praised Vegetarian Epicure.  Only after she’d begun to photocopy her favorites (um, mother of an intellectual property litigator) did my mother realize it’d be better to just buy the book . . . so many looked so good.  I received the photocopies (she’s not one to waste anything!) and this one caught my eye.

This isn’t so much a recipe as a method.  You can put anything in this soup – sky’s the limit.  Only a few things remain the same – you caramelize an onion to start.  You add some garlic part-way through, you garnish it with some lovely olive oil and perhaps a sprinkle of cheese.  But which veggies you choose is entirely up to you.

I used:

• a bunch of flat leaf parsley
• a half-bunch of cilantro
• a bunch of lacinato kale
• 3 bulbs (is that what they’re called?) kohlrabi
• 2 bunches of scallions
• 1 medium yellow onion

Get yourself a large stockpot or a big Le Creuset – I used my 7 1/4 qt. Le Creuset for this.  Thinly slice the yellow onion, and cook it with a sprinkle of salt, in about 2 T. of extra-virgin olive oil.  Cook it on low heat, stirring occasionally, until it’s golden brown and soft - you’re letting the onion’s delicious sweet flavor develop here.  Don’t rush it! This will take about 1/2 hour, but you’re going to be chopping while you do this . . . .

Meanwhile, clean and chop all your various veggies – you can use stems of things here, too, ’cause you’re cooking it ’til it’s soft. 

When your onion is sufficiently caramelized, de-glaze the pan with a little vegetable or low-sodium chicken broth.  Then add all those greens, along with approximately 3 cups of whichever broth you’re using.  Toss the veggies in the broth until they cook down a bit (my pot was practically over-flowing to start).  Also add 3-4 T. of arborio rice – this will add starch and will result in a velvety soup when it’s finished.

Once the broth begins to boil, cover the pot, reduce the heat, and let the soup simmer for approximately 1/2 hour.  Add more broth to completely cover the cooked-down vegetables, and add 2-4 cloves of garlic, depending on your taste (for all those veggies, I added the equivalent of 4 cloves of crushed garlic).

Once everything is sufficiently mushy (more or less time, depending on what you’ve got in there), remove the vat from the heat and use either an immersion blender or a regular blender (for goodness sake, be careful blending hot liquids, OK?) to puree the soup.  Return it to the heat, bring it back to simmer, and add the juice of one lemon, Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of cayenne pepper to taste.  Voila!

Garnishes – a little extra-good extra-virgin drizzled on top adds a delicious richness.  Also good is some fresh white cheese – I used some ricotta salata, but Thomas suggests that feta or Cotija would be good.  You could also make up some croutons to throw on top.  If it hadn’t been 50-gagillion degrees out, I’d have hacked up a stale loaf of rosemary focaccia I have in the fridge and toasted that up.  Maybe tomorrow?

© 2010, Semi-Sweet. All rights reserved.