The Tangy Harvest Part 1: Sorrel Soup

Sorrel

I have a clump of sorrel in my herb garden. It’s the first thing I get to harvest and eat in any quantity each year and it keeps on producing all season. It has a tangy  flavor that I really enjoy. Over the course of the summer, I mix it in with sauted greens, salads and sauces. My annual tradition is to make that first big bunch into sorrel soup. I go for the most basic version of this soup, which showcases the flavor of the sorrel. I’ve tried making a vegan version with oil and almond milk instead of butter and cream, but I really find that I like the dairy version best.

Sorrel Soup

Sorrel Soup

2tbs of butter

2 cups of veggie broth, warmed

3-4 cups of sorrel leaves, washed, any really tough stems removed and coarsely chopped

2 cups of cream or half and half (good fresh cream will be noticed here)

salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium high heat. Add the sorrel and toss to coat. Cook while stirring until it starts to wilt. It turns from bright green to a greenish brown. Stir in the broth and cook over medium for 5 minutes. Cool slightly and puree in blender, food processor or with an immersion blender. Stir in the cream and add salt and pepper to taste. Cook on medium until heated through (do not boil). Taste and adjust seasonings.

that sorrel soup sure was good

Pasta with Creamy Tomato Sauce

I was looking for a break from the Tempeh Chili and a way to use up the rest of the cream from Thanksgiving before it spoiled. I had been meaning to try the Creamy Tomato Recipe from the May/June 2008 issue of Cook’s Illustrated (subscription necessary) and never got around to it. This was the perfect opportunity.

You might be thinking that this is just marinara with cream stirred in. It’s more deliberate than that. The base is typical, sauted finely diced onion, bay leaf, red pepper flakes and garlic. It calls for butter rather than olive oil as the fat, which is a sensible pairing with the cream, but I think olive oil would work, too. The recipe also calls for a little prosciutto in the mix, but I of course left that out. Tomato paste is added at the end of the saute and allowed to darken. This and chopped sundried tomato help to add tomato dimensions beyond what the canned tomato would have offered. Dry white wine for acidity to balance the sweetness of the tomatoes seems essential. I was considering using lemon juice instead, but the brightness of it would probably be lost in the time needed to cook the sauce until thick. The cream is stirred in at the very end, with a dash more wine, cooking water from your pasta as needed and of course salt and pepper. It came together quickly, in under an hour. The step of simmering the sauce until thick provides enough time to boil pasta and pull together a salad.

Pasta w/ Creamy Tomato Sauce

For the salad I just went with straight romaine dressed with Roasted Garlic Vinaigrette from The Grit Cookbook (which is another stupendous veggie cookbook title you should totally get). I like garlic in my vinaigrette anyway, but the roasted version is a wonderful mellow change of pace. When you make it in a blender or food processor it emulsifies into a beautiful creamy dressing that still has the acidity of your typical vinaigrette. I like the contrast of a rich dish like this pasta sauce with the sharpness of the vinegar.

By the way, The Grit is like the Moosewood of Athens, GA. I’ve never been there, but If I’m ever within even a day’s drive I will totally go out of my way to dine there. I mean just look at that menu. A lot of those goodies are in the cookbook.

Thanksgiving Feast 2008

I’ve been thinking about restarting this blog for a while. It seems only fitting to make the first post on a holiday centered around food.

This year, it was just the two of us for Thanksgiving dinner, so I decided to keep the meal fairly simple. I enjoy cooking, however I was looking forward to a relaxing few days off, and I didn’t want to spend all of my time in the kitchen. I also wanted to keep the leftovers to a minimum. I like leftovers, but not days and days of them.

We don’t eat dessert very often, so the Thanksgiving pies are something we really look forward to, and definetly made the cut. Another perennial favorite is oyster casserole, which is very rich, so I made that the main course. I wanted two vegetable sides that were relatively simply and not at all rich. We love roasted sweet potatoes so that was a natural departure from the more complex sweet potato casserole. I decided on skillet green beans with orange, maple and pecan. I also usually make another old favorite cumberland cranberry sauce from my battered copy of the Vegetarian Epicure.

Unfortunately none of the pictures came out well enough to be worth posting.

Since their classic recipe has been our favorite for years, I tried the revised pumpkin pie recipe in the current (Nov/Dec 2008) issue of Cook’s Illustrated. It was a bit lighter on the spices and replacing dried ground ginger with grated fresh was definetly an improvement. Maple syrup was added as a sweetner, something I had sometimes used as I appreciate the flavor of dark maple syrup in baked goods. It also incorporated sweet potato with the pumpkin. I have to say I like sweet potato pie as much as I like pumpkin pie, but I’d rather keep those two flavors separate. For future pies I think I’ll incorporate the fresh ginger and maple syrup in the classic recipe.

Instead of apple pie, I decided to make apple crisp, which I usually make a couple of times each fall. I used the three varieties of heirloom cooking apples that I have been enjoying in crisps this fall: calville blanc d’ Hiver, Black Gilliflower (a.k.a. Sheep’s Nose) and Belle du Boskoop. Each has a different level of sweetness and acidity and different texture when cooked. These heirloom varieties also have a floral quality missing from the modern varieties. I keep the seasoning of the filling simple, cinnamon, dark maple syrup, lemon zest and juice. As usual, I baked extra sharp cheddar cheese in the crumb topping. It was a success.

My husband is an idea man. On our way back home from a late morning stroll, he suggested having dessert first. So we had our pies (made the day before Thanksgiving) at lunchtime and ate the rest of the meal for dinner. We’re going to do this every year! We had a chance to enjoy our pie on an empty stomach and still have our fill at dinner.

For the roasted sweet potatoes, I again turned to the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Cook’s Illustrated. Their excellent technique made this simple and delicious dish the best roasted sweet potatoes I’ve ever had. This is how I will be cooking them from now on.

For the green beans I improvised from a few different recipes combining orange juice and zest with maple pecans in a skillet. This would have come out better with younger and more tender green beans. In the future, I am going to stick with roasting any green beans that do not come fresh from the garden.

I have been making baked oyster casserole for years. Oysters, a little cream, bread crumbs and a little butter on top. It’s good, but I thought it could be better. I looked around on my usual recipe sources on the internet for ideas. I settled on Nathalie Dupree’s Southern Oyster Casserole on Epicurious. I left out the mushrooms (that just seemed odd to me) and replaced the bell pepper with celery and the scallion with shallots. It was delicious, the creamy sauce wasn’t too heavy and really allowed the briny taste of the oysters to shine through. I had planned for the cumberland cranberry sauce to complement the creamy casserole, but I forgot to serve it! I’ll have to come up with another dish to serve it with this weekend.

And there you have it, a mix of old tried and true favorites and some new ideas made for a great meal.