sprouts

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Wow it’s been quite a while since I last posted, so long in fact that ALL my many readers may have assumed this blog dead and gone. Not yet! While I am one of the few holding on to this antiquated form, I persist. Which brings me to Thanksgiving. I did the dry-brined Judy Bird, plus Food 52’s Challah Stuffing and Mark Bittman’s make-ahead gravy, per usual. But this year I did fewer other things and tried to relax a little more and enjoy the festivities.

It also allowed me to take in my mother in law’s beautiful decoration which included a mantle wreath made out of brussel sprouts and radishes—real food!

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And after having seen the film Wasted and because I’m helping to plan this year’s inaugural Irvington Theater environmental festival, I felt the need to use those beautiful vegetables in something we could actually consume. So Friday morning I gathered them up and dragged them home. And then thought: what am I going to do with 8 pounds of brussel sprouts and 3 lbs of radishes?

After a few hours in the kitchen, I had brussel sprout soup, roasted sprouts and roasted radishes (plus a few raw ones to use in a salad.) Roasted sprouts with lots of salt and oil is maybe one of the best fall dishes. Plus the soup, with some adjusting, was delicious, freezable and healthy. Bet you never heard of sprout soup! We hadn’t either but it can and should be done!

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Sprout Soup

Adapted from The Spruce

1 pound brussel sprouts

2 ribs celery

1 small onion

1 to 2 tablespoons butter

3 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth

1/4 cup cream

1 tsp sherry vinegar

1 tsp fish sauce

salt/pepper

Heat the butter in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Once it is melted, add the celery and onions. Sprinkle with the salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are soft, about 3 minutes.

Add the chopped sprouts and stir to combine. Cook, stirring occasionally until the Brussels sprouts turn a brighter shade of green, about 2 minutes. Add the broth and bring everything just to a boil.

Reduce the heat to maintain a steady simmer, cover partially, and cook until the Brussels sprouts are completely tender about 10 minutes.

Use a hand-held immersion blender or regular blender to completely purée the soup as smooth as possible.

Add cream, and season to taste with salt and pepper, vinegar and fish sauce.

exodus in easton

The boys and I spent the last week of the summer in exodus at my parent's house in Easton Maryland. And it was there, with little to do except play Pokemon, that I discovered Ottolenghi's Jerusalem cookbook (on my mom's bookshelf). I spent the next few days cooking almost exclusively from it and realized that many of the recipes I had stored on my Paprika app or noted in Food52 were actually adapted from this book: Food52's "genius" humous is actually the traditional Israeli recipe for humous that uses dried chickpeas and ice water. (I made about 10 cups of it by accident but we all wound up eating all of it--it's that good.) See recipes and pictures of humous-making in the previous post!

I also made these turkey meatballs—minus the zucchini (err courgette) since I knew Nate wouldn't eat them if they were green and of course he didn't eat them anyway. And twice I tried the Fattoush salad which was so much better when I substituted kirby pickles for fresh cucumbers. Loved the creamy nan which soaks up the yogurt dressing.

genius?

in

Michael was in the Berkshires on a boy's weekend (read drinking Tequila and sleeping late) until Sunday. Alone, I ate bagels with cream cheese, pickles and nachos and whatever the boys didn't finish. Michael got home Sunday, hungover, and took the boys for a couple hours so I could do something that didn't involve legos.

Even though Pasta Sunday had been cancelled I decided to make pasta. Crazy, I know. I wanted to try  this recipe from Food52. I had been thinking about it because it was this week's "genius pasta." The word genius is very compelling. I don’t think I’d be sucked in by ‘best” or “greatest” or “number one” but genius speaks to me because there can be more than one genius pastas and I'll respect them all. 

The most exciting part was caramelizing the onions. I love watching how they transform over time.

I also added small broccoli florets (frozen) and canned mushrooms, making it a super easy dish and kinda of healthy dish.

Verdict: I thought it was good, not genius. The sauce -- consisting of greek/strained yogurt and pasta water-- wasn't quite rich enough to carry the dish. (I like the idea of using greek yogurt as a creaminess enhancer-- ie in place of cream-- and mixing it with starchy liquid. I guess that's the genius part,) But it needed a lot of cheese and salt and even then seemed missing something. Butter, probably.