I'm Accustomed to the Smooth Ride

"When you're manic, every urge is like an edict from the Vatican. No plan is a bad one, because if you're there and you're doing it, it can't be bad. Mania is, in effect, liquid confidence. When the tide comes in, it's all good, but when the tide goes out, the mood that cannot and should not be named comes over you. Because to name it would be an act of summoning."

"Years ago, there were tribes that roamed the earth, and every tribe had a magic person. Well, as you know, all of the tribes have dispersed, but every so often you meet a magic person and every so often, you meet someone from your tribe. Which is how I felt when I met Paul Simon."

My two favorite passages from Carrie Fisher's book, Wishful Drinking.

Beautiful Soup

More soup. Parsnip and carrot. Potato and onion. Chicken and mushroom with collards. Some improvised, some not. We've been souping it up all week long. No pictures, because we've eaten them right up. I recommend Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone as a great foundation cookbook for anyone, not just vegetarians. One of my informal resolutions was to lighten up on the meat this year and eat more vegetables, and so far, this book has really been helpful. Andrea Chesman's The Garden Fresh Vegetable Cookbook is another good one, arranged seasonally so that you can just flip to Winter and cook what's in season and well-priced right now.

Parsnip Soup with Ginger and Parsnip "Croutons"
(from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)

3 large parsnips, about 2 lbs, peeled
6 cups basic vegetable stock or water (below)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro stems, plus sprigs for garnish
4 thin slices ginger
3 tablespoons butter or canola oil
1 large onion, chopped
3/4 lb carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 T white rice
Salt and freshly milled black pepper
1 cup (or more) milk, cream or almond milk to thin the soup, as needed

Cut two of the parsnips crosswise in half, then quarter each half lengthwise. Cut away most of the cores. (Note: this is an important step, especially with larger parsnips, as the core is woody and fibrous.) Reserve the other parsnip (to be diced and sauteed as garnish later.)

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil or butter in a soup pot over medium heat, letting it brown a little. Add the vegetables, remaining ginger and the coriander. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onion and carrots have begun to brown here and there. Add the rice and 1 1/2 tsp salt and cook a few minutes more. Add the strained stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the vegetables are very soft, about 35 minutes. Remove the ginger, then puree the soup, leaving a little texture or not, as you wish. Thin if necessary with the milk. Check for seasoning, add salt if necessary.

Dice the third parsnip into little cubes (remember to remove the cores) and cook in a skillet in the remaining butter, until golden and tender, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the soup with a spoonful of the parsnips and garnish with sprigs of cilantro.

If you've never cooked with parsnips before, give them a try. They make plain soups, like potato, more interesting and tasty. Here's one of my favorite recipes, for a deceptively simple soup that tastes richer than it is. Cauliflower-Parsnip-Leek soup, from chowhound.

Two Delicious Soups for the New Year

Tonight, I blog.*

Right at this moment, I could call AT&T from my phone and crawl my way up the service ladder in search of someone who might be able to take a sensible look at all of my plans and figure out a way that my minutes and bytes could be shared. The thought of it makes my upper lip begin to curl in a peculiar way. So I’m putting it aside for tonight, in favor of more calming pursuits.

Because what I really wanted to blog about was…soup.

One of the things Mike got me for Christmas was Deborah Madison’s classic cookbook Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. The first recipe I made from it, which I’ve included for you below, is chock-full of green nutritiousness, cooks up quickly, and is just the thing for a cold January night. Surprisingly tasty for a soup with so few ingredients. The second soup, which Mike and I made the following night, was a serendipitous coming together of wintry ingredients that will definitely make a repeat appearance.

Chard Soup with Sorrel or Lemon (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)

2 T butter

1 onion or two medium leeks (white parts only) chopped

3 red potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1 bunch chard, stems removed, about 10 cups leaves

2 cups sorrel leaves, stems removed, or juice of 1 large lemon

Salt and freshly milled pepper

1/3 cup crème fraiche or sour cream

optional: ½ cup cooked rice or small toasted croutons

Heat the butter in a soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to color, about 8 minutes.

Add ½ cup water and scrape the bottom of the pot to release the juices that have accumulated. Add the greens and 1 ½ tsp salt. As soon as they wilt down, after 5 minutes or so, add 6 ½ cups water. Bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 12 to 15 minutes.

Puree the soup and return to the pot. (Note, a “stick” or immersion blender is lovely for pureeing hot soups in the pot. If you don’t have one, they are well worth the investment for this application alone. Otherwise, carefully transfer a portion of the soup at a time to a blender or food processor to puree, taking care that the top is on loosely enough to allow steam to escape, or cool the soup and puree, then finish the recipe when reheating.)

Taste for salt and season with pepper. If you didn’t use sorrel, now is the time to add the lemon juice. Mix the crème fraiche with some of the soup to smooth it out, then swirl into the soup. Serve with rice or croutons in each bowl. (Or with a crispy grilled cheese sandwich, as we did.)

Chicken and Black Eyed Pea Stew

2 T olive oil

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 onion, quartered and sliced

1 yellow or orange bell pepper, trimmed, quartered and sliced, optional

1 T Better Than Bouillon organic chicken stock concentrate, or 1 T gray sea salt

1 container fresh black-eyed peas (if using dried, soak, cook and drain according to package instructions)

8 oz button mushrooms, trimmed and sliced thickly

3 chard leaves, stems removed, rough chopped

In a soup pot or sauce pan, brown the chicken in the olive oil, turning once. Once the chicken is a little brown on both sides, add the onion and pepper and sautee, stirring occasionally, until the onions are lightly blond. Add 4-6 cups water and desired quantity of salt or bouillon concentrate to taste, deglazing any meat bits from the bottom of the pan by scraping with a spoon as you stir. Allow to come to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 30 minutes or more, or until the meat yields easily and falls apart.

(If desired, remove the chicken and some vegetables to a cutting board with a slotted spoon and roughly chop into bite sized pieces.)

Sautee mushroom slices quickly over medium-high heat, add to broth. Add the peas and cook in the pan broth until tender. If removed, return chicken and vegetable pieces to pan. Add chard and simmer until just tender.

This would be great with a trencher of buttered Acme levain bread.

Following the recipe up to the part where the meat yields easily is also the way we make chicken for tasty burritos and tacos, or a quick, flavorful stock to serve as a base for an ad-hoc soup. The whole soup can of course be made vegetarian, omitting the chicken and using just salt or vegetable stock. I actually made the chicken the night before and put the whole thing in the fridge, then Mike cooked the beans in the stock while he chopped the cold cooked chicken, adding the mushrooms next, then the chard.

The possibilities with other legumes—white, lima, lentil, split pea, garbanzo, and other winter greens, are endless. I like the grassy, slightly meaty flavor of the black-eyed peas. Containers of fresh peas can be found at Whole Foods. (Don’t know if they are available just this time of year, or year-round.) For me, they were a flavor revelation over the dried variety. This is one of those soups wherein the flavor is greater than the sum of the parts, the mushrooms building on the earthy flavor of the beans.

Happy Cooking!

**********

*Or tonight I would be blogging if my INTERNET CONNECTION had not been SUSPENDED. Due to geological limitations, I have few options for internet service. One is/was satellite, which was offered via Hughesnet, my nominee for the title of Worst Customer Service Ever. The other is the AT&T “aircard” which has a limit of 5GB per month. Each month, up until today, I’ve received a “Danger danger, you are nearing the limit of your coverage” notice, but had not gone over, remarkably, until last month. Today, I received said notice, and then, in the middle of my email session, prior to logging on to the blog, my connection was dropped, and my little blue “connect” button turned a forlorn shade of gray.

Each time I received the warning message in the past, I dutifully called AT&T “Customer Care” to ask what could be done. The message offers: “As a valued customer, we would like to assist you to avoid possible service interruption and minimize a costly bill. Please call us at 1-800-331-0500 or 611 from your wireless.”

Each time I call, I speak with a series of ascendingly infuriating but innocent first level Santa’s helpers, who read me the script about how many k’s I have in my plan and don’t know the difference between the letters K, M and G. I confess, sometimes I find them confusing too. The point is, there is nothing they can do for me.

I have an iPhone with AT&T, for which they charge me too much money and with which I have unlimited data. I have a home phone line with AT&T for which I am charged approximately $25 per month and on which I send approximately 3 faxes. And I have the air card, for which they charge me $59, yes, that’s $59 per month and limit me to 5GB. So I’m forking out just under two bills per month and right now I am proxy-blogging on a word document because I can only connect to the internet via the iPhone. Something is rotten in Denmark. Or wherever AT&T has its lair these days.

I’ll get back to those robber barons at AT&T later…