Broccoli soup experiment update

This week, I repeated the broccoli soup experiment at work to use up the broccoli stem pieces and broccoli buds left over from prepping the big box of broccoli. I discovered that my estimate of the amount of soup created by my original recipe was WAY off. I think I meant to write six servings and not six quarts. It made about two quarts. Nowhere near enough for a restaurant, so I repeated the recipe with broccoli florets standing in for the broccoli stems. Here's the final write-up of the recipe as it turned out at work:

Cream of Broccoli Soup with Potato and Cheddar Cheese

2 pounds broccoli stems
2 pounds broccoli florets
2 cups broccoli buds
5 or 6 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large onion, diced
10 cups chicken stock
10 cups whole milk
2 tsp black pepper (we didn't have white pepper, which I would have preferred)
9 to 10 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp butter
salt to taste

Cook broccoli stems, potatoes and onion in stock until starting to get tender, add broccoli florets and cook until tender. Make a not-so-smooth puree with an immersion blender. Add milk and pepper and heat through. Add broccoli buds and cheese and butter and stir until cheese is melted. Season with salt to taste.
Yield: 4 or 5 quarts

This amount still isn't enough to last through a busy lunch day, but it's something we could start with. The way this would work in the future as a broccoli-stems-only soup would be to save up stems and buds from 3 or 4 boxes of broccoli (both freeze well), then make a double batch of this soup recipe (minus the florets) when eight pounds of stems have accumulated. Otherwise, it could always be a stems-and-florets recipe as above, made after every other box of broccoli.

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Asafoetida for the first time

Yesterday, I brought a new spice into use in the kitchen: asafoetida. The reason for trying it was to experiment with a potato curry recipe. The one I chose to start with was "Indian Curried Potatoes, Peas and Carrots" from Heather Van Vorous' book Eating for IBS.

I usually enjoy Heather's lowfat and gut-friendly recipes using flavors from around the world, but this one was a real stinker. In the literal sense. With an entire tablespoon of asafoetida in the recipe, the curry reeked of this spice to high heaven (I'm convinced it's not coincidence that part of the name of this spice is "fetid") and the house still has a faint lingering odor of it in the air on the next day. The smell of the spice is far worse than its taste, which is pleasing to some of the same taste/smell receptors that like onion, garlic and stinky cheeses.

The most serious problem in the recipe is that asafoetida in such a large quantity overpowers all the other spices in the dish. We couldn't even taste a hint of the chili powder, cumin or coriander. We started thinking maybe what was missing from this one-note curry was ginger and garlic, but a small bit of research I did last night with another Indian cookbook in my collection, Vegetarische Indische Küche by Sumana Ray, alerted me to two patterns: 1) curries consisting mostly of potatoes and including asafoetida do not usually also have garlic and ginger and 2) asafoetida is used by the dash, not by the tablespoon.

I'd like to continue looking in other collections of recipes from India to determine whether this pattern holds true in other Indian curry collections. My other three sources of Indian or Indian-style recipes do not use asafoetida at all or don't put it in the potato dishes.

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Today's sandwich: Tzatziki chicken wrap

Leftovers used: chicken fingers from take-out dinner, tzatziki sauce from Falafel Fun Fest 2010 The Reckoning: Mediterranean Extravaganza of Extreme Fun and Festivity (a recent potluck party -- don't ask me why the name is so ridiculous, I just approved it), cilantro also from FFF10TRMEEFF.

Instructions: cut chicken fingers into thin strips, warm a burrito-size flour tortilla in the microwave for 20 seconds, lay out chicken strips in center of tortilla. Spread liberally with tzatziki and sprinkle with lots of cilantro leaves. Fold up bottom of tortilla over chicken, then one side, then finish wrap by folding over the other side and pulling tightly.

Tzatziki sauce

1 cucumber
1 or 2 large cloves of garlic
1 cup plain Greek yogurt (or strain lowfat yogurt through paper towels/cheesecloth/coffee filter)
fresh ground black pepper
optional: 1 to 2 tsp fresh chopped dill

Peel cucumber and scoop out seeds with a spoon. Grate with the fine holes on a box grater and squeeze the juices out of the grated cucumber. Place squeezed cucumber in a bowl. Run the garlic through a garlic press (use this tool because it minces very fine and squeezes juice -- mmmm, extra garlicky) into the bowl with the cucumber. Mix in yogurt (and dill, if using) and a dash of black pepper, garnish with more black pepper.

Tzatziki is used as a sauce on falafel and gyros, and I've had it served to me over sauteed mushrooms and onions at a festival food stall. It's great on many fried foods, sandwiches and meats. I also like it as a vegetable dip and I make it a snack by scooping it up with crackers.

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Autumn Loaf

Turkey meatloaf tends to get a bit dry, so I looked for another option for keeping it moist. Also, I had a bunch of cloves of roasted garlic hanging around from the weekend that needed to be used. The initial working recipe I created yesterday:

Autumn Loaf
Serves 4

1 pound ground turkey
10 cloves roasted garlic
1/2 cup roasted squash (leftovers of unseasoned roasted, mashed squash)
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Grease a bread pan. Mash garlic in a bowl with a fork. Add meat, squash, seasonings and combine thoroughly with your hands. Press mixture into pan and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes.

Observations
This recipe's cooking instructions didn't work. Especially when I tried to bake a pan of potato wedges at the same time. I put the potatoes in 10 minutes before the loaf (needed some time to create the recipe, take some notes and mash everything together), but neither was done after 45 minutes. I turned up the oven to 400 degrees and left everything in another 20 minutes to get some browning, which worked a little for the loaf, but the potatoes still weren't tender in the middle, so they got another 10 minutes in the oven. To make this dinner again, I'd start out at 400 degrees and still put the potatoes into the oven before making up the loaf. The potatoes baking so long at a lower temperature were tougher and less golden than my usual crispy baked wedges done at a higher temperature for only 30 to 45 minutes.

The loaf was moist, but still held together fine without being too crumbly, which was exactly the texture I wanted. The loaf mix recipe needs a bit of salt and pepper. We sprinkled salt on each portion as we ate it.

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Work at home: the broccoli soup experiment

After a couple of rounds at work of turning a 20-pound box of broccoli heads into a box of pretty florets, I got concerned about the waste that arises from this task. I mean, everyone likes the florets best, but there are still pounds of good, edible broccoli in those stems that are going in the trash. Chef says we don't keep them for other dishes, and I was distressed at tossing out so much food.

At my last job, we kept vegetable leavings in the freezer until we'd accumulated enough for stocks, and the broccoli stems were kept separately for making broccoli soup. I mentioned the idea of making broccoli soup from trimmings to my current chef and she invited me to take the trimmings home to experiment with.

The amount of broccoli coming through our kitchen is not huge, probably giving us enough trimmings to make broccoli soup once every couple of weeks, unless we made smaller batches and served it more often.

This week, I tried my first recipe for this experiment:

Broccoli Stems Soup
approximately 6 quarts

about 2 pounds broccoli stem pieces (just the tender stems, tough woody parts cut off)
1 cup broccoli buds (the tiny little green buds that end up all over the cutting board when I'm cutting broccoli florets, which I scooped up and saved separately)
1 small onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 potatoes, diced
4 cups water
2 Tbsp chicken bouillon powder
1 tsp ground white pepper
5 cups unsweetened soy milk (I'd use dairy whole milk if I were at work)
1 Tbsp butter (I added this for finishing after tasting the first time, not necessary if using cheese)
optional: 2 cups shredded cheddar or cubed American cheese
vegan option: use 4 cups vegetable stock instead of chicken bouillon with water and use margarine as the finishing fat

Boil vegetables in water until tender. Puree in blender. Add milk, bouillon, pepper, butter and simmer until heated through, stirring occasionally. Add broccoli buds during last minute or two of cooking. Add salt if needed. Stir in cheese until melted (if using) or pass cheese at table as a garnish when serving.

Notes to self: don't add the milk and then go knit in the next room and forget about the soup. It was foamy on top when I got back because it hadn't been stirred and had boiled. Also, don't forget to add the pretty green broccoli buds next time.

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Mmmm, oatmeal.

Nothing too complicated about this one, just simple, tasty, healthy breakfast goodness. Oatmeal is not just for growing kids, and it does not have to taste boring. It's the perfect thing for weekend mornings when we wake up late and don't want lunch yet, but I'm not ambitious enough (or feeling too post-party queasy) to make my usual special brunch item, French toast.

What's in the cupboard? oatmeal for two

heaping 2/3 cup quick oats or old-fashioned oats
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup unsweetened soy milk (use more if oatmeal gets too sticky)
1/4 cup dried apple slices
1/4 cup dried cranberries
2 or 3 Tbsp pecan pieces
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 or 2 Tbsp maple syrup per portion

Put oats, water and soy milk in 2 qt pot. Add dried fruit and ginger. Heat until simmering, cook at a low bubble until oatmeal is at desired level of tenderness and stickiness, stirring often, adding more milk if desired. Cook time will be longer for old-fashioned oats. When oatmeal is finished, stir in pecan pieces and pour into two bowls. Drizzle each portion with maple syrup to taste.

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Smoothie #2

1 cup frozen peach slices
1/2 mango, sliced
1/4 cup cherry-apple juice
1 cup unsweetened soy milk

Very orange, naturally sweet, thick and frothy. This smoothie has a soy aftertaste, so would be even better with dairy milk if we kept that around.

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Revised recipes: Linsensuppe and Rutabaga-Apple Casserole

I've had these two recipes kicking around in my recipe box for years, but I've never been satisfied with how they usually turn out. Yesterday, I made them both and fixed them so they will make me happy when I eat them.

Linsensuppe (German lentil soup)

16 oz. dried lentils
6 cups water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/4 cup chopped celery
2 carrots, sliced (peeling optional)
1 onion, roughly chopped
4 peeled garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp tomato paste or ketchup
1 to 3 Tbsp red wine vinegar, to taste
salt
pepper

Pick out stones from lentils, rinse and drain. Put first 9 ingredients up through tomato paste/ketchup into a kettle and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 1.5 hours. Season with salt, pepper and vinegar.

Rutabaga-Apple Bake

3 cups plus one handful pared rutabaga slices
2 (3 if small apples) apples, cored and sliced (peeling optional)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp butter or margarine
salt

Bring rutabaga slices to a boil a covered pot of salted water. Turn off the heat, keep covered, and leave for 20 minutes. Drain rutabagas. Then turn on oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 1.5-quart casserole dish. Place half of rutabaga slices in casserole, top with half of apple slices. Sprinkle with salt. Sprinkle with half of brown sugar. Repeat layers. Dot top layer with butter and bake, covered, 30 to 40 minutes.

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Rosettes, attempt #2

Ah, rosettes, one of my favorite Christmas treats from childhood. For those who are unfamiliar with them, they are a Swedish fried-dough cookie with sugar on top, formed by putting a hot iron with the rosette pattern into the bowl of batter, then dipping the iron, now partially covered in a thin layer of batter, into hot oil and frying. The last time I made Swedish rosettes with my grandma's recipe, the result was this (as I described in writing to some friends):

"Yesterday I made my first stab at making one of my grandma's traditional holiday treats: Swedish rosettes.
Hoping that the first batch ever would be great, against all indications from experienced rosette makers including my mom's mother, a friend in Madison and my dad's mother that the first batch would be disappointing, I dove with gusto into the frying process.
At six o’clock, I was sad and gave up before I even came close to running out of batter. Entering the third dozen of them, I only had one that looked and tasted and crisped right. Andrew and I shared it. The rest, which after half an hour were floppy and tasted like cold grease, I trashed so they would stop sitting there and reminding me of failure.
Someday I will try making this treat again, but I need a little time to get over being sad about the wasted batch."

For the second attempt this weekend, I tried to control more of the elements that can be finicky. Those include: weather conditions, oil type, oil temperature, oil depth, batter consistency, iron temperature, fry time, cooling apparatus, getting the rosette off the iron without breaking. Really, as Grandma would say, every part about it is finicky.

Weather
Grandma recommends making rosettes on a clear, dry, sunny winter day. These don't come around all too often in central Illinois, and I've decided that the attempt #1, which was closer to Christmas, must have been on the wrong day because it was too warm. There was a little snow melting, which I think must have added moisture into the air. The temperature on Saturday was below freezing, it was sunny, and the humidity level according to the local weather website I checked said humidity was 50 percent.

Oil
I had already fried before with canola oil and I didn't think that the oil was the problem, so I used canola again. Last time, I fried in my 9-inch cast-iron skillet. The oil didn't seem all too deep, but I forged ahead anyway. This time, I trotted out the cast-iron Dutch oven and filled it halfway. This ends up being about a quart of oil, which is 2 or 3 inches deep in my pot. Wanted to have more oil so that the temperature would be easier to maintain. The recommended frying temperature in Grandma's recipe was 375 degrees Fahrenheit. This time, I checked that temperature with the instant-read thermometer before the first rosette and after every other one thereafter. At the very least, the temperature was easier to read reliably with the deeper oil, because I could dip the entire end of the thermometer into the oil without coming close to touching the bottom of the pan.

Batter
As the recipe is not my own, I won't be providing it here on this site. There are usually recipes included with the rosette irons when you buy them. For added friendliness to my tummy, I substituted two egg whites for each egg and used soy milk instead of dairy milk. I also measured the flour differently, measuring with the cup before sifting instead of the other way around. I think I ended up with a little more flour in the batter, because it looked slightly thicker than the batter from attempt #1. That seemed to be a good thing in the end.

I'll go back to the original recipe when making them again, I think, as I always want to eat so many that the grease itself starts making my tummy unhappy. Maybe I'll rein it in a little when I know they are chock-full of dairy and egg.

Irons
Thanks to my employer making a special order for me and giving me some extra rosette irons that were laying around in ancient inventory, I have a nice little set of irons now. There are two different cup shapes, one five-pointed star and one eight-pointed star. They really are made of iron so they can hold heat and not warp. In both rosette attempts, I seasoned the irons properly before frying and between each rosette, I let the iron sit in the oil to heat up before putting it in the batter.

Dipping the iron in batter

Fry time
In attempt #1, I counted to 30 after plunging the battered iron into the oil. In attempt #2, I tried to get a closer approximation of 30 to 35 seconds, as I think I had been counting too fast before. I also took a more critical look at the browning before pulling the rosette from the oil. If I'd already counted to 35 and the thing wasn't golden brown yet, I kept it in the oil a little longer. In all, the rosettes in attempt #2 each had a longer frying time than most of those in attempt #1.

Frying the rosette

Cooling apparatus
As in attempt #1, I made do with the cooling rack possibilities available to me, as I don't own a proper cookie cooling rack. I pulled a rack out of the oven and laid it on the counter, covered with paper towels to soak up stray oil. This worked out fine.

Rosette cups waiting to be eaten, cooling upside down so the bottoms won't sit on the oily paper

Removing rosette from the iron
My preferred method after attempt #2: run a very small knife around the pattern to loosen the edges from the iron, push off gently with a fork. Attempt #1 was no problem getting the rosettes to come off: some came off right in the oil, some just flopped off the iron as soon as they came out of the oil, some needed a little push from the fork.

The end result
Success!! Attempt #2 yielded crispy rosettes, and dipped in granulated sugar they were sweet and delightful. I have to admit there were still a few soggy ones, which I ate before letting Andrew pick which ones he wanted to eat.

I didn't notice any difference in taste between the original recipe and the one with Heather-friendly substitutes. I recall when Grandma made them Heather-friendly once she commented that they were a bit tougher than with the original recipe. I didn't notice this until eating the ones that were still left on Sunday. But hey, a little tougher than the original was better than "floppy and tasting of cold grease."

The learning curve for me on these cookies is about as steep as for pie crust. With limited success under my belt, I'm motivated to try again.

As long as I had a pot full of oil, I fried up some homemade "chips" for dinner. I like crispy homemade potato chips, but Andrew prefers something thicker like potato wedges, so I compromised and cut my potato chips thick. They ended up being extra-crispy on the outside and soft in the center, and we were both very happy. I first boiled them all in low-temperature oil at 250 degrees Fahrenheit until they were tender. For the second fry, I turned up the oil temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and waited till they were light brown. This is a picture of "almost done."

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Andrew's going-away dinner

This dinner is from a few weeks ago. The night before the dear husband took off for a week-long conference trip, I cooked up something special for our last dinner together.

The menu:

Roasted chicken with peach chutney that I canned in the summer

Chili potatoes

Roasted squash with butter and brown sugar

The finished plate:

For the potatoes, I was improving on the recipe I used for Christmas dinner, which included zucchini in the sauté. I didn't like the way the zucchini was skillet-blackened by the time the potatoes were golden brown, so I took them out. Also, I needed to use up some purple Peruvian potatoes from the last farmer's market, so into the sauté they went.

The recipe:

Chili Potatoes

2 pounds potatoes, peeled

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp chili pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes whole in salted water, drain and cool. When cool enough to touch, cut potatoes into small chunks. Heat vegetable oil in a large pan, toss in chili pepper flakes, then sauté potatoes until they are golden on all sides. Season to taste.

With the chicken, I dried it off before roasting in the hopes that it would not spit so much as it baked in a hot oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I salted it only a little on the skin and inside the cavity for seasoning and roasted it on a rack inside the pot I usually use for chickens. Most of the flavor in this dish comes from the peach chutney. I roasted it approximately one hour, until the meat thermometer read 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

The peach chutney recipe is in the Bernardin company’s Guide to Home Preserving. The peaches are from this summer’s local farmer’s markets. This was a fantastic year for peaches, so I bought 6 to 8 pounds of them every week and made lots of preserves to hang onto the peaches for a few more months. For this dinner, I heated the chutney on the stove before pouring over the plated chicken pieces.

The squash baked at the same temperature for the same amount of time as the chicken, on a pan underneath it in the oven. I brushed a little oil on it to keep the exposed squash parts moister.

Sweet Roasted Squash

One large winter squash

2 Tbsp brown sugar per pound of roasted squash

1 Tbsp butter per pound of roasted squash

salt and pepper to taste

Cut squash open and scoop out seeds. Brush cut sides with oil. Roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until tender, about one hour. Scoop squash out of its skin and mash it. Mix with butter and brown sugar. Season with salt and pepper.

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Today's sandwich: brunch quesadilla

No advance planning here, just throwing together what’s around the house because I didn’t feel like eating leftovers from last night’s dinner. I'm saving the leftovers to take to work. I've always liked bananas and cheese, since I used to eat bananas wrapped in American cheese as a kid.

Here’s a picture before I folded the quesadilla together and cooked it:

Banana Brunch Quesadilla

1 burrito-sized flour tortilla

a couple of spoonfuls of peach jam (whole fruit, homemade and canned this summer)

1/8 cup to ¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese (leftover after making strata recipe below)

1 banana, cut in half crosswise and sliced lengthwise

Spread half the tortilla with peach jam. Cover with shredded cheese. Top with banana slices, as many as will fit on the tortilla, and eat the rest of the banana. Fold the blank tortilla half over the filling. Place in a dry skillet and cook each side until golden brown.

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