Angela Stew

Angela is one of my oldest friends from high school. By a unique turn of events, she'll be spending New Year's Eve in Atlanta this year and I decided to honor said occasion with soup, especially since I'm trying to get her to move here and I need to show her that Atlanta is awesome, and not as ghetto as she thought it was the first time she was here when I lived in the Projects.  Slightly complicating my cooking is the fact that Angie is a vegan. I couldn't be further from a vegan, after all, Brian and I have bacon fat in our fridge right now. However, vegan soups are super easy to make. Angie, I hope you like this, there will be some in my freezer for you once you get here.

For this Angela Stew (or mushroom-barley stew if you don't know Angela), you'll need: 3 cloves of garlic, 1 onion, 3 carrots, 4 stalks of celery, 2 parsnips, some veggie broth, a bit of white wine, random fresh herbs if you have them lying around, bay leaves, some spicy seasoning to taste, 2 leeks, cremini mushrooms, kale, barley and canned diced tomatoes.

The first few steps here are optional.  All three of my vegetarian friends always comment that store bought vegetable broth is gross. Since I pretty much only use meat-based broths (which I find tasty), I took their word for it and set out to jazz up the broth a bit. If you like the taste of vegetable broth or are using another broth you like, then skip all this. If not, mince or finely dice the garlic, onion, carrots, celery and parsnips.  I also peeled the parsnips and celery because I didn't want to scrub them.

Next, go foraging for herbs.  I found this frozen rosemary outside. I used a huge sprig since rosemary is hearty and I knew a little ice wasn't going to harm it.

Next, heat a bit of olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat and throw all the veggies in.  Cook these for about 5 minutes.

Then, add the vegetable broth.  I only bought a 32 ounce container, and I knew I would need more broth that that, so I also added about 16 ounces of water.

Now add some white wine.  I really only added this because the bottle had been open in the fridge for a week while I was away on Blivmore Holiday Road Trip 2010 and I truly believe that wine goes bad in 3 days and this would be gross to drink. Gross to drink, but okay for soup, I guess.

Stir all that up and throw in some bay leaves, the rosemary sprig (or whatever else you found), and some salt and pepper.  I also threw in a bit of dried smoking hot peppers to add a little kick. Let this simmer for at least one hour, preferably 2 hours.  The longer it simmers, the better the broth will taste.  Alternatively, throw it all in a pressure cooker and cook for like 20 minutes.

What to do with the free time while this is simmering? Well, maybe you have Christmas presents to put away. Maybe one of those presents is a gel pro mat (aka, the best thing in my kitchen) and you're so excited that you'd rather stand on the mat than sit on the couch. Or maybe that's just me. Go relax, like a normal person.

While the broth is simmering away, prep the rest of the vegetables.  I started with the leeks, slicing them in half then in small pieces.

Next, the mushrooms. I chopped them up a bit even though they were already sliced. I didn't want giant mushroom chunks in my stew.

Lastly, the kale. Angela, like myself, is a wholesome Italian girl so I have no doubt she has a fondness for kale. After all, we all grew up with Italian wedding soup chock full of kale.  The secret to making kale edible is to remove the tough stem and shred the leaves.  Also, once you're done shredding, give this a good wash. Kale can be a bit dirty and dirt is gross to eat.

By now, your broth should be well simmered.  Pour it into a large bowl, remove the bay leaves and rosemary sprig, and blend with a stick blender.  Alternatively, you could just drain all the solids out. But I wanted to keep them for their yumminess and vitamins. Yes, your broth will be a tad bit orange. Get over it, orange is awesome.

Finally, it's stew time. In the same stock pot as before, heat a bit of olive oil over medium heat and add a cup of pearl barley. Toast the barley for about 2 minutes.

Next, add the leeks and cook for 5 minutes, until softened.
Then, add the mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes, until they begin to shrink and brown.

Add the tomatoes with their juice.  Isn't this pretty? This stew could easily be turned into a barley risotto if you'd like.

Lastly, add the broth and kale.  Stir this up, throw in a pinch more of salt, and simmer for another 40-60 minutes until the kale is wilted and barley is cooked.

I ate my stew with a almost heart shaped grilled cheese sandwich, but I suck at making grilled cheese and only some of the cheese was melted. At least the soup was yummy! Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Deliciousness

Summer is generally accepted as a season in which people eat less and are more active and therefore shed a few pounds. However, for girls in Atlanta who go to too many tailgates, drink too many beers and wear too many belly hiding sundress, Summer turns into the season of minor weight gain.  Said weight goes largely unnoticed until the first days of Fall roll around and the dreaded task of buttoning pants rears its ugly head, culminating in a major meltdown with me throwing every pair of pants out of my closet in frustration. I'm trying to prevent that meltdown by making some veggie based soups (and re-acquainting myself with the gym). Not to say that this Sweet Potato Deliciousness is without any unhealthy component, but the star of the show is the potato with the unhealthy bits just making a cameo. 

For this little bowl of heaven, you'll need: 4 sweet potatoes, a few cloves of garlic (by some upsetting turn of events, I had no fresh garlic in my house, so please excuse the pre-minced garlic in the picture), 1/2 a cup of barley, 2 dried bay leaves, 2 fresh sage leaves, some broth of your choosing, about a cup of milk and a 4 ounce package of gorganzola cheese.

Since the ingredient list on this one is pretty short, I also thought it would be cute to highlight some of my kitchen gadgets as well. If you have them, this soup is a good place to use: a mandoline slicer, food mill and stick blender.  If you don't have them, the only gadget you'll really need to make this is some device capable of blending a soup, be it a food processor or traditional blender.

To start, peel the potatoes or get your husband to peel them for you because he's bored. That's right, he was so bored that he wanted to peel potatoes. Brian and I lead an exciting life.

Then, get your husband to use the mandoline slicer to put the potatoes into thin rounds.  No mandoline slicer? Just dice the potatoes up into evenly sized chunks or thinly slice them. Remember that the smaller the pieces are, the faster they'll cook.

While Brian was doing all my prep work, I was trying to get the adorable puppy to play with me. He wasn't interested, so I threw his toys at him instead (which is the act of choice in the Blivmore house for when Harls refuses to play with us).  Yes, his toys have faces. Yes, they are also Clemson colors, but that was by accident (I think).

Back to soup. I heated some olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat then threw in the garlic and cooked for 3 minutes. Then I added the barley and cooked for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  The barley is completely optional. I added it so that the soup would have a bit more body and to impart a nutty flavor, but it could easily be left out.

Next, add all the potatoes to the pot and give it a good stir.

Then, add the broth. You want the potatoes to be almost completely submerged in liquid.  I had to add an additional cup of water to cover my potatoes.

Lastly, throw in the bay and sage leaves and a bit of salt and pepper. Cover and increase the heat to get the liquid boiling.  Cook this for at least 30 minutes or until the potatoes are completely cooked and a bit mushy.

Meanwhile, make the gorgonzola cream sauce.  In pursuit of making this soup at least mostly healthy, I used 1% milk instead of real cream. My sauce turned out a bit thin, but I'm okay with that. Using a stick blender or other blending device, blend the entire containter of gorgonzola cheese with about 1/2 a cup of milk.  Set this aside for later.

By now, the potatoes and sage have caused your entire house to smell like Thanksgiving dinner, which is your first indication that the potatoes are done. I mashed the potatoes a bit before attempting to stick blend them because I know that my stick blender is incapable of handling big chunks, and then roughly blended the soup to the consistency of baby food.  Then I ran the entire soup through my brand new food mill in efforts to make it smoother, which mostly failed because the soup needed more liquid. 
I returned the soup to the stock pot, turned the heat back on to medium, and added 1/2 a cup of milk and about a cup of water. This simmered for another 10 minutes. I buzzed it one last time with the stick blender and it turned out to be the perfect consistency (for me at least).


To serve, top with a bit of the gorgonzola cream sauce and stir to get a pretty swirl design in your soup.  Also, consider serving with the wonderful wrap sandwich that I made consisting of: hummus, smoked provolone cheese, homemade pickled hot peppers, onions and carrots (also known as hickles), and turkey. Would I order this in a restaurant? Why yes, I think I would. Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato & Eggplant Soup

Given that February is heart health month I wanted to make a tomato-heavy soup as recent research has shown tomatoes and heart health go hand in hand because they're rich in lycopene. Also, Lent started this week and as every good (or bad) Catholic knows, we're not supposed to eat meat on Fridays during Lent (for reasons that I've never been able to understand), so I wanted to stick to a meat-less soup (though I used chicken broth since it was all I had in the house, so I guess this makes me a bad Catholic, what else is new).  February is also Black history month, but I'm not sure how to make a soup for that. Maybe the gumbo from a few weeks ago can count as my black history inspired soup since okra is an West African vegetable. Regardless, here's a tasty roasted tomato & eggplant soup.

For this gem you'll need, 5 ripe tomatoes, 1 large eggplant, 1 head of garlic, 1 medium onion, some basil, 6 cups of broth of your choosing, 1 small can of tomato paste, 1 can of cannellini/Great Northern beans, 1 small parmesan or other hard cheese rind, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper and oregano to taste.

First, peel the eggplant. I normally don't peal anything, but eggplant peel is really tough and doesn't taste that great.

Then, cut into large cubes and set aside in a large bowl.

Next, slice the onion into big chunks. Put these in the bowl with the eggplant.

Now, cut the tomatoes in half and remove the seeds.

Chop into large pieces and place in the bowl with eggplant and onions.

Pour a healthy amount, probably about half a cup of extra virgin olive oil onto the veggies. Season with salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flake and oregano to your liking. Stir it all up to coat.

Place in a large baking dish and set aside. Now is probably a good time to preheat your oven to 350.

Now, get the garlic ready for roasting. I stole this from Carla's blog, so if you want better instructions, you can find them here: http://ilpiattoblu.blogspot.com/2010/02/whole-roasted-garlic.html. Chop the top  from a head of garlic, coat in olive oil, place in a cute little ramekin, and season with salt and pepper.

Place the veggies and garlic in your hot oven and roast for 45-55 miutes. My garlic took 45 minutes, whereas the veggies took 55. While we're at it, let's discuss how clean this oven is. I'm sure this won't last since we've only had this oven for less than a month, but its oh so pretty.

About 30 minutes into cooking, all these veggies started to smell lovely and the adorable puppy got interested.  Also, its finally warm and sunny in Atlanta and he loves to sunbathe.

Anywho, once roasted, your garlic should look something like this:

And the veggies should look like this:

Put these aside to cool a bit and get working with the soup. In a big soup pot over medium heat, pour 6 cups of broth. Add the can of tomato paste and stir to mix.

Next, rinse and drain your beans and add them to the soup. I added beans to the soup to add a bit of protein and make this a tad more hearty. If you don't like beans, just leave them out but be prepared for the soup to not be the least bit filling.

Now, add your roasted garlic. Its pretty easy to get the cloves out with a fork, or you can try squeezing the garlic bulb to make the cloves pop out, but I find that technique to be inefficient and unsuccessful. I really like garlic so I added all the cloves, but if you don't like garlic quite so much, just add a few and eat the rest on some toasted bread, its delicious.

Next, add the roasted eggplant, tomato and onion.

Season with some shredded basil. I used about 6 big basil leaves and shredded them by hand.

Blend all the veggies with a stick blender until the soup is nice and smooth.

Throw in the parmesan rind, reduce heat to low, and simmer for at least 30 minutes. The longer you simmer the more lovely cheese flavor you'll get. So if you have free time, let this baby hang out on the stove for a while. I also had to add a bit more salt.

I wasn't ready to eat the soup when it was done since it was so beautiful outside that I just had to go running. Hence the packaging in some fantastic glass bowls for storage and eating later. When I actually sit down to eat this soup, I'm certain I'll top it with some shredded or shaved parmesan and maybe some fresh basil. Enjoy!