It seems like yesterday that I was running around Italy with 180 boys.  It wasn't yesterday though, it was last April.  Seven whole months ago.  It seems like yesterday though because I've been running around small town Ontario for the last two days with 180 boys.  Italy vs Small Town Ontario?  I won't comment.
We just finished a very short, whirl-wind tour to kick off our 2013 Christmas Concert Season.  You forget the pain of tour so quickly when it's over and then it hits you so quickly once you are back in the saddle again.  The exhaustion.  The lack of food.  The constant running.  The long hours.  The stress of concert after concert.  The tour becomes your life for that period of time.  You forget that you used to like breakfast and reading the paper.  You forget that eating could be a pleasant experience.  You forget that the internet is a real thing and that news is still happening somewhere.
In the 48 hours while I was away Kid #1 got her first 'Will you go out with me' request (which she declined but they are still friends apparently) and handed in her high school applications, Kid #2 had a play date and skipped Karate class and D played a dance class for a Canadian dance Icon.  That's just the news at our address - the stuff I missed within the walls of the little place we call home.  Just imagine what else happened out there.
When it comes to food on tour it's usually pretty depressing and the last 48 hours have done nothing to lift my mood.  Day one presented pizza, apples and granola bars for lunch and dinner was lasagna, salad and a bun.  Day two brought us pizza for lunch (no apple, no granola bar) and lasagna, salad and a bun for dinner.  I'm sensing a theme here.  I know that it's hard to successfully feed 200 people on a budget but it's like the two churches (in different towns no less) got the same deal or something.  Day one I ate 4 apples and two cartons of chocolate milk, 1 salad and half a bun with two bites of lasagna thrown in there before I gave up.  Day two: 1 salad and a bun with two bites of lasagna before giving up.
Lessons learned from this tour:
1. Most boys under the age of 30 are more concerned with how much food there is rather than what that food tastes like.
2. If given the choice between church coffee and church tea, always choose tea.


This soup is neither pizza nor lasagna and although it tasted great nobody was jazzed about eating it except kid #2 (oddly) I think that a couple of days alone with my tour menu would fix them all right up.


Roasted Celeriac and Fennel with Kale and White Beans Soup
serves 8

1 med sized celeriac (celery root), peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
2 small fennel bulbs, thickly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, whole and still in the skin
grease or oil to coat
1 leek, washed and thinly sliced
2 cups kale (I used lacinato/black kale), torn or sliced into rough slices
1 can (about 1 cup) white beans (cannellini or navy bean), drained and rinsed
4 cups good broth (I used leftover turkey broth - surprise surprise)
1 tbsp parsley, oregano, marjoram
1 tsp rosemary
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup parmesan
1/2 - 3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350°F
On a baking sheet, spread out the celeriac chunks, fennel and garlic.  Toss everything in some oil or grease.  Spread out evenly on the baking sheet and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.  Roast for about 35 - 40 min or until everything is soft and golden brown.
Remove from oven and set aside.
Heat a large soup pot or dutch oven over med/low heat.  Add a little oil or butter (about 1-2 tbsp) and the leeks.  Let them cook over low heat for about 7 - 8 minutes.  Remove the casing from the roasted garlic and add the roasted veggies to the leeks.  Stir to mix.  Add about half of the broth and heat through.
In a blender or using an immersion blender, blitz everything until it is a smooth consistency.  (Pour back into the pot if you took it out to blend) Add the rest of the broth and stir to heat through.  Add the herbs, nutmeg and salt.  Mix well.  Check the taste.
Add in the kale, beans and parmesan and heat through until the parmesan has melted in.
Add about 1/2 cup of milk - more if you would like it a little thinner.
Check the taste and adjust (like by adding pepper sauce) if necessary.

Having just had a week off I've been wrestling with this nagging issue in my mind.  I found myself, throughout the week, hard pressed for energy to think of something to do that didn't involve getting to a store to pick up things that the kids were needing or plunking myself in front of a screen.  Sure, I can chock it up to exhaustion.  I can blame the crappy, cold weather and lack of sun.  Suffice it to say that it was all I could do to keep up a reasonable yoga and running schedule throughout the week and plan one other thing in the day.


Thank goodness for this book which I've been devouring (although I have to slow myself down sometimes to really take it in).  I'm not just pushing the book because the author is Canadian but because he's also kick-ass deep. Throughout the week I was reading his chapter on the image and the power of the image.  J.R.S. went succinctly through a look at western religious art and the transformations that it went through up to about DaVinci when the 3D reality kicked in.  He talks about how artists were looking for the moment of epiphany when that reality was created... except the epiphany didn't quite happen.  The paradigm didn't shift epically like they thought it would.  And then the still photo was invented and that kind of kicked paintings butt.  A perfect image of whatever it was the photographer wanted to capture.  Further still was the moving picture.  But something happened in all of that 'reality' and along the way the reality of the photo and the moving picture wasn't reality at all.  It was illusion.  It was set up.  It was doctored.  Now, we live by the moving picture.  It informs us in every way about ourselves - our looks, our expectations, our beliefs.  J.R. Saul even goes as far to say that tv is our new religion.  It's the one thing that we do, in the western world at least, ritualistically and en masse.  Except it's all staged.
It got me thinking a lot about how much screen I take in.  It got me thinking about how much I see people talking about tv shows on FB, on their blogs or in everyday conversation.  It's how we talk about it too.
'I've got to make sure I catch the new episode of...'
'I can't believe what they just wrote into that story line...'
'I can't stand that character'
'My PVR only records 2 shows at a time.  How am I going to catch everything'
I don't have either cable or satellite.  The channels we get come through our rooftop antenna.  I don't miss cable.  I don't think that I've ever even considered getting it again and that was about 5 years ago.  But I still watch my fair share of shows and it's still crap.  It's still written in this stilted, formulaic manner.  It's still played by actors who must look a certain way for everything to work.  It still wraps up into a neat little package that leaves you with a feeling of satisfaction but the desire to experience the same banal comfort next week.  Reality tv... worse.  News.... the worst.
I'm going to work toward becoming more aware of what's in front of me all the time.  I'm not going to say 'that's it - I'm cutting it out' because that's not just unrealistic, it's unsustainable.  I think that the key is awareness.


During my week off I also decided to get serious about varying my cooking again.  It's so easy to get in ruts.  My ruts include cream, parmesan cheese, greens and pasta.  That's ain't half bad.  There is, however, only so much of that one family can take.  I made some Trini Stewed Pork and this is the stuff that we made with it.  Callaloo looks kinda gross and goopy but once you put it in your mouth you realize you haven't yet lived until that very moment.  It's amazing, beautiful stuff.  It's also good for you and if you can't find Dasheen leaf you can always try substituting with spinach.  You will get quite a different taste so you might have to adjust a bit but it's still absolutely worth it.

Trini Callaloo adapted from 'Naparima Girls High School Cookbook'

Oh Jeez - me and my soup again.  It's an addiction I think.  I need counselling.  I need rehab.  I need SUMMER.

Peeps, meet my new friend 'Jerusalem Artichoke'.
Jerusalem Artichoke, meet all my reader Peeps.

You'll all become best friends too.  I know it.
You might have heard of these little tubers before.  Possibly under the alias: Sunchoke.  My new friend will happily answer to both.
Pretty much until yesterday I had no clue what the label 'Jerusalem Artichoke' or it's alias meant in real terms.  What the thing was.  What it looked like and certainly no idea what to do with it.
I learned yesterday - thanks to the genius of this thing called the internet - that this weird looking (sorry new friend but if this friendship is going to last then we gotta be real here) little tuber thingy was pretty damn sweet when cooked.
It can be roasted.
It can be braised.
It can be gently and lovingly cooked in some broth until it's all soft and blendable and then made into a soup which blows your socks off.
I choose the soup.


Not being one to know my limits, I threw in some freshly roasted cauliflower and turned the whole thing into a bit of sweet mess but it was a tasty sweet mess and no one complained.  Just make your roasted cauliflower pieces a little more bite sized... trust me on that one.


The pictures of the soup bite.  No pun intended.  I mean they blow chunks.  HARD.
I'm not going to go on about it but this winter/no light/ B.S.  needs to stop soon.  I had to take the pictures at night (which occurs here at the ungodly hour of 5:45 or so when it's cloudy... there, I said I wouldn't go on about it) because I did.  Don't let the sucky pictures deter you from a date with my new friend.


Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Roasted Cauliflower (optional) adapted from 'Green Market Recipes'
makes about 6 cups.

1 large leek, sliced thin (about 1 1/2 cups)
3 cups (about 2 - 3 lbs) jerusalem artichokes
4 tbsp butter
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth (add a boullion cube if it's a weak broth)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 - 4 cups roasted cauliflower broken into med/small pieces (roast the cauliflower by tossing the florets in oil, placing on a baking sheet and baking at 350 for 35 - 40 min)

Peel the jerusalem artichokes and place in a pot of water with 1 1/2 tbsp vinegar if you are not going to be using them right away.  Slice them very thin.
Heat a large soup pot over medium heat.  Melt the butter in the pot.  Turn the heat down just a bit and add in the sliced leeks and the jerusalem artichokes.  Cook together for 7 - 10 minutes.  The veggies should be just a little golden and the leeks will be getting quite wilted.  Add in just enough broth to cover the veggies.  Turn the heat down to low and cover.  Simmer at low heat for about 1 hr.
Once the jerusalem are very soft then pour the whole pot into a blender and puree until smooth and creamy.  Add back to the pot and keep the heat low.
Add the rest of the broth, the cream and the milk.
Add the salt (and a little bit of pepper and pepper sauce if you're so inclined).
Add the cauliflower.
check the tastes and adjust if necessary.
Taste your new friend.

I always seem to have this holiday thing upside down, backwards... just plain wrong.  I post bread on Valentines day.  I post crackers and brussel sprouts over Christmas, not a roast turkey or ham in sight.  And now, for shrove Tuesday I post... chowder (?)
I had to post this.  There I was just last week spouting off about how much this soup changed my life (and, well, it did) and now, this week, it seems so long ago.  Away in the distance.  A far off memory.  Why, you ask?  Because then I tried this soup.  Oh my... this soup.


The soup itself was born out of my continued commitment to go through the veggies that I froze during last summer's bounty.  I'm not someone who looks to fill their larder or their freezer (such as it is) and then watch the things sit their gathering dust feeling smug with myself for doing such a great job.  I want to see that I use it up.  Empty it out.  I want nothing left by May or so... just in time to start really appreciating the fresh stuff that should start rolling in.  Besides, I want to see what we go through so we can gage what amounts were just right (Green tomato and tomatillo salsa), what amounts were too much (canned pears) and what amounts were not enough (tomato and also -gulp- beet pickle). So the jars in the cold room are slowly dwindling down and the piles in my freezer are beginning to diminish and I'm feeling smug with myself.


Not to be overlooked was the fact that I was making this bread and we all know that soup with fresh bread is pretty much one of the best combinations we can put in our mouths.
In a perfect world I would have loved this to be a seafood chowder but I'm boycotting seafood right now so it was out of the question for me.  However, this turned out so well and showcased the veggies so well that I think seafood might have been a bit much anyway.  I put 2 rashers of bacon into this puppy but if you are vegetarian and it's 2 measly slices of bacon holding you back from experiencing the earth shaking bliss that is this soup, then by all means leave it out.  You must.
Admittedly, I didn't make this soup on shrove Tuesday but I will be eating it on shrove Tuesday.  I made waffles on Friday, does that count for pancake day?  Whateve's.  I'm happy with my soup.  (Just for the record, I am officially breaking 2012 resolution #1 and am posting with kids around AND after having had so little sleep it's really quite ridiculous to even refer to it as sleep.  Let's see what this post looks like after I've had a good nights sleep - Oh Jeez)


Corn/Vegetable Chowder
adapted from Naparima Girls Diamond Jubilee Cookbook and Family Bites
makes about 5 - 6 cups of soup

1 med/lg leek, thinly sliced
2 med/sm carrot, diced
2 med/sm ribs celery, diced
1 cup potato, cubed
2 slices bacon, diced


2 cups broth
1 cup milk (could make it 1 1/4 easily)
3/4 cup cream
1 tbsp dill
1 tbsp thyme
1 1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 tsp pepper sauce or cayenne (optional but it really adds something)

Heat a heavy bottomed dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat.
Add the diced bacon and a little extra oil if necessary (I did).  Once the bacon is just starting to cook and brown then add in the leeks, carrot, celery and potato.  Turn the heat down a bit and sweat the vegetables (my newly adopted phrase for cooking the veggies but not getting them all browned and over-cooked) for about 6 minutes or so.  Once the veggies are starting to look mostly cooked then add in the corn and the green beans.  Cook for another 4 - 5 minutes.
Add in the broth, milk and cream and stir.  Turn down the soup so that it is just barely simmering and add the dill, thyme, salt, pepper and cayenne or pepper sauce.  Check the tastes and adjust as necessary.
Once the veggies are completely cooked serve immediately.

I have to tell you that I've been feeling a little bit off my game lately.  I have been having what I consider to be some misses in the kitchen department.  Aside from the Lime Cupcakes (which I made as much - or even more - for me as for my kid) I haven't been wowed by anything recently.  Ho-hum.
Winter Blues?
No sure... What I do know for sure... without one shadow of a doubt... not a question in my mind... is that this soup has come damn near changing my life.  I had to make this soup twice just to get pictures before it got eaten.  That means everybody else loved it too.  However, I wasn't expecting to L O V E cabbage soup and here's why.


You see, I have these memories from the seventies and eighties.  Yup, I just said that in public.  What the hell.  In the seventies, although my memories are pretty dim, I distinctly remember eating AYDS weight loss caramels while my Mom was teaching piano in the other room.  Guess why they stopped making them????  In the eighties the cultural zeitgeist was just as obsessed with dieting and weight loss as it is now.  So we ran the gamut in our house.  No carbs.  The grapefruit diet.  And the Cabbage Soup diet.  My brother and sister and I didn't know what Mom was doing (I think that my brother came home from school and gobbled about half of her first batch of soup while she was out of the room - she wasn't happy) but it smelled good and I decided that although grapefruit 4 times a day made me want to hurl that this cabbage soup thing mightn't be bad at all... that is until day 5 or something when you're supposed to continue eating this stuff for another month or something and all you want to do is eat something... anything else but cabbage soup.  I think I just sneaked french fries and gravy at the school cafeteria instead.


So me, seeing this cabbage soup receipt from Louisa, had to first get past the fact that this cabbage soup was, well... cabbage soup.  If you know what I mean.  I'm so glad that my yearning for soup superseded my history with cabbage soup because this is a soup that you need in your life.  This soup isn't about weight-loss or anything other than tasting good.  I've added bacon to my soup - you can leave it out if you like.  I've skipped the raisins... what?  Raisins in soup.  Ew.  But if you think it's an amazing idea then by all means throw them in.  A dollop of sour cream on top certainly wouldn't be out of place here but I can't tell you for sure because it didn't last long enough for me to try it.  As I'm typing this I'm wondering what it says about me that cabbage soup has changed my life but there it is.  The bright food light in my Jan/Feb 2012 has been a meek and homely cabbage soup.


Cabbage Soup adapted from 'The Wednesday Chef'

4 cups green cabbage (not savoy) thinly sliced
1 med/sm onion, diced
1 cup (or so) carrot thinly sliced
2 lg cloves garlic, minced
3 rashers bacon diced
400ml diced tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 cup sugar
juice from 1 lemon
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 - 3 pinches pepper
1 bay leaf
dash of cayenne


Heat a Dutch oven or soup pot over med. heat.
Add the diced bacon and cook until it's browned.  Add a little bit of extra oil if necessary.  Turn the heat down to med/low and add in the onion, cabbage and garlic.  Cook together for about 15 - 20 minutes, stirring regularly.  The cabbage should be nicely browned and wilted.
Add in the tomatoes, tomato paste, ketchup and just enough broth to cover everything.  Stir well and continue to heat over med/low heat.
Add in the sugar, lemon, salt, pepper, bay leaf and cayenne.
Stir well and check the tastes.  Adjust if necessary.
Simmer at low heat for another 15  - 20 minutes.
Serve with a little sour cream on the side.

It's only just occurred to me that I could be one of those bloggers who has a 'one year ago/two years ago' spot at the end of each post.  Have you looked at any other food bloggers?  A lot of them have posted what  they cooked or baked a year ago, two years ago and so on.  And yes... it's just occurred to me that I've now been blogging for two years.
I guess that I knew the time was passing.  I remember thinking about it a couple of times - you know 'Hey, I've been blogging for almost two years now' kind of thing.
It's pretty cool, this blogging thing for me.  I started doing this largely because of my sister.  A few years ago I began a little cookbook for her and each Christmas I would add a couple of recipes to the book.  She lives very far away from me so doing it was a fun way of passing on a love of something that we both shared.  Things like spaghetti sauce, chocolate cake, chocolate cupcakes and some joke ones too.  I started to think that this could be a lot easier if it was online somewhere.  I really wanted to do a realtime cooking thing on youtube but my house is not really set up for it  - my lighting is horrible and my smoke alarm goes off just about every time I turn on the stove.  I thought it would be hilarious to shoot whatever time it took to make a recipe from start to finish - complete with kids in the background, phone calls, you get the idea.  Anyway, that went the way of many other great ideas... nowhere.  Then one day my sister forwarded me this recipe from Heidi Swanson at 101cookbooks.  Beautiful, intelligent and artful.  I loved it.  What a thing, this food blogging.
That's when the light-bulb went off - I could do this food blog thing and then my sister could access my recipes and see what I'm cooking or baking anytime.  This could be cool.  It also served my love of attention without confrontation perfectly.  I started taking pictures of my christmas baking that year, figured out how to work this blog/typing in the data/thingy, finally got my head around how to get pictures on it and all that and, well... the rest is history.  At first the pictures were really small and I'm a little embarrassed but what the hell... I did it.  I wanted to, I figured it out and I did it.


Now that we are two years on I've discovered more about myself than I ever thought I would just by doing a food blog.  I've gained a lot of respect for writers.  I've tackled some recipes that I would never have even considered before.  I've ranted and raved and probably made a right fool of myself sometimes and other times I may have achieved a level of coherence that I hadn't imagined possible from little ole' me.  In short, I had no clue what I was getting myself into but I'm really glad that I did.


To celebrate I've posted this wonderfully exciting soup recipe (WTF).  Seriously, I wasn't thinking about anything celebratory when I made the soup - obviously.  It's soup.  Goop in a bowl.  More white stuff that looks like porridge until you taste it.  I doctored this soup so far from the recipe that it's barely recognizable but when I tasted the original recipe result the boredom nearly knocked me out.  The soup contains bacon which should cover a multitude of boredom but somehow did not with this recipe.  Doctored up the soup is great although I still throw some chilli pepper flakes on the top of mine before I down it.
Special thanks and love go out to my little sis' for inspiring me to start the craziness.  Thanks to you all for reading my crap and hopefully being entertained and maybe occasionally feeling inspired to make some of it.  Cheers and here's a spoon salute to you my readers for coming with me on the two year journey.   Grab and spoon and dig in.


Roasted Cauliflower, Bacon and Cannellini Bean Soup adapted liberally from... I can't remember... a food magazine...
serves 6 - 8

5 cups roasted cauliflower (broken into florets, tossed in oil and roasted at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes)
1 medium onion, diced
2 lg cloves garlic, diced
1 rib celery, diced
4 slices of bacon, diced
2 tbsp thyme
2 tbsp salt (I was using low salt bouillon so start with 1 tbsp and add if necessary)
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 dash saffron
2 tbsp sugar
1 540 ml can of cannellini beans (or white kidney beans), drained well
4 cups veg or chicken stock

In a soup pot (or dutch oven) heat oil over medium heat.
Add the onion, celery and bacon to the pot.  Turn the heat down a bit to med/low.  Brown together for about 5 minutes.  Add in the garlic and brown for another 3 - 4 minutes.
Add in the cauliflower and mix well.  Cook together for about 5 minutes.
Add in the thyme, salt, pepper, cayenne, saffron and sugar.  Mix.
Add in the drained beans and stock.
Simmer for about 15 minutes.
Check the tastes and adjust if necessary.
Blend with an immersion blender or ladle into a blender and blend until smooth.

It's a cold day.  One of the coldest we've had so far.  I'm not going to tell you how cold because some of you will think that it's beyond imagination and others will laugh and think that it sounds balmy.  Either way, it's cold for Toronto and I've been biking... and I need soup... or stew.  I'm not sure which.
Life has this funny way of getting away from me.  I have all of these plans.  Plans for my day, for what I'm going to do, where I'm going to go, what I'll clean, what I'll cook, who I'm gonna see.  Then something happens.  It can be pretty random.  Someone breaks a finger nail.  Someone needs a stamp.  Someone has to sharpen a pencil... and the next thing I know it's 6pm and the day has flown.  (Toronto is in darkness by 5pm these days so it truly does feel later than it really is) The kitchen floor still has those nasty spots all over it, the toilet is still gross, the laundry that I managed to get washed hasn't been hung up and my awesome new bread recipe hasn't been made and I don't know what the hell happened to the last 8 hours of my life.  Poof and gone.
Then there are these other times when life gives you a present.  There are no kids in the house.  There is no partner in the house.  There are no animals in the house.  There is just you and some music and you've just crossed the last thing off your list for the day.  You open that bottle of wine and sit down.  You open the gift and find that time stands still.
Yeah... doesn't happen very often.


Today time stood still for me while I made this soup.  I was starving.  It was cold.  I knew that it was quite possible that I would be the only one eating it but I made it anyway.  I don't know if it's soup or stew.  I guess that the way I've made it means it's stew - there isn't a lot of liquid.  So just add more tomato or stock then if you want.  I didn't even care whether it was soup or stew.  I loved every minute of the preparation and I had two bowls full of it after that.  Sitting on the couch.  Just me, a movie and my soup/stew.  Glass of wine optional.


Bacon, Lentil and Cabbage Soup/Stew
serves 8 - 10 (maybe more)

1 1/2 cups puy lentils (the dark, tiny, french ones)
3 cups water
2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
salt to taste
2 tbsp brown sugar or honey
2 bouillion cubes (chicken or vegetable)
2 400 ml jars of diced tomatoes
1 onion, diced
4 rashers bacon, diced
1 cup potato, diced
1 1/2 - 2 cups (about 5 small) carrots diced (parsnip would work too)
3 cups cabbage (red or green), coarsely chopped
1 1/2 tbsp each thyme, parsley, marjoram

Combine the lentils, water, Worcestershire and Soy Sauce together.  Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for about 1 hour.
Meanwhile heat a lg dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat.  Add in the onion and the bacon.  Swish around for a few minutes letting the bacon cook and the onion get transparent.
Add in the potato, carrot and cabbage.  Swish that around for about 5 minutes, turning the heat down to low as necessary.
Once the lentils are ready add them to the soup pot along with the cooking water.  Add the tomatoes and stir well.  Season the soup with sugar or honey, the herbs and salt to taste.
Simmer over low heat for about an hour or until the carrots and potatoes have softened.
Enjoy with some crusty, chewy, grainy bread.

I'm not trying to be a total smart ass but this soup looks like barf in a bowl.
And just in time for Hallowe'en.
It doesn't taste like barf though. . . fortunately.
I tasted really good in fact.
Here's my take on Hallowe'en BTW.   'Cause I'm sure that you're all very curious, you're just afraid to ask.

I DON'T CARE.

It's awful.  I'm a poop.  If it makes any difference to you, I almost care as little about christmas.  Whateve.  It is what it is for me.  No more.  No less.
It's not about warding off bad spirits anymore.  Which I think is kinda cool BTW.
It's all about kids dressing up and getting candy (not bad at all).  It's all about teenage girls looking way older and sluttier than I'm comfortable with.  It's all about adults going to parties.  It's about fun and parties.
So, as I've mentioned before, I'm not baking spooky witch hats or goblin eyeballs.  I'm not cooking up a pot of boiled brains for dinner.
Just soup.
Plain old barfy looking soup.


It's good soup.  It's cheap too because parsnips are cheap people.  And seasonal.  And good for you.  Pour a little maple syrup in there and you've got fall comfort food covered.
Now I've got to sit down and figure out how I'm going to survive the hours between school tomorrow and when we leave the house to take Kid #1 and #2 out to collect all this candy that sits beside the refrigerator for the next 11 months (yup - just put the last of it in the bin on the weekend).  I've got a couple of survival ideas but I'm not sure if I would still be in good enough shape to walk up and down the street.
I plan on having a nice big gloopy bowl of this stuff before I go either way.


Maple Parsnip Soup adapted from 'Simply in Season'
serves about 6

5 tbsp butter
1 1/2 lbs (or about 5 med/lg) parsnips chopped
1 lg onion, diced
1 clove garlic
5 cups veg or chicken broth (I used a combination)
3 dashes of nutmeg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 - 1/3 cup maple syrup
1 lg tbsp dijon mustard
salt to taste

Heat a large dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat.
Add in the butter and turn the heat down just a bit.  Add in the parsnip and the onion.  Let those cook together in the butter for about 7 minutes.  Stirring regularly so they don't get stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Add in the garlic and cook for another 4 minutes.
Add in the broth.
Simmer over low heat for another 10 - 15 minutes.
Once the parsnips are very soft puree the soup using either a hand blender or placing the soup in a regular blender.
Once the soup is back in the pot and on the heat, add in the nutmeg, milk, maple syrup and dijon mustard.  Mix well.
Check the taste and and salt to taste.
Serve with yummy focaccia bread (see my last post) or warm rolls and be thankful that you are inside.

I don't like sharing.  Just generally.  It's a horrible thing to admit but the honest truth is... I don't like it.
I do feel that I need to explain this just a bit though because this recipe kinda got birthed because I shared.
I never watched 'Friends'.  Remember that show from the 90's.  I don't think that I made it through one full episode.  It had moments but just wasn't my thing - and I'm always just a little too concerned with being 'counter-culture'.  It was simply too popular for me to go in for.  However, I've been told that there is an episode where Joey Tribianni (not sure how to spell that) tells someone in a restaurant 'Joey Tribianni doesn't share food' or something like it.  Well... that's me.  I don't share... at restaurants.
It bugs the hell out of me if I order something and then people want to taste my food.  It's my food, get your paws off.  I ordered it because I want to eat it... not share it.  Dang.  Plus, I'm totally not interested in eating your food.  If I were interested then I would have ordered that.  So... NO I'm not into having a bite of yours so that you can have a bite of mine.  Then this weird thing happened  over the last year or so where I found myself wanting appetizers and not entrees.  Appetizers kinda bite though if you just get one.  So now sometimes KT and I go out together and just order a truck load of entrees (more like 4) and then share the lot.  Thanks to KT I've discovered that when it's a few things that we can nibble and share that, well, sharing can be fun.

BTW, KT just got back from Spain and Germany and brought me an entire shipment of tea... BFF!

Firm in the knowledge that old dogs can learn new tricks, I went out to this restaurant recently with another colleague of mine.  We were checking out the menu and a few things looked good to me.   She opened up the whole 'sharing' possibility by suggesting a charcuterie plate... meh... wasn't into it.  What we ended up doing though was each getting a soup and then sharing app's of calamari and cauliflower fritters (amazing p.s.).  I agreed.


This soup I made at home happened because I ordered something very close to it and it was good.  The white beans... yeah, perfect for summer... what.  The kale... delish.  The tomato broth... perfect.  And I learned a valuable lesson... sharing isn't always bad.


Kale and White Bean Soup
copied from Mercatto but made up from my head which sounds dumb
serves 8

1 lg onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic (or garlic scapes if it's the season), minced
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 med/sm zucchini, chopped
1 lg bunch (about 3 1/2 cups) Kale, sliced
1 lg tin diced Tomato (although I found the chunks a little too much - maybe reserve half the chunks)
4 cups vegetable broth
4 tbsp basil, coarsely chopped
2 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 large can (about 400 g or so) white beans (cannellini, navy... just white), drained and rinsed
2 - 3 med/lg Parmesan rinds (my friends idea - a great one - I didn't do it though)

Heat a large soup pot.
Add in about 2 - 3 tbsp of oil (your choice).  Add the onion, garlic, celery and zucchini.  Cook for about 8 minutes over med heat.  Stir frequently so that nothing sticks.
Add in the kale and heat until the Kale wilts.
Add in the broth, chopped basil and salt.   Throw in the parmesan rinds.  Heat for about 20 - 30 minutes over med/low heat.
Serve.

My Squash Adventure:
Last week I got this mondo butternut squash in the food box.  This seems to pose a problem for me.  What to do with a mondo butternut squash?  I am not someone who adores squash.  It wasn't a regular for me growing up and I'm a little lost with squash of any kind.  I'm learning though.  This is precisely why I love the foodbox.  Although I can ultimately pick and choose what I would like, it's really fun giving myself the challenge of something like this.  I try to regularly choose something that I wouldn't normally choose but that is also seasonal and local, even during the winter.
A word about butternut squash:
It's high in Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Potassium, Manganese and Fiber.
It's a little easier to prepare than pumpkin.
It is low in calories but still very filling because of the fiber.

So, armed with my nutritional information and motivated to get this huge thing out of my kitchen, I have embarked on a butternut squash marathon.


I have split the squash into two (albeit still substantial) pieces and will document my squash adventure here on this blog.

The first half of the squash went into soup.  In an ideal world I would have added red pepper... which I don't have.  It was important for me to roast the squash first.  So, I peeled the squash and then tossed it all in some oil, plopped it all on a baking sheet, sprinkled it with some salt and roasted the squash for 30 min. at 400 degrees F.  Another beautiful layer of flavour... haha, that sounds funny.   Caramelize some onions, add in some celery and potato, pour in some broth and whiz the crap up once it's soft... and Bob's yur Uncle!


Half the squash down, next half to go....  My Squash Adventure will continue


Squash Soup
serves 6

4 cups butternut squash, cubed and roasted
1 large onion
1 rib celery
2 med potatoes, diced
4 cups stock (I used vegetable stock)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp marjoram
1/2 cup cream or sour cream

In a large, heavy bottomed pot caramelize the onions.  Cook them slowly in butter over med/low heat until they turn golden brown.  Add in the celery and the potato and allow the potato to brown just a bit in the pot.  Total cooking time here, maybe 12 minutes.
Add in the squash and cook together for another 3 minutes.
Add in the stock, salt, thyme and marjoram.  Simmer together over low heat for about 15 minutes or until all the veggies are nice and soft.
Using a blender, whizz up the soup in two batches.  Pour back into the pot and add in the cream or sour cream.
Check the tastes and adjust as necessary (I needed a little heat in mine for example).

It was a toss-up.  I couldn't decide whether I wanted to make soup with the huge butternut squash that I got in last week's food box OR use the lovely cauliflower that came as well.  The cauliflower won.
I like cauliflower.  There is something homely and comforting about it.  It's very good for you but it's so unassuming.  Not like broccoli.  Broccoli is big and loud and green.   If I wanted to go in a slightly different direction with this I would have used bacon in it.  Honestly though, it kinda tasted like it had bacon in it anyway and I wanted to keep it vegetarian.  I'm feeling super simple these days.


I think, for Canadians at least, that by the time we get through January and into February we're just in survival mode.  I'm so not concerned with fashion right now.  I'm sick and tired of my winter clothes.  I'm ready to shed these ever present layers and get on with the regular movement of life.  Reality is though that in February we are still hibernating under layers of cloth, running from warm place to warm place and keeping the distance in between as short as possible.  Who's got the energy or wherewithal to get creative with din-din at the moment?  Having said that, I'm not done with this recipe yet.  In fact, I wasn't going to post it but just got kinda distracted into doing it anyway... if that makes any sense.  I want to fool around with the flava flav's here.  I'm not even sure what direction to take it in yet but when I do you'll be the first to know.

In my opinion, there are very few soups out there that look spectacular and this sure ain't one of 'em.  I thought that some of my other soups looking boring but this one just looks like bad porridge crap mush.  Not a shred of colour in this boring boy... but I didn't care.  It tasted good, really good.  And, as I curled up to watch the Sunday afternoon Bollywood offering on the tube, it was a perfect 'curl-up-and-eat-while-you-watch-a-movie-without-feeling-guilty' snack.In the meantime... if you have ingredients that read remotely like the ones listed below and are craving a warm, soothing bowl of boring looking simplicity, then this is the crap for you.


Stupid Easy Cauliflower, White Bean Soup
serves 4

1 small head of cauliflower, broken into small florets
2 small onion, sliced
1 rib celery, coarsely chopped
2 med potato, cut into small chunks
1 can white cannelini beans
2 - 3 tbsp butter or oil
4 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)
salt


In a large soup pot, saute the butter, onion and celery for about 10 - 12 min. over low heat until the onion begins to carmelize and turn brown.
Add in the cauliflower and potato.  Mix and cook for another 10 min.
Add in the beans and stock.
Simmer together for about 10 minutes.


Using an immersion blender or a regular blender, blend until the soup is creamy.


Add salt (and pepper or pepper sauce ;-) to taste.
Serve.