Vegetable and White Bean Soup with Blood Farm Ham

Cool weather. Time for soup. This one is a variation on a recipe from the Gardner Museum Café Cookbook. Groton’s own Blood Farm ham is a salty and smoky variety – you can substitute Virginia Ham.  The Blood Farm ham can be leftover baked ham (I bake it with bourbon, cloves and brown sugar) or grilled ham steak – each version imparts a slightly different flavor to the soup. If you are using grilled ham you might want to add a little extra sherry. There is room to play with the amounts of some things (I often skip the cream) but the fresh basil, parsley, peppers and mushrooms are key to the flavor of this soup.

• ¼ lb. butter (1 stick) butter
• 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• ¾ cup minced fresh parsley
• ¼ cup minced fresh basil
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 – 3 cups diced cooked ham
• 1 quart chicken stock – low sodium if canned
• 2 large sweet red peppers
• 1 pound small mushrooms, quartered
• ¾ cup dry sherry (not the supermarket kind – the liquor store kind)
• 1 1/2 cups cooked white beans – or one 15 oz. can, rinsed thoroughly in cold water
• 1 ½ cups corn kernels (optional – increase the beans if you don’t use the corn)
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 cup heavy cream (optional)
• Sea Salt

In a large sauté pan over medium heat, melt half of the butter, and add the garlic and onion. Sauté until the onion is translucent, then add the parsley, basil, bay leaf and ham, then sauté another 3 minutes. Transfer to a large sauced pan or soup pot. Add the chicken stock and let it simmer while you do the next step.

Heat the rest of the butter in the sauté pan over medium heat and add the peppers. After about 5 minutes add the mushrooms. After another 5 minutes add the sherry and simmer an additional 10 minutes to dissipate the alcohol. Transfer this mixture to the soup pot

Reduce the heat to medium low and add the beans, corn and cream (if using). Simmer for 10 minutes, then add the pepper and sea salt to taste. Reheats nicely.

 

This post first appeared in October of 2012.

CSA Adventures Boxes 4 & 5. Corn, Peaches, Onions, Peppers, Zucchini, Squash, Cukes, Beans, Greens

So, the question is, do I share recipes that I made but don’t entirely love? I don’t always have the time or ingredients to make things over and over and get them to the point that I think they’re wonderful, so what I will do is post hyper links to recipes that I know are reliable or from reliable sources. I’ll give opinions on my experience and go from there. So if you see a full recipe here, it is one that I like enough to make again.

That said, the cukes, beans, peaches and greens we just ate, straight up or in salad. Nothing special to report other than that they were crunchy and full of flavor and that there’s something gratifying about watching kids eat fresh summer food. Summer squash was halved, seeded, diced and sauteed in garlic-infused olive oil with onions and peppers to go with grilled meat and basmati rice.

The first batch of corn we just steamed and ate, and it was good but not very sweet and a bit starchy – not very surprising with the wet weather and it still being early in the season. So I set out to make a warm corn salad with the logic that sauteeing the corn would bring out more flavor. Using Ina’s Garten’s Confetti Corn as a starting point, I came up with this:

Warm Corn Salad with Peppers and Herbs

• Kernels cut from 6 ears of sweet corn (about 5 cups)
• 2 Tablespoons garlic infused olive oil (plain is fine, too)
• 1 Small red onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 1 red or orange pepper, diced
• 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 Teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 3 Tablespoons julienned fresh herbs: chives, parsley/cilantro and basil
• 1 Tablespoon minced seranno pepper (no seeds), optional

In a large saute pan, heat the olive oil, and add the onion, cooking until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the sweet pepper and cook for 3 more minutes. Add 2 Tablespoons of the butter to the pan. Once it’s melted, add the corn, salt, and pepper and cook for about 6-8 minutes, adding the additional Tablespoon of butter. If using the seranno pepper, add that and cook for 2 more minutes and then correct the seasoning a bit before adding the herbs. Serve warm or hot.

Serves 4-6.

Blueberry Pie Sorbet

A long time ago I posted a recipe for blueberry compote. I have since adjusted that recipe a bit and used a blueberry syrup from that compote to make blueberry pie sorbet – the lemon and the fresh nutmeg make it taste like filling from blueberry pie. If you prefer your sorbet more tart than sweet, increase the amount of lemon juice and decrease the blueberry syrup accordingly.

Make sure that the bowl of your 1 quart ice cream maker has been in the freezer for at least 24 hours, and make the simple syrup explained below and chill that in the fridge.

You will need:

• 2 cups of cold simple syrup. It’s easy to make: In a medium saucepan mix 2 cups granulated sugar with two cups of water and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer without stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 5 minutes. Let cool to room temperature and then chill until ready to use.
• 8 cups fresh blueberries
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar (or to taste, depending on how sweet the berries are)
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg (must be fresh, or omit it)

In a large saucepan combine the berries, sugar, lemon juice and nutmeg. Bring to a boil for 3-4 minutes and then reduce to a simmer. Keep them on simmer until the berries fall apart and the juice thickens. Taste it to be sure that it is as sweet as you like it and thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (and your tongue, since you’re tasting). It should not be watery at all. Let it cool to warm or room temperature.

Once the berries are cool, place a sieve over a large measuring cup/bowl and fill the sieve 3/4 full and let the syrup drip through. It’s okay to stir the berries to speed up the process. Keep adding the berry mixture to the sieve when it gets too thick, and stop when you have 1 1/2 cups of syrup. (If you don’t have quite enough syrup you can add enough lemon juice to bring it up to 1 1/2 cups.) Combine the syrup with the 2 cups of cold simple syrup and pour the mixture into your 1 quart ice cream maker and mix until thickened, about 30 minutes. Remove to a 1 quart container, top with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4 hours before serving.

Makes  quart.

CSA Adventures: Box 3. Swiss Chard, Broccoli, Cucumbers, Lettuce, Yellow Squash, and (hooray!) more Spring Onions

Now when we pick up the share on Sunday mornings it seems like there’s an advantage to showing up closer to 10am, since we fill our own box from the assortment of produce and they were out of green beans by the time we  arrived (my children will not mourn the loss of the beans, nor will they cheer the appearance of the broccoli).

The chard was the only item I’ve never prepared at home, so I took up that challenge first. A quick poll of friends and a cruise around the internet revealed that everyone just tears the leaves, chops the stems and sautes them with something – pretty much the same as collards. Based on several recipes found, here’s what I came up with to go with the steak and potato salad we served for dinner.

Swiss Chard with Pancetta and Spring Onions

The spring onions were bigger this week so one of them is comparable to a shallot, which is what I would probably ordinarily use (or a small vidalia).

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch Swiss chard, washed, with stalks chopped and leaves torn from stems (discard stems)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 4-6 ounces pancetta, diced
• 2 ounces dry white wine
• 1 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and cook the pancetta and onion at medium heat until they are browned and caramelized. Add the chard stalks and cook for 1-2 minutes, then add the leaves. Simmer for 1-2 minutes then add the lemon juice. Simmer until the leaves are wilted and the stalks are tender. Serve hot.

Some folks found the chard still too bitter, but I loved it with the salty pancetta and tangy lemon. It went well with the mayonnaise-based potato salad and would be very nice in winter alongside risotto.

Serves 4

Grilled Spring Onions

Another use of the spring onions was simply to cut the tops off, trim them, halve them, brush them with olive oil and cook them, cut side down, on the top rack of the grill – 6-8 minutes, depending on your grill and how crunchy (or not) you like them. I served them with a grilled pork loin that had been rubbed with cumin, ground black pepper, sea salt, olive oil, garlic and lime juice.

Two Words: Iced Chocolate

David Lebovitz is one of my heroes, and this is one of many reasons why. Click on this link:

Iced Chocolate.

He took a good recipe – Serenditpity’s Frozen Hot Chocolate – and improved it. How do I know? He replaced hot chocolate mix with plain cocoa powder and ice with ice cream. I haven’t made it yet and if you try it before I do, let me know what you think. If you need a great home made chocolate ice cream recipe, try ours.

CSA Adventures: Box 2. Spring Onions, Lettuces, Collard Greens, White Turnips and Young Basil

It may have sounded kind of gimmicky at first, thinking that the CSA – and blogging about it – would change the way we eat. And even though no one is adding anything really new to their diet since we started (it’s still early), I have changed the way I cook and onions have become much more popular. Because I have more and different kinds of vegetables on hand I find ways to include them, and I am much more liberal about pulling herbs from the garden to add more flavors to old recipes. Local lettuce has so much more flavor and texture, just mixing red and green leaf leaves together makes a lovely salad in itself.

This time around I am focusing on the tender new basil and the spring onions, because they each led me to recipes I would have not thought to try before.

Spring Onions Braised in Butter with Chives

This is a variation on a Bon Appetit recipe and I changed it because my onions came out a little soggier than I expected – I think the onions in their version are larger than the ones I had, so keep that in mind. So even though mine were not very browned, they were tender and silky and delicious – and there weren’t nearly enough.

• 1 1/2 pounds spring onions (about 12)
• 6-8 Tablespoons unsalted butter (I used Plugra, which is available locally)
• 1 Tablespoon fresh chopped chives (optional)
• Sea salt

Trim the tops off of the onions and trim the green ends enough so that they will fit nicely in the skillet you are using (remove any really limp ends, too). Lay them in a large skillet and add 1/2 cup water and half of the butter. Bring to a boil and cover, simmering until they are almost tender (7-10 minutes). Uncover and simmer a little longer until tender, 3-5 minutes longer. (Again, take into consideration the size of the onions you are using for the simmering times.) Remove onions to a warm serving plate, and simmer the remaining liquid, reducing it to about 3 Tablespoons. Whisk in the rest of the butter, turn off the heat and return the onions to the pan to coat with the butter. Season to taste with the sea salt. Return the onions to the serving plate, pour the sauce over them and sprinkle the chives on top.

Serves 4.

Lime-Basil Sorbet

The basil in this box was very tender and so the flavor was not as strong as older basil with somewhat tougher leaves. I think this would be great suing Thai bail, also. One person suggested this sorbet as a base for a frozen cocktail with tequila, which sounds great to me but I haven’t tried that yet. The basis for this recipe is the sorbet section of the cookbook that came with my Cuisinart ice cream maker.

• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed lime juice (chilled is better but not required)
• 1/3 cup young basil leaves, chopped

This simple syrup appears amber because I used organic sugar. White sugar will result in a clear syrup.

Make a simple syrup with the sugar and water: combine them in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer without stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 5 minutes. Let cool to room temperature and then chill until ready to use.

In a blender combine the lime juice, the simple syrup and the basil leaves. Blend them all together until the basil is completely pureed within the mixture. Pour the mixture into a 1 quart ice cream maker and mix until thickened, about 30 minutes. remove to a 1 quart carton, topic with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4 hours before serving.

Makes 1 quart.

Note: I buy cardboard ice cream cartons in pint and quart sizes from Amazon.com.

CSA Adventures: All Local Summer Menu, All on the Grill

Groton, MA

Everything just kind of turned out to be all local, so it wasn’t really contrived, honestly. And in a heat wave it’s key to avoid the stove and oven. Once again, it’s really just a combination of things with no actual recipes (I call this the Mark Bittman approach):

• Tomato and basil salad – tomatoes grown by Springdell Farm, basil from our John Crow Farm CSA. These tomatoes were so good we did not dress them at all – my resourceful daughter put them on the grilled bread for an improvised bruschetta.
• Blood Farm ham steak, grilled. If you ask, they will cut the steaks from a whole ham for you.
• Steamed broccoli (in foil with a drizzle of olive oil and a little crushed red pepper, on top rack of the grill) from our John Crow Farm CSA (from Box 4 – I’m behind in my reporting).
• Grilled sourdough bread (with a little olive oil on it) from Nashoba Brook Bakery.
• Dessert? Local blueberries and peaches from Springdell. Ice cream is nice (Kimball Farm?), but not required.

Stay cool.

CSA Adventures: The Lessons of Ignorance and Taste

First, the ignorance. The beets that I killed were not beets at all – they were turnips. That explains a lot. I foresee  we will have another chance at mastering turnips. Onward.

Despite the kindness of suggestions from far and wide – Alaska to Maine, really, and several spots in between – I was unable to sell kale to my family, although we had some guests munching happily on kale chips one summer evening. To me, they tasted like slightly overcooked brussels sprouts, to which I am a very recent convert. I would make them again but would likely be eating them by myself. So that’s the lesson of taste: I’m only sharing things I would eat again, even if I am alone in that desire. Having said that, next time I would try something with more spice to it, like the recipe for kale chips they have over at Food 52, which adds cumin and paprika to the basic olive oil and vinegar recipe.

My far-flung helpers also identified the sorrel leaves in the box, and while I really would have like to make a sorrel soup, it was just too hot for that. So I just used the fresh sorrel in sandwiches because it has such a lovely texture and tang to add to things like avocado, humus, and cheddar, or roasted chicken, guacamole, and tomato. Note also that when making wraps, square or rectangular lavash (sometimes labeled flatbread) is far preferable to circle wraps, which seem too moist and gummy for me.

That pretty much covers the misadventures of box 1. The decidedly better results from  boxes 2 and 3 will follow soon.

Eggs for Dinner

This is one of those using-up-leftovers recipes that turned out better than expected. Of course it can be served for breakfast but it didn’t feel like I was having breakfast for dinner (like when you make pancakes at night) – it was just good. I had some leftover boiled new potatoes and tomato and red onion salad – that’s how it started. This is how it ended up:

It looks like a mess but it tastes great. It’s almost not even a recipe, but here it is anyway.

Ingredients:

• 6 new potatoes, cooked and sliced
• 1/2 sweet red pepper, diced
• 2 Tablespoons red onion, diced
• 1 cup yellow and red grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 Tablespoon garlic-infused olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 springs parsley, torn
• 5 Thai basil leaves, torn
• 4 chives, torn
• 2 eggs
• 1 slice provolone cheese, halved (optional)
• sea salt and cracked black pepper

Heat an enameled cast iron skillet at medium, and add the oil, then the butter. Add the potatoes, the red pepper, and the onion and cook, stirring frequently until the potatoes are nice and brown about 5-7 minutes. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper (or to taste). Add the tomatoes, and then the parsley and basil. Turn down the heat a little and add the chives. After a couple of minutes, when the tomatoes are cooked but not falling apart, divide the mixture between two dinner plates, and top with the cheese.

Put a little more butter in the pan, and crack the eggs into it. (Some people prefer their eggs “clean” and might want to use a separate pan for the eggs – not me.) Flip the eggs so they are over easy so that the whites are cooked and the yolks are still runny. Place one egg each on the serving place, right on top of the cheese. Serve immediately.

Serves two.

On the side: a glass of dry white wine or a grapefruit juice/citrus vodka/agave/seltzer cocktail.

CSA Adventures: killed the beets and made a salad. I served it with Grilled Lamb Chops with Rosemary, Garlic & Balsamic Vinegar, if that helps.

Off to an epic start. Not.

I roasted the beets and they just didn’t hold up. Maybe they absorbed too much water in the recent rains because they didn’t really seem to roast the way that golden and red beets do. They looked fine and peeled great but when I sliced them they didn’t hold firm, and the taste was earthy in a way not entirely good. Lesson learned.

My backup vegetable for Father’s Day dinner was a red leaf lettuce salad with cucumbers and blue cheese dressed with a red wine Dijon vinaigrette. It was lovely but needed a little sweetness – next time I will add dried cranberries.

I don’t really need to post a recipe for a green salad so I will share the recipe for the lamb chops I served with it. Also on the menu: Rooney’s potato salad and flourless chocolate cake.

Grilled Lamb Chops with Rosemary, Garlic and Balsamic Vinegar

This is an adaptation of a recipe I found on Epicurious.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 4 garlic cloves, minced or crushed
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (or to taste)
• 8 1 inch thick loin lamb chops, trimmed.

About the lamb: I have tried both New Zealand grass-fed and American local chops. The New Zealand meat has nice flavor but the fat does not grill nicely and is chewy. The American chops are bigger and fattier so they need to be trimmed more, but the remaining fat is more flavorful and edible. Also, the more fat there is the easier it is to burn them, so watch them carefully on the grill.

Whisk the first six items together to make the marinade. Pour a little into a 9 x 13 glass pan, enough to just cover the bottom. Place the chops in the pan and pour the remaining marinade over them. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours, turning occasionally. (I have been known to let them marinate in a cool place on the counter for an hour before grilling.) If you are going to smoke them on the grill, soak the wood chips (mesquite or whatever you like) while the meat marinates.

Heat the grill to medium – if you have a smoker put that on before you light it. When you have good heat and smoke, grill the chops to desired doneness, taking care to avoid flare-ups that will burn the small chops. We have a very hot grill, so 3 minutes on each side gives us medium rare chops. Adjust your own times as needed. After removing chops from the grill, let them rest for 5 minutes before serving.