Last Thursday I left with arugula, asparagus, spinach, chard, and parsnip soup. Here’s what I did with some of it:

I made arugula pesto. I used my mini food processor to chop the arugula to bits, then I mixed in chopped pine nuts, garlic, and olive oil. I was feeling exotic—pecans work well for a local nut substitution. I spread it on sliced baguette from Harvestyme Bread (my favorite of Pat’s breads) and topped it with shredded Pure Prairie Creamery goat cheese. Broil. A fantastic combination. Especially good with red wine. Really, though, what isn’t?

Friday supper and Sunday lunch: arugula pesto cheese bread, creamy parsnip soup, and salad.
For the past month I’ve been putting Spicy Lime Vinegar on my salads. Wow! I really enjoy salads now. I used to like eating them because I knew thew were good for me. Now I like eating them because they are actually good! Thank you, Holder’s Herbs!

Sunday I seared pork shoulder and then simmered it for about two hours with dry great northern beans, sage, olive oil, and garlic. They didn’t taste as good as Shauna’s beans, though. Shauna, are you holdin’ out on me?

Tuesday supper: leftover white beans and pork, roasted asparagus, and leftover arugula pesto cheese bread.
For the asparagus, I sought guidance from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which I borrowed from the library. (Friday I had an epiphany that I could use the library to explore cookbooks!) Simple and delicious. In the roasting pan, I topped the raw asparugus with pats of butter and coarse salt. Then it roasted at 450˚ for about 15 minutes. Drizzle some lemon juice and eat.

Anyway, when I was drying the potatoes I didn’t really know if it would work. I used the oven, at its lowest setting, to suck all the moisture out of the slices. Then I stored them in a jar with a silica packet from a prescription drug bottle. Last week I used them to make a batch of potato soup. And I didn’t die. So, I guess my little experiment worked.

Dried potatoes. The darker slices are from the batch that was parboiled prior to drying.

Basic Potato Soup
1975 edition of The Doubleday Cookbook

:: 1 small yellow onion, peeled and minced
:: 2 T butter or margarine
:: 2 c diced, peeled potatoes
:: 2 c cold water or chicken broth
:: 1 t salt
:: 1/2 t celery salt
:: 1 c milk
:: 1 c light cream
:: 1/8 t white pepper
:: 1 T minced parsley, chives, or dill

Stir-fry onion in butter in a heavy saucepan over moderate heat 5 minutes until limp; add potatoes, water, salt, and celery salt, cover and simmer 10–15 minutes until potatoes are nearly tender. Add milk, cream, and pepper and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 3–5 minutes until potatoes are done. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

My notes: Of course, I used my dried, sliced, unpeeled potatoes. I also used turkey broth instead of chicken broth. I didn’t have celery salt. I was also out of cream, so I used a cup of yogurt instead. Before I added chives, I used my handy-dandy immersion blender (thanks, mom!) to thicken it up.

Yummy!

I would rarely leave for my lunch break (it was called “lunch” even if it really was supper), so I would just pick something from the store. Lunchables, frozen burritos, pizza rolls, or Dinty Moore chicken and dumplings. I would go through the cool cashier’s line in order to get a substantial discount.

I have no idea what provoked me that first time I tried chicken and dumplings; I had never had them at home. It was probably just plain curiosity—balls of dough in a gelatinous substance. Who wouldn’t be intrigued? Surprisingly I liked them and they became my supper of choice. Along with a Pepsi and York peppermint patty, of course.

Fast forward 10 years and Dinty Moore and chicken and dumplings still are synonymous in my head. Last night I made strides to correct that.

I used this recipe. It’s in my Best Chicken Recipe cookbook, which adds this handy tip: do steps 1–3 on day 1, and finishing up takes only 20 minutes on day 2. Putting the stew together went very well. I was a little nervous the dumplings wouldn’t cook through, but I just followed the instructions and they were fabulous. I can’t wait to eat some leftovers!

The perfect meal for a frigid day.

The dumplings were amazing, thanks to the fat reserved from browning the chicken. Chicken fat is smooth and light and imparts delicious flavor.

Rustic squash tart

Pan-seared chicken with mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes and the squash tart. We used Downing Family Farm chicken breasts, Earth Elements dried tomatoes, and shiitakes from Mushroom Planet, and Oklahoma acorn squash for the tart. This meal is almost all-Oklahoma food! Maybe someone in the co-op could start selling frozen flaky crust?

Holiday Ham Slice (see recipe below) with brussels sprouts.

Minute steak with cherry-mustard glaze, kale, and squash soup (see recipe below). This was my first experience with minute steaks. I was searching our slow cooker cookbook for a recipe when Matt pointed out the irony in looking for a way to slow-cook minute steaks. Wasn’t the point of minute steaks is that they cook quickly? Touché. So, I found this awesome recipe online.

Holiday Ham Slices
from Rowdy Stickhorse
:: 3/4 c whole-berry cranberry sauce
:: 4–6 green onions, finely chopped
:: 3 T water
:: 1 T Dijon mustard
:: 1 T butter, melted
:: 1 t brown sugar
:: 1/4 t ground ginger
:: 4 slices fully-cooked ham

In a small saucepan, combine the first seven ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. In a skillet, cook ham slices for 3–4 minutes or until heated though. Pour sauce over ham.

Cream of Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
from The Best Light Recipe
:: 2 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
:: 1 medium onion, halved and sliced 1/2-inch thick
:: 2 t vegetable oil
:: salt
:: 3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 T)
:: 1/4 c dry white wine
:: 1 bay leaf
:: 1-1/2 c low-sodium chicken broth
:: 1-1/2 c low-sodium vegetable broth
:: 1/2 c half-and-half
:: ground black pepper
1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 450˚. Toss the squash, onion, 1 t oil, and 1/2 t salt on a rimmed baking sheet then spread in an even layer. Roast until vegetables are well browned and softened, stirring occasionally, 25–30 minutes.
2. Transfer the roasted vegetables to a large saucepan. Add the remaining 1 t oil, cover, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the squash is softened further, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the wine and bay leaf, cook until the wine has reduced by half, about 1 minute. Add the broths. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the soup is flavorful, about 5 minutes. Remove the bay leaf.
3. Puree the mixture in a blender (or food processor) until smooth, and return to a clean saucepan. Add the half-and-half and warm over low heat until hot, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (The soup can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 days. Warm over low heat until hot; do not boil.)

Tricia’s notes: I doubled the chicken broth and left out the veggie broth. I did not transfer the soup to a blender. That is such a pain in the ass. I just used a potato masher to break up the already-soft squash chunks.

None of the above. I’m talking about stock, as in broth.

There is a difference between the stock and broth, but in my research I have found that they are commonly used interchangeably, so that’s what I’m going with. Please comment and enlighten me on the differences.

I’ve ordered a couple of soup bones from the co-op, but could never justify spending that much money on a bone, so I didn’t have enough to make stock. Reluctantly, I went to the meat market down the street and bought 5 pounds of cow neck bones for about $8. I am sure stock is better from quality meat, so here and there I’ll order bones from pastured cows through the co-op. Next time I make stock I’ll use those.

What motivated me to make stock? Books, our co-op president, Bob, and mostly, curiosity. In Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon talks about the many benefits one gets from bone broths, as does Nina Planck in Real Food. And several of my cookbooks rave about the vast difference between homemade stock versus canned broth and bouillon cubes. Bob mentioned those health benefits, too, in addition to the value of homemade stock.

I loosely followed Bob’s directions. I put the bones, chopped carrots and onions in a roasting pan. I roasted them for about 30 minutes at 400˚. It smelled delicious; my dogs couldn’t concentrate. I added celery for the last 10 minutes. Here’s where I messed up a bit—nothing tragic. After roasting, I should have done a better job at draining the fat, rather than just dumping it all into the pot. You’ll see the fat in the pictures. I skimmed it off the best I could, but some remained.

So, after roasting, I dumped the meat and veggies into the pot and added a bay leaf, peppercorns, parsley, a tomato, potato cubes, thyme, salt, and 12 cups of water. I put it on the stove, brought it to a boil, and then let it simmer for about 13 hours. The consistency was somewhere between stock and demi-glace. With Matt’s help, I strained it and put it in the frig for the day. When I got home from work, I skimmed most of the fat off the top and froze the stock in jars and ice cube trays. So far, I’ve used a couple of cubes for nice flavor in quinoa and to sauté veggies.

Next, we picked the tender meat off the bones and gave some to our lucky dogs. We also mixed it with yogurt cheese and spices. Matt called this “meat paste”—not too appetizing, but it tasted pretty good with crackers.

I’ve started a stock scraps bag in the freezer. So far, there’s carrot and celery ends and chicken bones. I’m looking forward to making stock again, when I’ll know what the heck I’m doing.

I dribbled cream on top since I didn’t have any crème fraîche, heck I don’t even know what that is. After blending the soup it became the consistency of baby food and maybe that is part of the reason I wasn’t too keen on it. One bowlful was good, but I wasn’t looking forward to leftovers. And that’s why it’s really nice that the recipe indicates that the soup freezes well, because I wouldn’t want to eat this soup several days in a row. I’m not like this with many foods. I can only think of bleu cheese. Yeah, it’s a neat flavor, but only once in a while.

.Mushroom Soup.

:: 1 lb of your favorite mushrooms, cleaned, stems intact
:: 2 c chicken broth (I used veggie broth)
:: 1 c cream from Wagon Creek Creamery
:: 2 shallots, chopped
:: 2 T sherry
:: pinch of cayenne
:: several grinds of white pepper

Cook mushrooms and shallots in chicken broth for 15 minutes. Cool slightly, blend until almost smooth and heat again. (I usually hate it when recipes call for this blender step—it’s such a pain—but it was really worth it in this case.) Add cream and seasonings. Do not boil. Serve hot with cheese toasts or croutons. Oh my yum!

We had the soup with some oat bran toast from Harvestyme Bread, and a shmear of peppery cream cheese spread. The peppery cheese bread really complimented the soup. And to liven up the palette, we had some tasty beets (made by Booklahver!).

When, behold!, a new email appeared in my inbox. It was Pat Kelley from Harvestyme Bread:

We will be serving minestrone soup for the evening meal. There will be a limited quantity, call early and reserve your evening meal on this cold winter day.

Splendid!

After work I picked up our piping hot soup, along with a loaf of tomato basil bread and some orange scones for breakfast over the weekend.

The combination of soup and bread was delicious—very rustic Italian. Minestrone soup has no set recipe, and has come to basically mean a hodgepodge with an Italian flavor. It was a real treat to have some homemade minestrone soup after a long week.

Does it sound weird? Well, it’s wonderfully nourishing on a cold day, or on a day that isn’t as cold as it should be, but you want to pretend. Another very handy thing about this recipe is that it’s a good one to have on hand when all of your meals requiring fresh ingredients have run out. This chowder doesn’t require many fresh ingredients, and the few that are store well if they’re stored correctly. I got this recipe from Abbey Levine’s Vegetarian Recipes weekly-ish email.

Ingredients:
:: Two 14 oz. cans coconut milk
:: Two 14 oz. cans vegetable broth
:: 5 cups frozen sweet corn (I used one bag corn+one bag mixed veggies)
:: 1 cup chopped carrots
:: 1 medium potato diced into 1/2 inch cubes
:: 3 tbsp celery
:: 1 tbsp cilantro (I left this out because I didn’t have any on hand. I’m sure it would have improved the chowder though, since cilantro is the herb of the gods.)
:: 4 tsp Old Bay seasoning or seafood seasoning
:: 1 tsp salt
:: 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Combine coconut milk and vegetable broth in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Allow to boil for one minute. Lower to medium heat. Combine the rest of ingredients with the coconut milk and vegetable broth mixture. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Simple as that!