Bright green!

Apparently you all love Anne Burrell! Who knew? She rocked the poll last week with her book Cook Like a Rock Star.

As I mentioned in my review of this book many months ago, I really love the book in theory. The problem comes when you actually want to cook from it. A lot of the recipes require pretty rare and/or expensive ingredients.

So I tried to pick a recipe that would be accessible to people.

The pasta recipes called out to me. She really knows her pasta and while she pretty much always recommends making fresh pasta, a lot of the recipes can be easily adapted to use dried pasta.

This recipe caught my eye this week so I went for it. It turned out to be really interesting and delicious.

Arugula Walnut Pesto

Yield: Enough for 1 pound of pasta.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup walnuts
3 cups baby arugula
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup Pecorino cheese, grated
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup hot pasta water
1/2 cup heavy cream
Kosher salt
Big fat finishing oil

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor

Directions:

1) Lay out walnuts on a sheet pan and roast them for about 6 minutes at 350 degrees. Watch them closely and turn them once half way through.

2) Combine walnuts, arugula, cheeses, and garlic in a food processor and pulse until it's a rough paste.

3) Drizzle in olive oil and pulse again.

4) Add pesto to a small pan and add about 1 cup of hot pasta water to the pan. Stir well.

5) Bring to a simmer, stir in cream, and continue to simmer. Season with salt and pepper.

6) When pasta is done, drain it and add it straight to the pesto.

7) Serve with a drizzle of finishing oil and extra grated cheese.

Recipe from Cook Like a Rock Star.

The Basics

A normal pesto recipe is based on buckets of basil, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and pine nuts. A lot of times I won’t even follow a recipe for it. I’ll just kind of wing it with those ingredients.

This is a very similar recipe in theory but substitutes arugula for the basil and walnuts for the pine nuts.

Speaking of nuts, I’m pretty sure Anne Burrell is one. Under this recipe in her book she writes in big bold type:

“I love the feel of nuts in my mouth!”

Ok Anne. I don’t really know what to think about that so here’s a photo of some nuts just so we can make sure we are on the same page.

Love these!

Anne recommends, and I agree, that you toast these bad boys before using them. Just lay them out on a baking sheet and bake them at 350 degrees for about 6-7 minutes.

I recommend setting a timer and watching them closely because these will go from perfect to burnt in about 30 seconds.

Making the Pesto

Arugula is no where near as flavorful as basil so you really need to use a lot of it for this recipe. Don’t worry about over-doing it.

No basil needed.

Once your walnuts are toasted, add them to a food processor with a good amount of arugula, grated cheese, and some minced garlic and you’re ready to go!

Ready to blend!

Pulse this down until it’s a rough paste and then drizzle in your olive oil and continue to pulse.

Perfect paste.

Finishing the Pesto

The key to finishing this pesto, which is now way to dry to really use, is to make a sauce out of it.

To do this, add the paste to a medium saucepan and get it cooking over medium heat. Then add about a cup of hot water from the pasta that you’re cooking straight to the pot!

This water will be salty and starchy and really help make this pesto into something useable.

Magic ingredient.

Once you get the pasta water stirred in, go ahead and add some cream and your sauce will really come alive.

The color of this is amazing!

Love the color.

Put this back on the heat and keep it warm until your pasta is done.

The Pasta

Anne’s big on homemade pasta and so am I. I kind of think of homemade pasta as a special occasion thing though and not an every night situation.

So I just used some dried linguine and it worked great.

Homemade pasta would be best...

Big Fat Finishing Oil

In about 25% of the recipes in this cookbook, Anne recommends finishing the dish with what she called a “Big Fat Finishing Oil.” What she means by this is a really good quality olive oil (read: expensive).

You would never actually cook with this stuff because the heat would immediately break down the flavors. You just drizzle it on right before you serve the dish.

I’m not an olive oil expert, but I picked out a nice bottle that definitely tasted a lot fresher than the stuff I use to cook. It worked great to finish the dish.

Big Fat Finishing Oil?

Once the pasta is drained just stir it into the sauce and then serve it up!

Extra grated cheese and a good drizzle of the nice oil rounds out the pasta perfectly.

Really tasty!

I’m was really surprised by the flavors in this pesto. They were very different from normal pesto.

It was a great change and Betsy and I both gave it two big fat finishing thumbs up!

Hard to get healthier than this!

After a weekend of over-indulgence, I’m always in the mood for something that’s really quick and healthy.

I definitely don’t want anything with meat or cheese in it. For once.

This recipe was inspired by a recipe that was in the most recent Bon Appetit. I say inspired because I changed almost every main ingredient except chickpeas. The original had chicken in it, but I felt like keeping it veggie packed so I nixed the chicken and added in a few potatoes and some kale.

The bonus piece of cutting out the chicken is that it also trims about 20 minutes off of your prep time.

Thirty Minute Chickpea Stew

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small bunch kale leaves, chopped
1 quart vegetable stock
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Crusty bread
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Add olive oil to a large heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add minced garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook for a few minutes until fragrant.

2) Add in cubed potatoes, tomato paste, and cumin. Turn the heat up to medium and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.

3) Add in vegetable stock, chickpeas, bay leaves, roasted red peppers, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and simmer until potatoes are soft, another 10 minutes.

4) Stir in kale and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.

5) Break up some crusty bread in the bottom of a bowl. Ladle stew over bread. Serve immediately.

A Basic Stew

I think one of the best things you can learn as an at-home cook is to master the simple veggie stew. Learn how to balance the spices and flavors in a stew and you can usually make a fantastic meal with a few fresh veggies, a few canned foods, and some simple stock and spices.

For this version (and for a lot of stews that I make), these are some of the basics.

Just some basics.

I was worried that by cutting out the chicken, my stew wouldn’t have enough body to be really filling. I’m not sure if that’s entirely true because there’s still bread in the soup also.

But, I decided to add in a few chopped potatoes at the last minute.

I liked the potato addition, but I also think it would’ve worked fine without them.

Gives the stew some body.

Canned chickpeas makes this stew super-quick. It would add on at least an hour to use dried chickpeas and I’m not sure you would get much for your extra work.

Just be sure to drain and rinse the chickpeas well.

I think I’m almost in the market for a new strainer…

Rinse these guys pretty well.

Making the Stew

To start the stew, we need to infuse some oil with two really flavorful things: garlic and red pepper flakes.

Two of my favorite things.

The key to doing this correctly is cooking the garlic and pepper flakes over fairly low heat for a few minutes. If you crank the heat to high, you’ll completely char the garlic.

Instead, just add them to the olive oil over medium-low heat for a few minutes. When it starts to get really fragrant, you know it’s ready to go. The garlic shouldn’t even be browned really.

Low heat is important..

Next, add in the potatoes, tomato paste, and cumin.

This will immediately start to smell amazing. Stir it all together and let it cook for a few minutes. You can turn your heat up a bit to medium at this point.

Already smellin' good.

After a few minutes of that, just pour in the vegetable stock, add the bay leaves and chickpeas, and bring the whole thing to a simmer.

At this point the stew is pretty much done when the potatoes are cooked through which will probably take another 10 minutes or so.

Love that color...

Finishing the Stew

There’s a few ingredients to add to the end of the stew that completely make it in my opinion. First, roasted red peppers. Honestly, I’m not sure that I’ve ever had roasted red peppers in a stew before but they worked great and paired really well with the chickpeas.

Next, I added some chopped kale. You could also use something like swiss chard if you wanted. A leafy, sturdy green really helps the stew out though.

One of the most important ingredients is lemon juice. The acid just makes all the flavors really pop. Don’t forget it!

Gotta toss in some greens.

Once all that stuff is stirred in, just season it with salt and pepper and you’re ready to go.

This stew took me about 30 minutes to make and I was taking photos and stuff. You could probably make it even faster!

Serving the Stew

The stew tastes good as-is, but to really turn it into a meal, just put about 1/2 cup of torn bread into the bottom of your bowl before you serve it. Any super-crusty and slightly stale bread will work great.

Hidden bread!

Then just ladle on the stew with some of the broth and you’re all set.

Hard to beat in my opinion.

Betsy and I devoured this and we had plenty for leftovers also.

Give this a shot this week if you are crunched for time and looking for something healthy and filling!

Health in a bowl!

I’m a huge fan of instant Netflix. In fact, Betsy and I don’t even have cable anymore.

Currently my queue on instant Netflix breaks down into:

1) Dorky science shows like Mythbusters.
2) Awesome TV series like Breaking Bad and Law and Order: SVU
3) Documentaries or movies that people have recommended to me about food.

Last week, I finally watched a show that a friend recommended to me approximately 6 months ago called Forks Over Knives. I think the movie can be summarized in the title of it, which I didn’t fully understand until halfway through the thing. I thought the title was forks over knives because you use a knife to eat things like meat and forks to eat things like veggies.

The real meaning of it though is that if you wisely choose what you eat with your fork you can almost certainly avoid going under the knife. It argues that as a society, we have put the knife over the fork and now we think that it’s much easier and less drastic to have a few surgeries instead of changing eating habits.

So, as a shout out to what I thought was a really interesting and very well done movie, I decided to cook something that I think the Forks Over Knives crowd would approve of… mainly because it’s from their website!

Spicy Orange Greens

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 bunch greens, like broccoli rabe, kale, or chard
1 red pepper, diced
1/3 cup water
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon orange marmalade
8 ounces soba noodles, cooked
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Chili garlic sauce (opt.)

Directions:

1) Wash and roughly chop greens and dice peppers and garlic clove. Cook soba noodles according to package. Drain soba and toss with sesame oil to make sure the noodles don't stick.

2) Add water, garlic, red pepper flakes, soy sauce to a large skillet or wok. Bring to a simmer over high heat and cook until garlic is fragrant, just a minute or two.

3) Stir in marmalade.

4) Add greens and red pepper to the pan and cover.

5) Cook for 2-3 minutes until veggies are soft. Stir everything together so the sauce evenly coats the veggies.

6) Serve greens with soba and top with chili garlic sauce.

Adapted from Forks Over Knives website.

Forks over Knives

Based on my post from the weekend, it’s pretty obvious that this movie didn’t turn me into a vegan. But it did reinforce a lot of what I already think. Namely, that through healthier eating, we would drastically reduce some of the health issues we face as a country.

This doesn’t just mean obesity, but even more radical diseases like heart disease and even some cancers. To make huge progress in this effort, the film argues that we have to basically completely eliminate from our diet three things: meat, dairy or other animal products, and processed foods and oils.

The problem that I have with the movie is that it makes the whole situation seem like a switch. It’s either on or off. You’re either eating healthily or you’re on a path to cancer.

I like to think of more as a sliding scale. Sure, if you eat nothing but deep-fried cheesesteak every day, you’re in for a rough haul, but having a slice or two of bacon on the weekends I don’t think is going to set my body into a tailspin.

Of course, Americans tend to have a problem with the word moderation so I can see how arguing for a cold turkey approach might be more effective.

Anyway, so I liked the movie. It has some fascinating statistics and compiles work from two very respected doctors who have been researching this stuff for over 40 years.

But enough about reviews… let’s eat!

Spicy Orange Greens

I wanted to cook something from the Forks Over Knives website after I watched the movie. One thing that I found ironic was that the recipe they posted probably leads to a lot of people breaking one of the main Forks over Knives rules!

The recipe calls for a tablespoon of orange marmalade and about 90% of marmalades in the store contain mostly high fructose corn syrup which the movie is very against. Oh well, nobody’s perfect. Of course, you can find marmalade without HFCS (I did), but I doubt most people would do this for the recipe. They would just grab a jar.

Anyway, this recipe was actually very delicious and takes less than 30 minutes to toss together which is cool.

You’ll need these things to make the sauce!

Good stuff.

One cool tactic that they mentioned in the movie, and that this recipe used, was that instead of stir-frying in oil, try to use water. So basically you make a very flavorful steaming liquid and cook your food in that.

I was skeptical that this would work but it turned out to be great and definitely healthier than cooking the greens in oil which is what I would’ve done if left to my own devices.

Speaking of greens… you can use almost anything for this recipe. You want something hardy like rabe, kale, or chard though. I went the rabe route.

Love the rabe.

To prep the veggies, just wash and roughly chop the ingredients. Pretty simple!

Just a rough dice is good.

Soba Noodles (I bend the rules)

You could serve the greens over rice or something, but the recipe also suggested noodles and that sounded better to me.

So I went with soba noodles which are some of the healthier noodles out there!

One of my favorite noodles.

I really love soba noodles because they are extremely flavorful. They have a really nutty flavor. I also like them because they are very good warm or cold so they make for quick leftovers.

There’s one problem with the noodles that led me to slightly bend the Forks Over Knives rules.

Soba noodles stick together like they are made of Elmers. After you boil them and drain them, if you walk away for a few minutes, they will congeal into one big mass of noodles: like a noodle cake.

These will stick like glue!

There’s one cure for this and it’s not approved by the Forks Over Knives doctors, but whatever.

The cure is oil… specifically sesame oil. For me, I’d rather use a tablespoon of this stuff and have really flavorful (and separated) noodles, but I do not think that the doctors in the movie would approve.

Necessary in my opinion.

Finishing the Dish

Once the noodles are cooked, this dish takes about five minutes to finish up. It’s really quick and easy.

Basically, just add the water, garlic, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and marmalade to a large skillet or wok.

Water. Not oil.

Bring this to a simmer over high heat and then toss in your veggies.

A quick steam.

Cover this up and cook the veggies for just a few minutes. So basically you are steaming the veggies but with spices and some sweet orange flavors.

When the veggies are done, just toss them a bit so they all get evenly coated with the sauce.

Maybe two minutes later.

I wanted to kick up the heat a bit more on mine so I added some chili garlic sauce as well.

Simple and delicous!

It’s hard to deny that it would be good if more people ate meals like this pretty regularly.

I was also impressed by how actually delicious and creative this dish was. The oil-to-water change was a great one and probably one that I’ll use regularly.

So, check out the movie if you’re interested. But, more importantly, make this dish. Some might say that by eating it you’re warding off cancer, but I’ll just say that I’m recommending it because it’s really tasty!

There's gin in there...

It seemed like there was a phase in the cooking world, and maybe it’s still happening, when vodka pasta sauce was the freakin’ bee’s knees.

It was the sexiest thing you could do to pasta.

I’ve definitely made it and ate it and enjoyed it, although I’ve never posted on it.

Here’s my problem with vodka sauce: Good vodka is specifically engineered to be tasteless. That’s why it’s great for mixed drinks. It really has almost no taste.

So wouldn’t it make sense to make a sauce with booze that has some flavor? More importantly, maybe booze that has some herbal flavors that would go well with tomatoes and cheese?

Gin has these flavors and it will kick your pasta sauce up a notch.

Gin Penne Pasta

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound penne pasta, cooked al dente
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 cup gin
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Stick blender or normal blender

Directions:

1) In a medium pot, add olive oil, onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes and begin cooking over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes until onions are soft and fragrant. Be careful not to brown the onions and garlic. You just want them soft.

2) Add in tomatoes and cook for a few minutes.

3) Remove sauce from heat and blend with a stick blender, or normal blender until sauce is fairly smooth. It doesn't have to be perfect.

4) Add gin and sugar to sauce and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes or so until alcohol cooks off from gin. You'll know when it's ready because it won't smell like strong alcohol.

5) Stir in cream, Parmesan cheese, and basil and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

6) Cook pasta according to package. Make sure to pull it when it is al dente or has a slight bite to it still.

7) Drain pasta well and add directly to sauce. Stir together.

8) Serve garnished with Parmesan cheese and fresh basil!

Gin Over Vodka

I was a bit worried when I had the idea for this sauce that I would go too far in the other direction. I was worried that gin would have too much flavor and completely overpower the sauce. I started slow and added a quarter of a cup to the sauce, let it simmer and tasted it.

At the end of it, I decided that about a cup of gin is the right amount. Even though gin has a pretty strong flavor on its own, when it cooks down and mixes with the other ingredients, it’s a subtle but nice flavor.

Basically, I think it gives the sauce some interesting complexity that definitely can’t be found with a vodka sauce. Gin after all is made with a fair amount of botanical herbs and spices while vodka is made mainly with… potatoes.

A few basics...

Starting the Sauce

While there is some simmering and stirring that goes on with this sauce, there’s really not much chopping. Just dice up some onion and garlic and you’re ready to start the sauce.

Just a few things to chop.

Add the olive oil to a medium pot with the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook this over medium heat until the onions and garlic start to soften and it smells very fragrant.

You don’t want the onions to brown at all. They should just get soft over medium heat which will take around 5-6 minutes.

Try not to brown them.

Then add in your tomatoes and sugar. The small amount of sugar balances some of the acidity of the tomatoes.

Any diced tomatoes will do the trick for this recipe. I went with some fire-roasted Muir Glen tomatoes.

Any kind of stewed tomato will do the trick.

Continue to cook this for a few minutes.

I wanted my sauce to be pretty smooth so I decided to blend it up with my stick blender. You could also use a normal blender or just kind of mash the tomatoes as they cooked and go with a more rustic version of the sauce.

You definitely don’t need a blender to make this sauce, but if you can, I recommend taking it for a spin.

A quick spin.

Big Time Flavor

At this point our sauce is pretty standard, but it’s about to get a big bump in the flavor department.

Starting with the gin. A whole cup. It doesn’t really matter what brand of gin you use, but I wouldn’t use super-cheap stuff.

A whole cup!

Bring this sauce to a simmer and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly. Your goal here is to cook off most of the alcohol and reduce the gin flavors.

You’ll know when it’s done because the sauce won’t smell intensely like alcohol!

As a final step stir in some cream which will mellow out some of the flavors and give the sauce a nice, rich texture.

Mellows it a bit.

Any time I’m trying to make a really good tomato-based pasta sauce, there are two ingredients that I almost always include: Real Parmesan cheese, and fresh basil.

Must have flavors.

Add a good amount of these to the sauce and season the sauce with salt and pepper.

I recommend finishing the sauce and then just keeping it warm while you work on the pasta.

This was my finished sauce!

Done deal!

Finishing the Dish

For the pasta itself, just cook it according to the package. While I guess you could use any pasta, I think penne works perfectly for this dish.

Whatever you do, don’t overcook the pasta. Soggy pasta is pretty much the worst.

Steaming hot.

As soon as the pasta is drained, toss it into the sauce (or toss the sauce into your pasta depending on your pot size).

Stir it all together. Even though it will look like a lot of sauce, as you stir in the pasta, all that sauce will get trapped in the penne pasta and you’ll be all set.

These guys will soak up a lot of sauce.

I like to serve pasta dishes like this family style which basically means I just pile it in a huge bowl and add some basil and cheese to the top.

I like to serve it family style.

Surprisingly, even with a cup of gin in this sauce, the flavor is pretty subtle. All of those gin botanicals, most importantly juniper, give the sauce this really complex flavor and fragrance.

It’s one of those dishes that if you were to eat it without knowing what was in it, you wouldn’t be able to put your finger on it, but once you know it’s gin, then it makes sense.

Let it be known: When it comes to pasta sauces, gin is the new vodka.

My first shells!

Let’s talk about something quickly that has confused me over the years: the difference between yams and sweet potatoes.

Here’s the thing. It’s actually hard to find real yams in grocery stores. They aren’t popular in America. But, there are two kinds of sweet potatoes that are sold: ones with a lighter skin and light yellow flesh and ones with a more orange tint to it.

Unfortunately, a lot of grocery stores label the more orange sweet potatoes as yams even though they aren’t. They are still sweet potatoes but just a different variety.

My grocery store actually had these labeled as “Sweet Potatoes/Yams” as if they were the same thing!

Real yams have a dark skin and are even sweeter than sweet potatoes. They are popular in Caribbean cuisine, but are actually a bit hard to find in most grocery stores in the states.

So let the record show: These wonderfully delicious baked shells are stuffed with sweet potatoes and definitely not stuffed with yams.

Sweet Potato Stuffed Shells

Yield: Serves 5-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large yams, boiled and mashed
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 fresh sage leaves, minced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 28 ounce can tomato sauce
6 ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced
16 ounces pasta shells, cooked al dente
Salt and pepper
Fresh chives (garnish)

Directions:

1) Peel and cube yams and boil them in salted water until they are very tender, about 12-15 minutes. Drain yams and mash in a bowl.

2) You can cook shells in same water. Cook until al dente and then remove and drain shells.

3) Dice onions, sage, and garlic and saute in butter over medium heat until onions are soft, about 5-6 minutes. Don't brown the onions. Add red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt.

4) Add onion mixture to mashed yams with greek yogurt, cream, and walnuts. Stir together and season with salt and pepper.

5) Add half of the tomato sauce to the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Working with one shell at a time, fill shell with a few spoonfuls of filling. You can stuff them pretty full. It's also okay if they rip a bit.

6) Arrange stuffed shells in baking dish. Once the dish is full, top each shell with extra sauce and a slice of mozzarella.

7) Cover dish loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Then uncover and bake dish for another 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

8) Serve shells garnished with fresh chopped chives.

Making the Filling

This is really a perfect winter filling. You could do a lot of things with it actually besides stuff it in shells. You could layer it in a lasagna or put it in manicotti. You could put it in ravioli or add some cheese and extra cream to it and make a kind of baked dip out of it.

It all starts with sweet potatoes though. Two large ones should do the trick. Just peel them and dice them into pretty large cubes.

Peeled and cubed

Boil these cubes in salted water until they are very tender (about 15 minutes) and then mash them up in a bowl. It’s okay if they aren’t completely smooth. Some lumps are just fine.

No need to be perfectly smooth.

Filling Flavors

Sweet potatoes are a good start but we want to add a lot more flavor to this filling. I really like the onion/sage flavor profile that the polenta I posted on Thursday had, so I decided to use similar stuff for this filling.

Good winter flavors.

Dice up the onion, mince the garlic and sage, and saute the veggies in butter over medium heat until the onions are soft. Be sure not to cook them on high heat or the veggies might brown which isn’t what you want.

You just want them to soften a bit so they turn slightly sweet. It should take about 5-6 minutes.

Then add in your red pepper flakes and add this mixture to the mashed sweet potatoes. You can add your yogurt and cream at the same time!

Yogurt... or sour cream.

I stirred this all together and tasted it.

Very Important: Any time you are coming up with a filling like this, it’s very important to taste it as you go.

When I tasted this, I liked the flavor, but I thought the texture was a bit mushy. So I went rummaging through my pantry and landed on some walnuts that I thought would give this filling some great texture.

Great add-in.

Just remember… if the filling tastes good on its own (which this did) then it’s going to be even better when it’s baked and covered with cheese.

The Pasta

Like I said, I wanted to use shells for this dish just because I don’t use them very often. You could use almost any baked pasta thing though for this filling, so go crazy!

Whatever pasta you choose, just make sure you don’t over cook the stuff. Pull it out while the pasta still has a very tiny bite to it. It will continue to cook in the oven later.

Be careful not to overcook these guys!

Prepping the Shells

These shells are actually really easy to stuff assuming that you don’t overcook them. Just add a few spoonfuls of filling to each shell! You can really stuff them pretty full.

Easy as that.

In a large baking dish, add about half of your tomato sauce to the bottom of the dish and then start stacking these shells in the dish.

You might have some leftover filling or shells depending on a few things, but it’s better to have leftover filling then not enough!

Might have some leftovers...

Add the rest of your tomato sauce to the top of the shells and top each shell with some mozzarella cheese.

I’m always inclined to add a large amount of cheese to dishes like this, but I would really recommend keeping the cheese light in this instance. The filling is really the star of the show and very delicious and rich on its own. So just a small amount of cheese should do the trick.

No need to go crazy with cheese.

Baking the Pasta

Cover this dish loosely with foil and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Then crank up the heat to 400 and remove the foil. Bake it for another 15 minutes just so the tops of the pasta gets slightly browned.

Baked!

Serve these suckers with some fresh chopped chives!

Really great meal!

These were a delicious winter dinner and the leftovers were perfect also. Betsy and I ate these shells for a few days and I never got sick of them.

So remember: These are sweet potatoes, not yams.

And also remember to try this as soon as possible!

A more red soup you will not find.

Betsy and I are very into the show Dexter right now. It’s such an original and interesting show.

The problem is that we don’t have cable and so we are always a few seasons behind because we have to rely on Netflix for our Dexter fix.

Anyway, while I was making this soup, which is probably the most red thing I’ve ever made, I thought to myself, “This is what Dexter Morgan must feel like after a kill.”

My cutting board looked like a crime scene.

That’s the price you pay for cooking with beets I guess. It’s a price that I’m definitely willing to pay because they make for a really delicious and healthy soup.

Roasted Beet Soup

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

3 large beets, roasted and cubed
1/2 head garlic, roasted
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large leek, sliced thinly
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 quart vegetable stock
1 bay leaf (opt.)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Stick blender or normal blender

Directions:

1) Slice off root tip and stem tip of three large beets and roast them in a 400 degree oven until they are tender, about an hour.

2) Slice the top off of half a head of garlic, exposing the cloves. Wrap in foil, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Roast for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

3) Once beets are roasted, let them cool and then peel and cube them.

4) In a large pot, add a few tablespoons of olive oil and the sliced leek. Let cook until soft over medium heat, just a few minutes.

5) Add cubed beets and roasted garlic along with thyme and bay leaf. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

6) Discard bay leaf and blend with a blender.

7) Add lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Serve with lots of crusty bread.

Adapted from a Whole Living recipe.

Big Beets

This is not a complicated soup. The flavors are pretty straightforward and the star of the show is definitely the beets. Since there isn’t a lot of other stuff in the soup, the beet flavor is intense.

This is a good thing.

Beets, when they are roasted, have a slightly sweet flavor that rocks when paired with the few other ingredients in this soup.

I’ve made a more complicated beet soup before (cold borscht) and while both soups are great, I loved the simplicity of this one. One big change between that soup and this version is roasting the beets. While it does add about an hour onto your prep time, it’s totally worth it. The beet flavors get a lot more intense after roasting.

You don’t have to do anything fancy to the beets before roasting them. Just chop off the stems and the root tips so they sit flat on a sheet pan. No need to wash them or anything since you’ll need to peel them later anyway.

These were some big beets.

Roast them at 400 degrees until they are tender, probably about an hour. This, of course, depends on how big your beets are. Mine were huge and so I only needed three of them. These were about the size of my fist!

If you use smaller beets, you’ll obviously need to use more of them.

My Favorite Smell

I made a soup a few weeks ago that was all about roasted garlic. While this soup is focused on the beets, it also has roasted garlic in it. Not quite as much, but just enough to give it some nice flavor.

I’m pretty sure that roasted garlic is one of my favorite smells in the whole world. Nothing like it.

I used a half of a head of garlic and just sliced off the tip of if and then drizzled it with some olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Wrap it in foil and roast this sucker for 30 minutes. When my beets were about half done, I just tossed it in with them for the last 30 minutes.

Standard.

Beet Red

Once your beets are done roasting, let them cool for a few minutes and then get down to business.

You’ll quickly understand where the phrase “beet red” comes from. This stuff will stain anything it touches.

The peel on a beet is pretty thick. I’ve never been able to find a veggie peeler that can do a good job, so I always just use a paring knife to peel these guys.

Dexter loves these.

Once the beets are peeled, just cube them up and you’re ready to go! The hardest part of this recipe is dealing with the beets. It’s smooth sailing from here.

There will be evidence of this dish.

The roasted garlic is a lot easier to deal with than the beets. Once it’s done roasting, let it cool as well and then you can literally just pop the cloves out of their skins.

Definitely a top ten smell for me.

Finishing the Soup

This soup is really easy to throw together once you have the ingredients roasted. Just add a few tablespoons of olive oil to a large pot and then throw in some sliced leeks.

I guess you could use onions instead of leeks for this, but I worry that the onions would really overpower the beet flavor. Leeks are a bit more mild so they work better in my opinion.

Just cook them over medium heat until they soften, probably 6-8 minutes.

Onions, but better.

Then add in the beets, garlic, herbs, and stock and bring the whole thing to a simmer.

Let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes and then puree it with a stick blender. You can definitely use a normal blender as well. If you’re using a bay leaf, take it out before blending the soup.

To be honest, if you don’t have a blender, you could just dice up your beets into smaller cubes and serve this soup without blending it. It would have a nice rustic feel to it.

Action shot!

After it’s blended up, add in the fresh lemon juice and taste the soup for salt and pepper. It’ll probably need a good pinch of both, but might be okay on salt depending on the kind of stock you use. Some can be pretty salty.

Sabotage

This soup was actually supposed to be part of a healthy cleanse thing that Betsy and I are half-trying to do. We’re failing pretty badly at it honestly.

We sabotaged this meal by making a huge loaf of delicious garlic bread to serve with the soup. I just sliced up a whole wheat loaf of bread and drizzled on some butter that I melted together with a crushed clove of garlic.

Then I baked it in foil for about 15 minutes while I finished the soup.

Sabotage!

The soup was totally delicious, but I would’ve had a hard time making a meal out of it without the bread.

Great winter meal.

Nothing to fancy about this meal, but it’s a really great winter dish. The flavors are warming and healthy.

If one of your new year’s resolutions is to lose weight, eat better, or cook more, this soup should be on your meal plan soon!

So colorful!

After a lot of holiday eating over the last week or so, Betsy discovered an interesting cleanse diet in the most recent Whole Living issue.

I’m not huge on body cleanses after a brief stint trying out The Master Cleanse many years ago. Frankly, I think most of them are BS.

But what I liked about this cleanse is that it really just reduces your diet to fruits and veggies for a few weeks. There’s no gimmicks or strange rituals. Just healthy food.

That said, I’ll be honest. I’m only dabbling in the cleanse. Betsy is doing it more intensely, but I’m cheating quite a bit.

I thought about actually doing the entire 3 week program and posting on it here, but a fair number of their recommended meals aren’t something that I would consider post-worthy here.

This is mainly because I’ll only post things that I like to actually eat. And while a kale, Romaine, and parsley smoothie (actual recipe from the diet) may be super-healthy, it tastes like cow vomit.

But, a few of the meals are very unique and I actually really enjoyed them. This is one of those meals. Not only is it completely delicious, but look at all those colors. Anytime a dish is that colorful, you can bet that it’s good for you.

Steamed Squash Salad

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 bunch broccoli rabe
2 delicata squash, peeled and sliced
Sesame seeds, toasted
Salt and pepper

Slaw Mixture:
2 cups mixed greens
2 cups red cabbage, sliced thin (about 1/4 of a cabbage)
1/4 cup red onions, diced
1/4 cup carrots, shredded

Tahini Dressing:
1/2 cup tahini
1 lemon, juice only
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
3/4 cup water

Helpful Equipment:
Mini food processor
Steamer

Directions:

1) In a food processor, mix together ingredients for tahini dressing. Blend until smooth.

2) For slaw, slice cabbage and red onion thinly. Toss with greens and carrots and set aside.

3) Wash broccoli rabe and cut off any large stems leaving leaves and florets.

4) For squash, peel squash and slice down the center. Scoop out seeds and then slice squash into 1/4 inch slices.

5) Set up a steamer and steam squash for 5-6 minutes.

6) Add broccoli rabe on top of squash and continue to steam for another 4 minutes.

7) Serve steamed veggies on a bed of the cabbage slaw. Drizzle with dressing and top with toasted sesame seeds and season with salt and pepper.

8) Leftovers are great in a wrap with a drizzle of hot sauce.

Adapted from Whole Living Jan 2012.

The Dressing

This dish has some really hearty vegetables in it, but the flavors would be a bit bland without this dressing. This is the star of the show in my opinion. It has a similar flavor to hummus, but is much more intense which is why you just need a drizzle of it.

Dressing stuff

You could use any food processor to make the dressing. I used my mini food processor which is getting a lot of use these days for me.

If you don’t have a food processor, I think you could still make this. Just mash up the garlic clove really well and whisk together all the ingredients. It’s thin enough that you should be able to mix it together okay without a food processor.

Pretty straightforward!

The Slaw

While the main veggies for this salad are steamed, there’s a really colorful slaw that the steamed veggies are served on.

The backbone is a nice fresh purple cabbage which I just sliced into tiny strips.

The purple and the red.

Combine the cabbage with some greens, red onion, and a handful of slivered carrots (my addition) and you’re all set.

I love the colors in this slaw.

Good lookin' slaw.

Steaming the Veggies

There are two veggies that you need to steam to finish off this salad. Both are kind of awkward and probably aren’t everyday ingredients for most people.

Stuff for steamin'

The first ingredient is Delicata squash. I’d never used these before this recipe but I found them pretty easy to prepare. You just need to peel them and then slice them in half and scoop out the seeds. These squash are more tender than other winter varieties so they are actually really easy to peel.

Once you have them peeled and cleaned, just slice them into 1/4 inch pieces. Don’t slice them too thin or they will just turn to mush as they steam. You want them to have some texture.

Peeled and sliced.

Broccoli rabe is the second ingredient that we will be steaming. While these guys look like baby broccoli, they actually aren’t related to broccoli at all.

You can steam the little florets and the leaves so just cut off any thick stems and give them a rinse.

Washed and ready.

Set up your steamer and add all your squash to the basket. Steam this for about 5 minutes. That won’t cook the squash all the way through, but it’ll get it started.

Here was my half-cooked squash.

After about five minutes.

After five minutes, just add all your broccoli rabe to the pot and put the lid back on! Since the rabe doesn’t take as long to steam, you can add it at the halfway point and then everything is done at once.

Full steamer!

After another 4-5 minutes all of your veggies will be perfectly steamed.

These were my finished veggies and they turned out great!

Pretty quick prep.

Serve the steamed veggies over the slaw with a drizzle of the tahini sauce and some roasted sesame seeds for a super-healthy and flavorful meal. The squash has almost a meaty texture but is slightly sweet and really filling.

Another serving option which I tried out on day two is to wrap all the ingredients with maybe a drizzle of hot sauce.

These would be perfect for a lunch option. Again… check out those great colors!

Really awesome wraps.

As I was writing this post I was browsing through the healthy category on the site and I have to say that I think this is one of the healthiest full meals I’ve ever made on Macheesmo.

But I didn’t post it because it was healthy. I posted it because I really loved eating it!

Steak?

You guys are sneaky. I honestly didn’t think in a million years that cauliflower steak would win the poll. It not only won, it crushed all other options!

You guys really want to see a steak made of cauliflower!

I guess I’m happy to oblige.

For me, does this replace a wonderfully marbled and juicy medium-rare steak? Abso-freaking-lutely not.

But honestly it turned out a lot better than I was expecting. The cauliflower is really filling and has a good texture.

All the flavor comes from the tapenade on top. That’s the highlight of the meal for sure in my book.

Cauliflower Steaks

Yield: Serves 2-4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 large head of cauliflower
2 tablespoons olive oil

Tapenade:
1/2 cup cauliflower florets, chopped
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup kalamata olives, diced
2-3 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 lemon, juice only
Salt and pepper

Tomato Sauce:
1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
A pinch of sugar
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Mini food processor

Directions:

1) Slice cauliflower head down the center and cut off all of the leaves. Slice off four 1/2 inch "steaks" of cauliflower. If your cauliflower head is very small you might only get 2-3 steaks out of it. Make sure they are a nice thickness.

2) Some florets will fall off as you cut the steaks, reserve them and chop them. Add enough florets to this until you have 1/2 cup of chopped florets.

3) Dice olives and sun-dried tomatoes and mix with chopped florets. Mix in parsley, lemon juice, and a dash of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and set aside for later.

4) To start steaks, add a good drizzle of olive oil to a large skillet and get it hot over high heat. Sear cauliflower steaks on both sides until they are nicely seared, about 3 minutes per side. You will have to work in two batches to sear all the steaks if you have 4.

5) Add steaks to a baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Flip the steaks once halfway through roasting.

6) Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium pot. Add garlic and cook for a minute.

7) Add in diced tomatoes and continue to cook until simmering. Season with a pinch of sugar and salt and pepper.

8) Pulse tomato sauce in a food processor until smooth then return to pot and keep warm until needed.

9) Cauliflower steaks are done when they are tender in the thickest stem parts.

10) Serve steaks on the tomato sauce with a drizzle of good olive oil. Top with tapenade.

Adapted from Bon Appetit Jan. 2012.

Let’s Talk Cauliflower

I’m a big fan of cauliflower actually even though I don’t make it too much for Macheesmo posts. One of my favorite ways to prep cauliflower is to roast it with some balsamic and parmesan cheese. That’s good stuff.

Of course, for this we are keeping it really simple. The key to making a steak out of cauliflower is slicing it pretty thick. If you don’t slice it thick, it’ll just fall apart.

Bon Appetit says to slice it at least 1/2 inch thick, but I would maybe lean even more to 3/4-1 inch thick. You have to flip this thing a few times and you want it to stay in one nice piece.

Here’s my first steak!

Custom cut steaks.

You should be able to get 2-4 steaks per head of cauliflower depending on how big your hunk of cauliflower is.

One this is for sure though, as you cut the steaks, you’ll produce lots of what I call cauliflower schrapnel.

You’re going to want about 1/2 cup of this schrapnel for the tapenade later so if you don’t have that much just chop up a few florets to make more.

The florets.

The Tapenade

Like I said, I thought the best thing about this dish was the tapenade. Even Betsy said it was okay and she despises olives.

In fact, you could just make the tapenade and put it on crostini or something and that would be a very delicious appetizer.

Finally some flavor!

To make it, just dice up everything pretty finely and stir it together. If you can, make this first so it sits together for a few minutes.

The flavors need a chance to mingle.

Season the tapenade with salt and pepper but be careful with the salt. The olives and sun-dried tomatoes are already a bit salty so you won’t need much.

This is really tasty actually.

A Basic Tomato Sauce

The original recipe calls for real tomatoes, but I’m just never really all that impressed with December tomatoes so I just used a can of diced tomatoes to make my version.

This sauce is about as easy as sauce gets. Just dice up a few cloves of garlic and toss them in a pot with a drizzle of olive oil. Cook them on medium heat until they are soft (about 2 minutes), then add in the tomatoes and bring to a simmer.

I went ahead and blended mine up so it was smooth. You could leave it chunky though or use tomato sauce instead of diced tomatoes and you would be all set.

Season the sauce with a pinch of sugar and salt and pepper. If you wanted to get crazy you could add in some dried marjoram which goes really well with cauliflower. Totally optional though.

About as simple as sauce can get.

Cooking the Steaks

I must say, cooking these cauliflower steaks are a lot easier than real steaks. For one, they are cheap. So if you mess up at least you aren’t out $20. Second, while you can technically overcook them, it’s a lot more difficult. There’s a pretty wide range of acceptable finished temperatures for these guys. Not true (in my opinion) for real steaks.

To start cooking them, add a few tablespoons of olive oil to a large pan and get it hot over high heat. Once it’s hot, add in the cauliflower steaks. I followed Bon Appetit’s advice and didn’t season my cauliflower at all. I just tossed them in the pan.

If I were to make these guys again (possible) then I think I might spice up the steaks a bit with some cumin or marjoram or just some salt and pepper. If you do add something, go light on it. The tapenade has a lot of flavor.

Sear the steaks for about 3 minutes per side on blazing high heat. This creates a nice sear on them.

Nice crust on that steak.

Then transfer the steaks to a 350 degree oven for about 18 minutes to finish cooking. Take them out and flip them once about half way through just to make sure they are cooking evenly.

If your pan isn’t oven-safe that you seared them in, you can transfer them to a lightly oiled baking sheet and bake them on that.

Serving is pretty straightforward: sauce, cauliflower, drizzle of olive oil, tapenade. Pile it high!

Not too bad actually.

I was very skeptical of how this would turn out. So was my loving wife.

We were both pleasantly surprised with it though! It’s much more filling than it looks and has some good flavors.

The steak on its own is kind of just a vessel for the sauce and tapenade.

The cauliflower has great texture though and if you’re feeding vegetarians, it’s a fun change from the portabella steaks that they are probably most used to.

This warms the soul.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted something made in my crockpot, almost two years in fact. So I was very happy when a crockpot dish won the poll last week.

Plus, it just makes sense. It’s cold and you’re probably busy this time of year so a dish that you can RONCO (set it and forget it) is probably helpful.

Funnily, this soup fits almost all of the categories in the poll last week. I swear that wasn’t planned… sometimes it just works out that way.

I’ve made chicken tortilla soup before, but never posted on it. This version was, by far, the best version I’ve ever made though. Something about letting the flavors just kind of mingle all day long really gave the finished soup an interesting and deep flavor.

You’d be silly not to try this!

Crockpot Chicken Tortilla Soup

Yield: Serves 5-6

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours

Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Serrano pepper, diced (with seeds)
1 red pepper, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 chipotle pepper, minced
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 pound chicken breasts
2 dried New Mexico chile peppers (or poblano)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 bay leaves
6 cups chicken stock
A few sprigs cilantro
3 corn tortillas, diced
1 cup corn
Salt and pepper

Garnish:
Corn tortilla strips
Avocados
Limes
Cotija cheese
Sour cream

Helpful Equipment:
Crockpot

Directions:

1) Finely dice the onion, garlic, peppers, and celery and add them to a crockpot.

2) Also add in the chicken breasts, canned tomatoes, bay leaves, cumin seeds, dried chiles, and chicken stock. The stock should just cover all the ingredients.

3) Cover and set the crockpot on low. Cook for 6-8 hours.

4) Remove dried chiles and bay leaves and discard. Remove chicken breasts, shred, and return to crockpot.

5) Add in cilantro sprigs, corn, and a few corn tortillas cut into bits. Let the crockpot simmer for another 30-60 minutes.

6) Season soup with salt and pepper.

7) To make tortilla strips, dice corn tortillas into strips and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned and crispy.

8) Serve soup piled high with tortilla strips. Other fun garnishes include lime wedges, crumbled cotija cheese, avocados, and sour cream.

Preparing the Veggies

I know what you’re thinking: ”Holy crap that’s a lot of ingredients!”

True. But hang in there. Most of them are basic stuff and once they are all in the pot, there’s very little work involved in this meal. You can go cross stuff off your list and come home to a delicious soup.

These are the few veggies that you need to start this soup.

Just a few basics.

The key to these is to dice them pretty finely.

For the Serrano pepper, I left the seeds in. You could take them out though if you’re worried about the heat.

Then just toss all this stuff into your slow cooker!

A fine dice.

Besides the veggies you need a few other things to get this soup going.

This is where a lot of the flavor comes from in this soup.

Flavor town.

Add all this stuff to the crockpot along with your chicken breasts. I would shoot for about a pound of chicken but you could use more if you wanted.

For the chipotle pepper, make sure you dice it very finely. Nobody wants a big bite of chipotle in their soup.

For the dried peppers, you can use almost any dried pepper. I went with New Mexico chile peppers, but poblanos would work also. Just break up the dried peppers into a few pieces and scrape out the seeds. Then throw the dried pieces into the crockpot along with the chicken breasts.

Everybody in the pot!

Add in all your chicken stock which should just barely cover all the ingredients.

A Slow Cook

Set your crockpot to a low heat and let this sucker cook, covered, for at least six hours. If you wanted you could cook it for even longer though. Six hours is the minimum.

After that, your house will smell amazing and your soup will look something like this.

6 hours later...

Finishing the Soup

There’s a few things we need to do to finish this soup now that most of the cooking is done.

For starters, take out the bay leaves and dried peppers from the soup and discard them. They’ve given the soup plenty of flavor and there’s no need to hang on to them.

Next, take out the chicken breasts and use a few forks to gently shred the meat. Then you can return it to the crockpot.

Get it?

Finally, there are three new ingredients that I recommend adding at this point as they don’t need to simmer all day long.

First, add some corn and cilantro sprigs. Second, cube up a few corn tortillas and add those cubes straight to the soup.

Just some more flavor!

Cover this and let it simmer for another 30-45 minutes. The tortillas will soften and some will completely disintegrate into the soup which will give it a really rich texture. The cilantro will give the soup a nice herb flavor.

After it’s second cooking, remove the cilantro stalks and season the soup generously with salt and pepper.

The Garnishes

My favorite part of chicken tortilla soup is serving it with tons of fun garnishes and toppings and then people can kind of make their own bowls.

The essential topping (in my opinion) is crispy tortilla strips. These are super-easy to make. Just cut a few corn tortillas into long strips and bake them at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.

The strips will be lightly browned when the are done and super-crispy.

Great garnish.

Some other topping ideas that I like are sliced avocado, crumbled cotija cheese (or any cheese really), sour cream, and lime wedges.

Some other fun add-ins.

Once your soup is seasoned well with salt and pepper just ladle it into a bowl and pile on the toppings!

From above.

It’s actually a very filling meal for soup because of the chicken, tortillas, and cheese. It’s very warming and just a complete winner of a meal in my book.

Don’t be daunted by the ingredient list here, people. You can and should give this a shot sometime this winter!

The cute little napkins in this post were kindly donated by Oh Little Rabbit.

Anti-Twilight Soup

Only after taking the above photo did I realize that there was a near hole in my bread bowl!

Don’t worry though. The levy did not break.

Ever since it has actually decided to be winter here in Colorado, Betsy and I have been on a big soup kick. Maybe this is because our house has poor insulation and, much like my father would say, I refuse to HEAT THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

So a good warm soup is the best way to ward off the chills on super-cold days.

You might think that this soup is designed to protect from Twilight fans, but it actually has a pretty mild garlic flavor. Mild considering there’s a whole bunch of garlic in it I mean.

But trust me. It’s very delicious especially if you serve it in a big bread bowl.

Roasted Garlic Soup

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 heads of garlic, roasted
1-2 shallots, roasted
1 tablespoon olive oil, for roasted garlic
1.5 pounds yukon gold potatoes, chopped
1 quart vegetable stock (or chicken)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, plus some for serving
2 cups water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup cream (opt.)
Bread bowls (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Immersion blender, food processor, or normal blender

Directions:

1) Slice the tips of of the garlic heads and shallots and wrap them loosely in foil. Drizzle in a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt.

2) Roast the garlic and shallots for about 40 minutes until they are fork tender.

3) Let the garlic and shallots cool briefly and then use your fingers to pop the cloves out of the their skin. You can use a fork also, but hands are more fun.

4) Cube potatoes and add them to a large pan with the quart of stock. Also add the roasted garlic and shallots.

5) Cover the soup and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

6) Use a blender to process the soup until it's smooth. Some lumps are just fine.

7) Season with salt and pepper and a dash of lemon juice. Optionally, you can stir in some cream to make the soup more rich.

8) I like to serve this soup in a bread bowl, but you can definitely serve it in regular bowls also.

Recipe loosely adapted from a Body & Soul recipe.

Roasting Garlic

As you can see, there aren’t actually that many ingredients in this soup. The two ingredients that bring a lot of flavor to the party are the garlic (obv) and the shallots.

Of course, throwing in two heads of fresh garlic isn’t advised. So, let’s roast them.

Start by cutting of just the tops of the garlic and the shallot.

Ok. Maybe not 100...

Wrap these guys in foil gently and drizzle in some olive oil and kosher salt.

Then wrap them up tightly and bake them at 400 degrees for about 35-40 minutes. This will make your house smell amazing.

This'll smell good.

If you’ve never roasted garlic before, it turns into an entirely different beast. Instead of a sharp flavor, the cloves just melt in your mouth with savory delicousness.

Once the heads of garlic are roasted, let them cool for a few minutes and then you can use your fingers to gently pop the cloves out of the skin.

For the shallot, just peel of the skin and roughly chop it.

You should get a lot of cloves, but maybe 100 is an exaggeration.

Yum.

The Soup Body

While most of the flavor in the soup comes from the garlic and the shallots, the body of the soup comes from two other ingredients: stock and potatoes.

I used a few Yukon gold potatoes and scrubbed them clean and diced them up.

It’s totally fine to leave the skins on for this.

The Yukons!

Add the potatoes, stock, water, garlic, and shallot to a large pot and get it simmering. Cover the pot and let it simmer for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are fork tender.

Blending Options

This is a soup that really needs to be blended so all the flavors meld together nicely. That said, you have a lot of options for how you blend it.

If you’re fancy-pants like me, you might have a stick blender that makes quick work of the job. I love this blender for soups because you can just blend it in the same pot.

Lots of ways to blend...

If you don’t have one of those, don’t worry. You can just as easily use a food processor or even a normal blender.

Once your soup is blended, you’re pretty much ready to go. Just season it well with salt and pepper, grate in some Parmesan cheese, and if you’re feeling like it you can add a bit of cream to make it nice and rich.

Some chunks are just fine.

The Bread Bowl

I love a good bread bowl, but I don’t think all soups are made for bread bowls. I don’t like really hardy soups and stews in bread bowls because it’s just too much.

This soup was made for a bread bowl. The flavors end up being pretty light so it’s nice to have a sturdy side of bread to sop up all the soup with.

The bowl itself becomes this delicious roasted garlic bread. I had no problem finishing all most my entire bread bowl which is a feat!

If you’ve never made bread bowls before, it’s pretty straightforward. You want to find some smaller loafs of bread which you should be able to find at a local bakery without too much problem. I actually found these at the bakery section in my grocery store.

Just cut out the center of the bread bowl and then use your hands to dig out some of the inner bread to form a deep bowl.

Lay these out on a baking sheet and bake them for about 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees while your soup simmers away.

The bread bowl is the greatest invention in food.

Then just ladle in some soup to each bread bowl and grate on some extra parmesan.

It really is tough to beat this on a cold winter night.

A great winter meal.

Of course, the bread bowl is optional. You could just as easily serve this in normal bowls.

If you do that though, I do recommend having plenty of bread or crackers on hand for dipping.