Oh gosh, you’re going to love this bread. Or cake. Or cake made in a bread pan, masquerading as a loaf bread. Whatever it is, it’s marvelous. Easy. And better than any banana bread I’ve ever made, and I thought I had a really great one!

My radar wasn’t fixed – I mean tuned in – to making banana bread. Hadn’t even thought about it. Until I got an email from a new friend, Jerianne. A friend I’ve made as a result of my blog. This new friend lives about 25 miles from me, but we met for lunch several weeks ago. She’d found my blog somehow – I don’t recall if she told me how she happened to find it, and she started reading and she emailed me about getting together. We really enjoyed talking.  We have many common interests besides food. We are of a somewhat similar age. She loves to cook. We talked all about my blog, how and why, and we talked food for it seemed like hours. We’ve agreed to get together again sometime soon. She’s a Christian too, and she said a lovely prayer over our lunch.

Here’s a photo of Jerianne and me (J’s on the right) the day she took me to lunch (thank you again, Jerianne!). A week or so went by and Jerianne sent me an email with this recipe attached, telling me that I really, really needed to try this banana bread. She thought it was one of the best she’d ever made. Well, and it was called a prize-winning one, so why wouldn’t it be special? When I saw bananas, some very ripe ones, at the market, they called out to me and I made this bread. Oh my. Yes, yes, yes!

The recipe is in several places on the internet, and attributed to a county fair winner in 1981. It contains the standard stuff for a banana bread, with an addition of sour cream. I had light sour cream in my refrigerator, and it worked just fine. The bread also contains a lot of bananas – to get 1 1/2 cups I needed 4 medium sized ones. If you have really large bananas, probably 3 would be enough to measure 1 1/2 cups. My advice: measure!

It was all mixed up in my stand mixer and poured into a GREASED loaf pan. I had a bit too much for my loaf pan (fill the pan about 3/4 full), so I had to pour some of the batter into a smaller one (which I gave as a gift to our friend Joe who stayed with us the other night – Yvette, did you like it?). Likely you could scale down this recipe by about 1/5 and have just the right amount. It’s pretty hard to do that with standard measurements, but it could be done.

Then, you sprinkle raw sugar (turbinado) on the top of the raw batter – it adds a lovely crispy top. Don’t not do that step as you’ll be forever changed about adding that to any loaf breads. Loved it. The baking times varied a bit – some said 45 minutes, some an hour. I know loaf breads needed to bake until they reach about 205°, and it took about 55 minutes to do that. The bread MUST stay in the pan for a little while. Why? It’s a very, VERY tender bread/cake, and it could easily stick. If you want to be sure about this, put buttered parchment paper on the bottom of the bread pan. The large pan came out perfectly, but the little one was a little harder – it left a little bit stuck to the bottom.

After about 20 minutes I gently shook both pans to make sure the breads were loose and very carefully rolled the pan over onto my other hand and forearm, then quickly but gently placed it on a cooling rack. Be extra careful doing that – I very nearly broke the loaf in half. When I tell you it’s tender, it’s really, really tender, okay? Allow it to cool completely before slicing. Jerianne, thank you SO much for sharing this recipe with me! It’s a real winner.

What’s good: every single, solitary thing about this is wonderful. A definite do again bread.
What’s not: nothing whatsoever. What a lovely gift it would make, too.

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Not to be outdone by the Good Housekeeping Seal, BA has decided to give us a list of their go-to food products; the ones that always give reliable results, that have the taste, purity and complex flavors that exemplify an outstanding product and bang for the buck. These are not in any particular order of importance; it’s just their 50 top pick brands they rely on in their test kitchens. Amongst the judges the most hotly contested item was peanut butter (see #2 and #34). The article is available. If you want to read more, put in “seal of approval” on BA’s website and it will bring up everything they have regarding the products and the article and side bars.

1. Butter (Fancy) – Celles Sur Belle (it’s a matured butter, best on bread and baked goods when butter is the star)

2. Natural Peanut Butter – Woodstock Smooth (for toast, sandwiches, etc.)

3. Dijon – Maille (France)

4. Coconut Milk – Goya (Spain)

5. Chicken Broth – Swanson’s Certified Organic

6. Chili Sauce – Tuong ot Sriracha (also known as Rooster)

7. Grapeseed Oil – Bel Aria

8. Olive Oil – Lucini Premium Select Extra Virgin (Italy)

9. Fish Sauce – Red Boat

10. Soy Sauce – Kikkoman Less Sodium

11. Whole Grains – Bob’s Red Mill

12. Rice – Lundberg (all varieties)

13. Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes – Muir Glen

14. Canned Tomatoes – San Marzano (a U.S. product grown from Italian seeds)

15. Agave Syrup – Sohgave Amber

16. Sugar – Domino  (because it’s made from cane, not beets)

17. Puff Pastry – Dufour (sometimes hard to find)

18. Salt (everyday) – Diamond Crystal Kosher

19. Salt (finishing) – Maldon

20. Capers – Delicias (Spain)

21. Canned Beans – Goya (Spain)

22. Canned Tuna (in oil) – Whole Foods 365 Wild Tuna Albacore

23. Canned Tuna (in water) – Crown Prince Solid White Albacore

24. Tofu – Wildwood Organic Firm

25. Dried Beans – Rancho Gordo

26. Bacon – Applegate Organics – Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon

27. Pasta – Barilla (they said this won hands down)

28. Flour – King Arthur All-Purpose unbleached

29. Butter (baking and everyday) – Organic Valley

30. Finishing Sugar – Sugar in the Raw

31. Chocolate (cocoa) – Scharffen Berger

32. Chocolate (in bars) – Scharffen Berger

33. Vanilla Extract – Nielsen-Massey

34. Peanut Butter – Skippy (for baking and cooking and won raves for their spot-on salt balance)

35. Cider Vinegar – Bragg

36. Frozen Peas – Cascadian Farms

37. Black Peppercorns – India Tree Tellicherry Pepper

38. Mayonnaise – Hellmans/Best Foods

39. Cream Cheese – Philadelphia

40. Ketchup – Heinz

41. Tomato Concentrate – San Marzano (tube)

42. Tomato Paste – Hunt’s

43. Greek Yogurt – Fage (was made in Greece, but we’ve taken to it so much they now manufacture it here in the U.S.)

44. Dried Chilies (most versatile) – Arbol (BA buys their chilies from Marx Foods)

45. Dried Chilies (most popular) – Chipotle

46. Dried Chilies (most complex) – Guajillo

47. Anchovies – Ortiz el Velero (Spain)

48. Miso – Miso Master Organic (white)

49. Pomegranate Molasses – Al Wadi

50. Harissa – Les Moulins Mahjoub (this one contains some sun-dried tomatoes which is why BA likes it)

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Salt is in. In everything. On top of everything. In pinks, and grays and Kosher and flake. In and on (these cookies) in this case. You might wonder if there is anything anyone could possibly try to make a different chocolate chip cookie. Read on.

Well, I seem to be a sucker for any such new CC cookie. I still go back to my favorites in between trying any new one I come across. My DH brought home the new bag (3.5 pounds) of chocolate chips from Costco. I was dismayed because it wasn’t Nestle’s Tollhouse. Costco no longer carries those gigantic bags of CCs. They’ve come out with their own Kirkland brand of them. And I was prepared to be very upset – since I just plain LIKE the flavor of those Nestle’s chips. Sometimes I use Ghiradelli for some cookies, but mostly I resort back to the Nestle’s because they seem to have the best balance of sweet to chocolate. At least that’s what I thought. I must say, though, these new Kirkland ones are semisweet (just like Nestle’s), 51% cacao (I don’t know what Nestle’s is), contain real vanilla, and they’re from “responsibly sourced cacao.”  My best test was to eat some of the chips straight – to see what I thought of the flavor. I liked them. Wow, I actually liked them a lot. So, I guess it’s “move over Nestle’s, Kirkland/Costco has displaced you!” They are not Nestle’s chips in disguise – as I can tell these are a bit more dark chocolate than Nestle’s. They have a good balance of sugar to chocolate (that’s one of my beefs with some of the other premium chocolates – they contain too much sugar – to me).

So, back to the recipe. It was in the January 2013 Bon Appetit issue, and on the surface it didn’t look all that unusual from most other recipes – white and brown sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder, soda, the chips and SALT.  The recipe makes a small batch – that’s good since it was a new recipe – why make a lot if you’re not sure you’ll like them?

There’s nothing unusual about the preparation either. I scooped the batter onto parchment lined baking sheets and baked them as directed. The first tray was slightly overcooked. One minute made a huge difference. The next sheet I cut down the baking time, turning the sheet at 5 1/2 minutes. If I look at the photo in the magazine, the cookie looks thicker, more dense, whereas mine were quite thin. Not too thin by any means, just thin. I sprinkled the salt (I used flake salt) on top of each cookie before it baked, but changed that because the first batch absorbed the salt. After that I sprinkled the salt on the cookies when I took them out of the oven, while still hot. That worked fine.

A few days later, as they sat, uneaten, in the freezer, I served them to my 2 Scrabble friends, and they both went absolutely NUTS over them. I mean to tell you, they could hardly stay out of the plate of cookies. I sent both home with a bag of them.

What’s good: well, this cookie is different. To me it has a flavor of salty caramel – it’s the brown sugar as it bakes, I suppose, since there is more brown sugar than white in this recipe. I liked the salt, and so did my friends. In fact, they LOVED the salt on top. They also loved the intense crispiness of the cookie. It really IS crispy, and it’s almost candy-like. When you sink your teeth into a bite, you have to bite clear through and almost tear with your teeth to separate the bite – the cookie holds on. Does that make sense? It doesn’t break off gently as in a buttery, more shortbread style. Nothing like traditional CC cookies. I also think these cookies are too sweet, but my 2 friends disagreed. So, I’ve put a note in the recipe below – use your own judgment.
What’s not: what’s there not to like about any CC cookie? I wish I didn’t like them as much as I do! I try NOT to bake them because if they’re around, I eat them. Not so much with this recipe, but that’s only because this particular version was a bit too sweet for me (see above). I also didn’t care for the candy-like texture, but I don’t eat candy. Hardly ever. If you love candy, you might go nuts for this cookie.

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An altogether different kind of salad – no traditional salad greens at all – just celery, celery root (julienned), celery leaves, shallots, horseradish and parsley, with a light lemon juice dressing. Has plenty of crunch.

If you happened to read my little essay the other day – about how salads are changing in 2013 (according to Bon Appetit), I mentioned I was going to make at least one of the recipes. There were 4 recipes in the article (carrot salad with yogurt and coriander, golden beet and jicama salad with crème fraîche, mushroom and watercress salad with bread crumbs – and this celery one). I’m a huge fan of celery leaves – mostly I add them to green salads. I wish that when I bought celery there would be twice as many leaves and less of the stalks. The leaves have SO much flavor. So when I saw this recipe which actually called for celery leaves as part of the salad, I knew I’d be trying it.

How do you feel about doing a bunch of slicing? Well, if you have a mandoline or one of the newer, cheaper kinds of slicers, it’ll take no time – hardly – to do. If you don’t, you will have to spend some time honing your knife skills on this salad. Especially the celery root! I do have a mandoline, and it made quick work of slicing the julienned celery root, shallot and the celery.

One of the really nice things about making a salad without greens, is that it will keep for a day or two in the frig even though you’ve put dressing on it. Because there’s nothing really to wilt. Although, eventually the vegetable will deteriorate – probably some of the water extrudes from the vegetables. But not it’s not like the wilting of a dressed green salad!

Here in the photos you can see the celery root. I cut it in half – and still have that uncut half. For the photo I just laid the uncut half next to the one I was using for the julienne. The cut portion is peeled (use a knife, not a potato peeler) and julienned. The below  photo shows you the pile of celery root. It isn’t exactly easy to do julienned cuts on my Oxo mandoline – you have to push the celery root really hard to get it to cut. But it does, and the root pieces are tender enough to eat out of hand and make a nice crunchy addition to a salad. I did not use the slices of celery root in the salad – just the julienned ones. So my salad didn’t have as much celery root.

The salad dressing is nothing but olive oil and lemon juice. The salad also has some lemon zest sprinkled over it, some prepared horseradish tossed into it as well as some finely sliced shallots. The other green in this salad is parsley and I used quite a bit. Next time I might try adding some fresh mint. My garden has but a few little leaves of mint left from the summer, and they have almost no flavor.  The thing to note is that the salad dressing is more of a 2:1 ratio (oil:lemon juice) rather than the 3:1 we’re used to. And it worked fine, although I did add more dressing to this salad than the recipe indicated.

What’s good: the overall FRESH taste of it. You can make all of this up ahead and just toss it before serving. It’s very different. And crunchy. It might make a better first course than as a side salad to serve with a full dinner. We both liked it very much, and yes, I’d make it again – just with a bit more dressing, that’s all. We both liked the celery root – and you can just barely taste the horseradish in it. I might add more lemon zest also. Next time I’m going to add some fresh mint. Just because.
What’s not: only make this if you have a slicing machine of some kind – it would be a lot a slicing to do by hand.

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What a tangle of goodness! Parsnips, carrots and shallots roasted with a glaze of olive oil, then tossed with a relish composed of green olives, parsley, mint, vinegar and oil. Delish.

When I read this recipe at a recent cooking class, I really didn’t expect a lot. Oh, was I wrong on all fronts. It was the olive relish that kind of put me off, or so I thought, and yet, once the vegetables were roasted (and they become so sweet when they’re caramelized in the oven like these were) the olive relish with it’s slight bitterness, was a perfect counterpoint to the sweet veggies. In fact, if I could have gone back for seconds – and more of the relish – I would have. But it was all gone.

Just recently I made parsnips in an orange sauce in the pressure cooker, and was reminded, as I am every time, that parsnips have so much flavor. Why don’t I cook them more often? I should, and you should! Both the carrots and parsnips were similarly shaped – there was one honkin’ parsnip in there that was cut in half lengthwise and across, which ended up on my plate – and it was cooked through and not tough. Some parsnips have a tough core – if you cut the raw parsnip in half you can tell – the center is really  hard and the core is extra firm, sometimes even slightly separating from the rest of the outer part – if so, cut out that core part. Ideally, try to select similar sized parsnips and carrots. And I’d advise ample shallots – oh are they good!

So, I made these at home and added more of the olive relish – because it was so darned good. The recipe came from Tarla Fallgatter, but I found it at Martha Stewart online. I served them at room temp, just because I was in a kind of cooking flurry so I didn’t put them back in the oven. I probably should have – I think they’re better hot, but even cold they were delish.

The veggies are slicked with olive oil, salt, pepper and some miscellaneous herbs (rosemary, thyme and Greek oregano), then are roasted for about 45 minutes. Turn the pieces over at least once so more sides of the veggies are caramelized. Meanwhile, prepare the olive relish. The original recipe calls for an olive I don’t know – cerignola – (it’s from a town in Italy – see photo at right that I found on the ‘net) but a pitted Spanish olive worked well enough. Just don’t include the pimento in the relish. Add some fresh parsley, fresh mint, some olive oil, salt, pepper and a little fruit vinegar and it’s done. Pour over the hot or warm vegetables and serve. If you want to, roast the vegetables ahead of time and at the last minute pop the pan back in the oven to reheat – just cover with foil so they don’t dry out – then toss with the relish. Serve to raves.

What’s good: every single, solitary bite. Unctuous, if you consider vegetables capable of being unctuous!
What’s not: nary a thing.

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Ever notice how flavorful butternut squash can be? And yet it’s such a nuisance to cut (sometimes I can’t even do it myself) and peel. But this soup is worth the hassle.

If you’ve visited Costco lately, then you likely have seen their package (2 pounds) of cubed, peeled butternut squash. Yippee for me! The only thing is – once you buy it, you need to cook it within a few days. Once cut, the squash doesn’t keep forever. So, given that, buy yourself one and make this tasty soup. Trader Joe’s also carries (sometimes) a similar package of butternut squash. And occasionally I see it frozen at some regular grocery stores. Or, if you’ve got some good muscles, do buy the fresher whole squash and do it yourself! This came from a cooking class I went to recently (Tarla Fallgatter) but I found the recipe online from Food and Wine, and it’s credited to Dean Fearing.

I happened to have some fennel on hand, so with the butternut squash all ready to go, this soup was very easy to make. The squash is roasted in the oven for 20-30 minutes (until tender). Meanwhile, gently sauté onion, fennel and fresh ginger in butter. Add the squash and chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you’d prefer a vegetarian soup) and cook until everything is tender. The soup is pureed (by blender or immersion blender), then gently reheated with the addition of a small amount of heavy cream. Toast some pecans, chop them, whip up just a little bit of heavy cream, add a sprinkle of cayenne pepper (yes, really) and dollop those on top. Makes for a lovely taste and a lovely presentation too.

At right is a photo I took at the class – see the difference in color? When I made it myself, I had a couple of bulbs of fennel. I like fennel. So I decided to add one whole medium-sized fennel to this soup. It calls for half of one. And when I roasted the butternut squash, I likely didn’t roast it long enough – I cooked it through, but it adds a lot of flavor if you allow the butternut squash to caramelize. So, you’ll notice from the photo at the top, mine is a much lighter color – both from the lack of caramelization and from the addition of more fennel. But as for flavor – it was wonderful both times. The ginger – I probably added a bit more than called for and it was only mildly warm. One day I ate the soup cold (because I was just lazy) – it was wonderful! That’s the photo at top – I didn’t whip the cream, I just drizzled about a teaspoon of cream on top, then added the toasted pecans.

What’s good: the additions of the fennel and ginger give it a lovely nuanced flavor. And the topping just kind of puts in a higher realm. It would make a very nice company first course, or add a sandwich or salad and it would make a nice dinner too. The fresh ginger gives this soup just a little bit of heat – I liked that part. I really liked the texture of the soup – using an immersion blender I didn’t completely puree the soup (which was fine by me) so with the addition of the pecans, there was bit of crunch and the fennel didn’t completely disintegrate either. Lovely, really.
What’s not: nothing at all. It’s good all around.

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Pork tenderloin can make a really nice company meal, if you’re willing to fancy-it-up a little by butterflying it and adding a tasty filling, and then making a quick red wine pan sauce to drizzle on top. Most of the work can be done hours ahead and just finish at the last minute.

I read the other day that the price of pork is going to go up – if it hasn’t already. Food in general, it seems to me, has gone up a whole lot more than than the inflation rate. Have you noticed that? Pork has been one of the best bargains in the meat world for a long time. Anyway, I buy those nice, big pork tenderloins at Costco. I bake one right away, then seal up the others in FoodSaver bags to freeze and defrost whenever I have the need. I’ve found that, especially if you stuff a tenderloin, these from Costco will feed at least 3 people, maybe even 4, as long as you don’t have a high school linebacker at the dinner table! And providing you have other dishes to round out the plate – like a carb and ample vegetables.

This recipe, adapted by Tarla Fallgatter at a recent class, came from a Food & Wine article way back in 2001. Tarla used a pork tenderloin instead of a roast. Whenever I go to a cooking class I assume that many of the instructors use or revise some older recipes, so I search online to find them – that way I don’t have to type the recipe from scratch into my recipe software.

Butterflying a pork tenderloin is perhaps a little tricky. However, you’re in luck, there’s a video on vimeo showing you exactly how to do it. Cutting the second side (latter part of the video) shows it better than the first half. Technically you cut open the tenderloin like a book, then you open each side further like a fold-out in a magazine. It’s really easy and once you’ve done it once you’ll have no difficulty repeating it. One of the nice things about this stuffed roast is that you can do most of the work ahead of time – even the day before.

The stuffing and crust are composed of onion cooked in butter, walnuts, panko crumbs, parsley, fresh sage and freshly grated Parmigiano cheese. Part of that filling is set aside and is used as a crust after the tenderloin is roasted. The filling is spread throughout the butterflied meat, rolled up carefully, then tied in multiple places to keep it intact through pan-browning it. Into a roasting pan it goes with a little bit of water (to keep it from drying out), then it’s covered (with foil if that’s what’s available rather than a lid) and baked for 20 minutes. Then it’s removed to yet another pan. Stay with me here . . . The pan sauce is made on the stovetop IN the roasting pan you baked the meat in). The roast has its strings removed at this point, then is topped with that saved filling (that now becomes a top crust) you set aside earlier, then it’s broiled briefly just to give that crusty topping a golden brown glow.

Meanwhile, you’ve made the red wine sauce – it’s quite simple – red wine, reduced down, chicken broth also reduced, then it’s thickened with a cornstarch slurry, seasoned, buttered and it’s done. Carve the meat and serve! Now, as for the make-ahead part . . . you can stuff it and tie it ahead – hours before or even the day before. Have all of the other ingredients measured and ready. Just before serving you’ll need to pan-brown the meat, bake it, then make the sauce. Not exactly quick, but not difficult. If one of your guests will help, have them make the pan sauce while you finish up the rest of dinner and broil the meat.

What’s good: lovely presentation, and the meat is just pink-tender. The easy pan sauce adds a nice touch for a company meal.
What’s not: nothing, really. It’s a bit of work, but you’ll master it, then you can make it again!

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Silky = smooth and almost molten. Not quite, but nearly so. You can see that this cake doesn’t ooze, but can you see how shiny it is? It’s really, really moist – it’s not at all like candy, so don’t misunderstand my description – it’s just incredibly chocolaty and smooth.

At a cooking class last week Tarla Fallgatter served this unctuous chocolate dessert. Unbelievably chocolaty and rich. Smooth and addictive. If you’re still wondering what to serve for Valentine’s Day – if you’re cooking at home that night – this is your romantic ticket. If I were doing it, I’d likely cut the recipe in half and pour the cake into 4 ramekins and bake them individually. I don’t know how long they would take to bake that way, but maybe 15 minutes or so? That’s a guess.

In any case, if you’re a chocolate freak, you’ll be moaning as you spoon this into your mouth. It’s not all that difficult to make – really it’s easy – as long as you have an 8-inch springform pan – and you have bittersweet chocolate, eggs, butter, sugar, flour and a little cream to whip for the topping. It’s a 3-dish/pan dessert (saucepan to melt butter and chocolate, bowl to mix the batter in, and the springform to bake). You do have to put the springform pan (wrapped in foil) in a larger baking pan because you add hot tap water to it and it cooks in a water bath. That’s what keeps it so tender and moist – almost like pudding, except it’s definitely a cake. You’ll find this recipe in several places on the internet. This one came from Food and Wine, back some years ago.

What’s good: no question it’s the chocolaty-ness of it. Oh yes! Very decadent. Very rich. Very festive, and surely very romantic.

What’s not: as with most tortes and things of this nature, they’re not quite so good the next day. This one has to be made within about 6 hours of serving.

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I’ve just gotten around to reading the January 2013 issue of Bon Appetit. It’s a very interesting issue with some edgy ideas I certainly found thought-provoking, so I’m sharing them with you. They call it the “The Cooking School” issue. That doesn’t mean a list of cooking schools to go to, or places that hold cooking classes. No, the subtitle is about learning to master some of the basic cooking school techniques. Particularly it’s about pan roasts, salads, braises, sauces and salted sweets. Normally I wouldn’t even give that a passing glance, other than breezing by some of the recipe titles, since I (think I) already know how to pan roast, braise, sauce and make sweets. But even I – an experienced home cook – found the articles interesting, informative, very explanatory – and the recipes are different.

After reading the issue, almost cover to cover, I tried a salted chocolate chunk cookie (I will share it in a day or two, even though it didn’t hit my CC cookie buttons particularly – but it might hit yours). Anyway, I will share another recipe from this cooking school section, but what I wanted to talk about was the section on salads. The title page of the sub-chapter on salads says:

Skip the lettuce and tomato. Instead, follow the lead of today’s hottest restaurants by making crisp, vibrant shaved-vegetable salads without a mesclun green in sight.

Next to that was a carrot salad that looked like the carrot pieces were shaved and crisp-roasted (actually they weren’t baked at all, but they were crisp-curled in ice water). Here’s the more thorough preface:

For years, you couldn’t go to a four-star restaurant without getting a forkful of mâche. Then there was a love affair with arugula. And we still have feelings for kale. But these days, the salads we really can’t resist don’t even have the very thing that used to define salads: the greens. Like many of the country’s most inventive chefs, we’re replacing them with other, less obvious vegetables (and nuts and herbs and seeds). Mandoline in hand, we’re shaving sturdy produce into ribbons and coins, adding outside-the-salad-bar complements, and dressing them lightly in simple vinaigrettes. The results are delicate, yet packed with bite – and without question, far more dynamic than any bowl of romaine and Ranch could ever be.

No, that’s not my baby picture . . . I just had to make a point here – I’m not crying buckets – yet – because I’ll still be making salads with greens no matter what the food experts or trends have to say. Not that I won’t dip my big toe into the arena of these newer salads, but I still love arugula, and kale and romaine. Ranch? Not so much.

On one of the pages of this multi-page chapter there is a chart of what to put in these new veggie-centric salads. It’s divided into 3 sections:

• Foundation (thinly slice one or two of these): fennel, cucumber, celery, beets, radishes and celery root
• Dimension (add smaller quantity of one or two of these to lend character): coarse breadcrumbs, apple, cumin seeds, red onion, Parmesan, pepitas
• Finish (a bright element – like lots of fresh herbs): parsley, celery leaves, watercress

Lastly, I’ll share one more sidebar on one of the pages. Here’s what it said:

Balsamic is not king – and other truths about vinaigrette (3 rules for dressing a 2013 salad): (1) Rethink your vinegar [no more balsamic, instead use sherry vinegar and champagne vinegar]; (2) Easy on the oil [no more 3:1 ratio of oil to vinegar; instead lean toward 2:1 which will work with the more subtle sherry and champagne vinegars since they’re much milder, less acidic; if you find them too astringent, just add a bit more oil, but not back up to the 3:1 we have been used to.]; (3) Hands, not tongs: use your hands, not tongs . . . as it’s the best way to tell if the salad is over- or under-dressed.

I’m not so sure this will work for me, although I have pretty much stopped using balsamic vinegar in salad dressings – they’re too much, too heavy and often too acidic, even though I use better balsamics (i.e., more expensive). I use it in other things, but rarely in salads anymore. I’m also not so sure I can handle the acidity of a 2:1 oil to acid ratio in a salad dressing. That’s going to be very astringent. It might depend on the brand of sherry vinegar or champagne vinegar. I’ll have to test a few salads and see what I think.

As I write this, I’m going to make a different salad from the issue – a celery salad with celery root and horseradish. Most likely I’ll post it. I happen to love celery leaves and they’re dominant in this particular salad.

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I know – this doesn’t look like much. A milky blah-looking soup. It isn’t blah. Yes, creamy – but creamy from milk, not so much cream (some half and half used). Perhaps you can vaguely see little specks of orange (carrots) and green (celery). There’s also a lot of cauliflower in it, which gives the soup a very mellow flavor and certainly a white color!

Veggie soups are a favorite of mine, and I don’t have very many that aren’t enhanced significantly with carbs – either beans, rice or potatoes. And since we do try to limit carbs around our house – when I saw this one that’s strictly veggies (except for the carrots, but there aren’t many in there), I knew I’d try it. The recipe came from The Pioneer Woman. You know, of course, that even vegetables have carbs – even ordinary ones like onions and celery. Not all that many, but some. And flour (used to thicken the soup) is pure carb, so there ARE carbs in this soup, but it’s not carb-centric. An entrée serving contains 28 grams of carbs.

Right off the bat I’m telling you this isn’t a wow kind of soup. It’s hot, it’s comforting, it’s mostly smooth (because I whizzed most of it in a blender, contrary to Ree’s recipe) and it’s filling, especially with a little open-faced toasted cheese sandwich I made on some super-thin bread. It’s tasty. But it’s not something you’re going to go raving to the world about. But yes, I’d make it again – probably with more cauliflower in it. I might add fennel to the veggie mix. Or perhaps some leeks. AND, I’d sprinkle in a bunch of grated cheese at the end and merely stir it in (no more cooking once you do that). But otherwise, it’s a fine soup. Relatively easy to make (it does require 2 pans, one for the soup and one for the creamy gravy base you add to it) too. A little bit of sour cream is added in at the end (I used Mascarpone because that’s all I had) which adds just a bit of richness. I froze half of it and will serve that later, or maybe I’ll give it to a dear friend who has just had shoulder surgery and she’ll be hard pressed to cook much in coming weeks.

What’s good: just the wholesomeness of it – simple ingredients, a good soup for a cold winter’s day. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult. Not exceptional, but it’s good.
What’s not: nothing really.

printer-friendly CutePDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

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