Potato, Leek & Artichoke Soup

| posted by | 13 Comments

Potato, Leek & Artichoke Soup

Some people head off to a spa to relax.  Others sign up for yoga classes or spend a day poolside in a chaise lounge sipping drinks with paper umbrellas.

Me?  I make soup.

When I need to chill out, nothing relaxes me like chopping vegetables, sautéing onions, and stirring a batch of soup.  It’s a soothing ritual that’s downright therapeutic.  I can zone out, let my mind wander, and when I come out of my zen-like state to return to the reality of life beyond my kitchen, I’ve got a big pot of soup that’s going to comfort and nourish me for days.

This particular soup is one of the classics: potato-leek.  We’re going to spiff it up for spring with the addition of artichokes and a splash of white wine.  Ready?  Let’s relax…let’s make soup.

[Read more…]

Spinach & Dill Soup with Pumpernickel Croutons

| posted by | 4 Comments

Spinach & Dill Soup with Pumpernickel Croutons

When you blog about what you’ve been cooking, it’s tempting to just put the splashy dishes out there, the crowd pleasers: Gingersnap & Bourbon Bread Pudding, Squash & Brie Galette, Pumpkin Streusel Coffeecake.  It’s much easier to invite strangers into your life and offer them something warm from the oven than it is to, say, offer a ladle full of spinach soup.

But my blog is my real life eating and girl cannot live on flour and butter alone.  Real life calls for some healthy weekday lunches between weekends of Croque Monsieur Buns.  Real life calls for vegetables and greenery.  Bright green helps even things out.

If bright green is good, then it can’t get much better than this spinach soup.  And despite it’s somewhat terrifying shade of swamp-monster green, it’s actually really tasty and a cinch to make.  The spinach is complemented by fresh dill and plenty of lemon juice.  Potatoes thicken the soup up and make it substantial enough to stick with you through the afternoon.  Add a dollop of Greek yogurt for creamy tang and pumpernickel croutons for crunch.

[Read more…]

Zuppa di Pesce (Italian Fish & Seafood Stew)

| posted by | 12 Comments

Zuppa di Pesce- Italian Fish & Seafood StewRemember, way back in September, when I first introduced myself?  I showed you a picture where I’m digging into an obscenely large bowl of zuppa di pesce and told you how much I like to eat.

Sarah Digging in to Zuppa di Pesce

If you’ve been around long enough to remember that, maybe you’ve also noticed that some woman named Pam comments on darned near every recipe I post.  Who is this woman?  Why is she StrawberryPlum #1 fan?  Is this Sarah character really popular enough to have some crazy stalker?

No, she’s my mother, of course, and a very special lady whose birthday happened to be this last weekend.

There’s something else you should know about my mom.  She looks at least as giddy as I looked in that picture when faced with a giant bowl of cioppino, bouillabaisse, fish stew, or zuppa di pesce.  Whatever you call it, if it involves some combination of shrimp, scallops, clams, mussels, and fish she is totally into it.  In other words, deciding what to make for her birthday dinner is kind of a no-brainer.

[Read more…]

French Onion Soup (Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée)

| posted by | 19 Comments

DSC06964

It’s way too easy to get caught up in a project and forget why you ever started it in the first place.

Take blogging.

You start a blog about cooking because you really like to cook.  Then you become some weirdo who risks eating lukewarm pasta because you just really, really want to shoot a good pic for your website.  You start being a little crazy about numbers, checking your site’s analytics 5 times a day to see how many hits you’ve gotten.  You set up an adsense account, make 2 bucks, and think you’re going to take over the world.  You make a really delicious onion soup and you almost don’t share it with your readers because you haven’t reinvented the wheel.

Like I said, it’s easy to get lost.  Also, it’s easy to get crazy.

I don’t want to be nuts though.  I just want something good for dinner and I want to share it with you. Sometimes I make stuff up.  Sometimes I’m revolutionary (uh…), other times classics are where it’s at.

Tonight, it’s all about a classic: French Onion Soup.  You know it, you love it.  How couldn’t you?  It’s covered in melty Gruyere.  Caramelized onions.  Cognac!  Soul-warming broth.  It’s a bowl of hugs, afghans, mommies, fuzzy slippers, good memories.  Nothing new, but nothing you’ll ever tire of.

[Read more…]

Roasted Kabocha Squash & Sunchoke Soup

| posted by | Leave a Comment

Kabocha Squash & Sunchoke Soup

It’s actually embarrassing how little cooking I’ve done the past few weeks.  I might have 2 pizza boxes out waiting for the trash man this very moment.

You can relate though, right?  I mean you spend all this time before the holidays baking and planning the BIG dinner without really thinking about all the little meals in between. You come home, starving, look in the fridge and realize every time you’ve run to the grocery store in the last week it was for butter, heavy cream, another bag of flour, powdered sugar…

…and the pizza man’s phone rings.

But now it’s time.  The Christmas cookies have been baked and (mostly) eaten, the big dinner is over.  It’s time to break the cycle, time to erase the pizza delivery number from your recent call history.  Time to get back to cooking real food.  It’s time for soup.

Today it’s a velvety Kabocha squash and sunchoke soup.  And it’s a good one.  Really, really good even. It’s creamy and comforting with warm spices and a little sweet, nutty, can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-it-yumminess from the roasted sunchokes.

[Read more…]