Swiss Chard & Potato Soup

In this week's box (which I realize I never posted about), we got a bunch of Swiss chard. Since the weather has now definitely turned toward fall, it seemed like a good time for some soup. Here's an easy recipe for a hearty, comforting soup that makes a nice centerpiece for a delicious meal. If you're not a fan of bacon, just use a tablespoon or two of olive oil.

Swiss Chard and Potato Soup

2 slices of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch wide pieces
1 leek, sliced thin crosswise and washed thoroughly
1 cup carrot, cut into 1/2 inch slices
2 cups new potato, cut into 3/4 inch chunks
6 cups chicken stock
1 bunch Swiss chard, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Cook bacon in large saucepan until crisp. Remove bacon from pan; put on paper towel-lined plate. Saute leek in remaining fat until softened; add salt. Add carrot and potato to pot; stir. Add chicken stock, and simmer until the potatoes and carrots are cooked through. Add Swiss chard to pot, and cook for a few minutes until softened. Add bacon back to pot. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Beet salad and tomatoes, beans, and bacon

Tonight, with P home, I made two more veggie-centric recipes, with the goal of keeping the meat as a side dish. I turned to Mark Bittman's newest cookbook, Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express: 404 inspired seasonal dishes you can make in 20 minutes or less. This cookbook is fantastic for quick and creative recipes that use seasonal veggies - perfect for trying to use lots of vegetables from the CSA box.

Tonight's dinner?

• A raw beet salad, which I added a couple of carrots to from an earlier week. I pulsed the beets and carrots in the food processor with a large shallot, and tossed with parsley from the balcony garden, olive oil, sherry vinegar, large grain Dijon mustard, and salt and pepper.
  
• Wax beans and tomatoes sauteed with bacon and onion. After cooking the onion and bacon until the bacon was crisp and the onion was soft, I sauteed the beans until they were crisp-tender, then cooked the tomatoes in the mix until they wilted a bit.
  
• Barbecue chicken. Just some roasted chicken legs with some store-bought barbecue sauce painted on.

The vegetables were definitely the star - and with some bread, it would have been enough for dinner without the chicken. So far, trying to put vegetables center-stage is a success!

This week's haul

This week's box is full of things I'm very excited to use:

- 7 ears of corn
- 3 tomatoes
- a head of cauliflower
- a head of lettuce
- a cucumber
- 2 carrots

I'm really looking forward to the corn and tomatoes; I think those are the vegetables that evoke summer to me the most. Even if the weather isn't super summery, the food in my kitchen can be!

Chicken soup

P has a fever. He's been fighting a cold for a couple of weeks, so hopefully this is its last hurrah. Even if it is, though, a fever merits a batch of homemade chicken soup.

There are two steps to my soup: first, make the chicken broth; second, assemble the soup. Homemade chicken broth is easy with a slow cooker. I have two sizes of slow cooker; for this, I use my smaller one, since the large one would make way too much for my apartment-sized freezer. The best slow cooker cookbook is, without a doubt, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two: For the Small Slow Cooker (or its larger cousin, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook), by Beth Hensperger. This cookbook was perfect for cooking for myself while living alone. I always had homemade frozen meals in the freezer, and it works equally well for cooking for me and P.

Now, for those of you thinking "why on earth would I own a slow cooker?", these recipes are more than just cocktail meatballs and nastiness made from onion dip mix and cream of mushroom soup. This cookbook has easy recipes that ask for things that are in a typical, well-stocked kitchen. The ribs I mentioned in the last post were made in a slow cooker - and were made using a recipe from this cookbook.

Now, assembling the soup is really just a process of adding what I like to chicken soup to a pot with the broth. Chicken, carrots, celery, and egg noodles - that's it. I like a chicken soup with lots of stuff in it, so the proportion of ingredients to broth is nearly 1 to 1. I briefly sauteed the carrots and celery in a bit of butter; added the broth, brought it to a boil, and added the noodles. Just before the noodles were done, I added the already-cooked chicken to the pot to warm it through. I used chicken thighs, which were roasted with the skin on for moistness, but any leftover chicken will do. I then added salt to taste. You'll notice that the recipe below for broth does not call for salt - I like adding it whenever I'm actually using the broth so I have more flexibility with the dish's saltiness.

Here's the recipe for the broth. It is modified from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two: For the Small Slow Cooker, because I am even lazier than the recipe originally demanded. I generally set up the slow cooker just before bed and wake up in the early morning wondering where the chicken smell is coming from. Not a bad way to be woken up!

Chicken Broth
makes 6 - 8 cups

1/2 pounds chicken on a bone (thighs, wings, drumsticks - pull of as much skin as you can. Enough bones to fill the slow cooker will work, too, if you've been saving chicken carcasses.)
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and quartered
2 stalks of celery, cut into pieces so they'll fit in cooker
3 or 4 whole black peppercorns
1/2 bay leaf

Place all of ingredients in slow cooker. Add water to cover by 2 - 3 inches. Cover and cook on low for 10 - 12 hours. When cooking is completed, cool slightly and drain through strainer, or colander lined with cheesecloth. Refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap, until fat rises to surface. Pull off plastic wrap; most of the fat will stick to it and come with it. Scoop off the rest of the fat; use immediately, or freeze.

Cabbage and carrot slaw

I'm realizing now that tomorrow is Monday, and I've done a pretty bad job of using our veggies this week. What's left? A handful of peas (they were in the bottom of a basket - I didn't find them until this weekend!), the kohlrabi, spinach, a head of lettuce, and most of the cucumber. And I'm not home for dinner tomorrow night. I foresee a giant salad for dinner in our near future...

Dinner tonight? Bratwurst, and some cole slaw I threw together based on a few recipes I checked out. The recipe is below. In retrospect, I could have used the raw kohlrabi in it, as well.

With dinner we also had some amazing onion bread from Patisserie Sebastien (3306 Yonge Street; their website doesn't seem to be operational, but here's a photo of the place). The outside was almost salty, and completely addictive; the onions, though dark, are simply sweet. The inside was perfectly chewy. I wish I'd had the forethought to photograph the chocolate and almond croissants we had from there earlier in the day, as well, because they were equally as amazing - crisp, buttery, light, and just enough chocolate and almond.

The bakery just opened recently, and their selection is limited, probably to accommodate for the smaller volume of customers as they start their business, and to ensure that everything is as fresh as can be. The small fruit tarts look delicious, as do the rest of their assorted pastries and breads. Anyone in the area should definitely check this place out. I know we'll go back for a cup of tea and to sample their other pastries!

Alexa's Cole Slaw
serves 2 (generously; multiply as desired)

1/4 of a small green cabbage, grated
1 medium carrot, grated (approximately the same quantity as cabbage)
1/4 cup green onions, chopped
1 Tbsp Italian parsley
1 heaping Tbsp sour cream
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp mayonnaise
2 tsp cider vinegar (or to taste - this thins out the mixture)
big pinch of salt
a few grinds of fresh black pepper

Mix the cabbage, carrot, and green onion in a small bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Taste the mixture; add ingredients as needed. Add to vegetable mixture immediately before serving.