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.

Lebanese potato and warm cabbage salads

Tonight's dinner was another go at making the vegetables more interesting - and in this case, having no meat as a main or side. The cabbage we got in the box a couple of weeks ago was still good, as were the potatoes from the week before, so I combed through my new favorite cookbook (Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express: 404 inspired seasonal dishes you can make in 20 minutes or less) for some interesting recipes.

Two recipes appealed to me, though they fell in the "wrong" seasons. Warm Cabbage Salad with Bacon was designated a winter recipe; Lebanese Potato Salad was apparently meant for the spring. Obviously, though, these are just suggestions - the primary vegetable players in both recipes are clearly in season now.

The Lebanese Potato Salad was delicious - I'm not sure what made it Lebanese, but it was still tasty. While Bittman called for sprinkling some coriander seeds in it, I got it mixed up with another recipe and threw in some mustard seeds instead. Still tasty, though the coriander might have been what made it Lebanese...in any case, I'd make it again.

As for the cabbage, I'm curious how it tastes cold. Warm, it was a bit like a sauerkraut with a bit of bacon. P thought it definitely needed more bacon to make even adding it worthwhile; it was hard to even notice it within the giant pile of cabbage and onion. Maybe with sausages on a cold winter night this would be a better fit - otherwise, I don't think this will reappear on the menu any time soon. When it's cold it might make a good slaw or sauerkraut substitute - we'll see.

With the salads, we had some fresh steamed corn, which was delicious. What was arguably the most successful part of the meal, though, was the cornbread I made. Yes, we had cornbread last week. Yes, I love cornbread, and I would eat it every day. P, however, does not. He thinks cornbread is just okay, and will usually only politely eat a bit of it. This cornbread, though, has been declared The Best Cornbread Ever.

Embarrassingly, the actual cornbread part of it comes from a mix. It is the best cornbread mix out there (Jiffy - I think only available in the U.S.), but still, it's a mix. P has eaten cornbread made from this mix on several occasions, though, so it's what's added that made the difference. The cornbread I made last week was a bit of inspiration.

The Best Cornbread Ever or
Almost-All-Homemade Jalapeno Cornbread

1 box Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup creamed corn
2 large jalapenos, diced
1 green onion, sliced thinly

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 9 inch pan.

Dump the dry mix into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients. Mix until just combined. Pour into pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

I used a 9 x 9 inch pan; the directions on the box call for an 8 x 8 inch pan. Just watch when it's done, and the size change won't make any difference. Obviously, the smaller the pan, the thicker the cornbread. If you're using something other than Jiffy, my additions to the recipe on the box were the creamed corn, the jalapenos, and the green onion; otherwise, just follow the directions on the box.

Aloo gobi, and making my own garam masala

When we were in Connecticut, we stopped at Trader Joe's, which has to be one of my favorite food stores. (Three things I love that are missing from Canada: Trader Joe's, Target, and widely available unsweetened iced tea.) We picked up two of their Simmer Sauces - basically cheater sauces for weeknights: one for chicken masala, and one for chicken korma. They were still sitting on the counter, waiting to be put away, when I opened up this week's box of veggies - so Indian cuisine was already on my mind.

So, rather than just use one of the sauces, I thought "why not try to make aloo gobi?" Aloo gobi is one of my favorite dishes to order when out at an Indian restaurant - it's cauliflower, potatoes, and delicious Indian spices. (I'm sure I'm not giving it a thorough enough description. Honestly, I'm no expert in Indian food beyond knowing what I like to eat - so here's a link to a description of aloo gobi on Wikipedia.)

My first search for recipes turned up this one, which looked easy enough. However, I had no garam masala in the apartment. Rather than just give up, though, I remembered that a) garam masala is a spice mix, and b) I have quite a few whole spices in my spice cabinet that I've purchased for such a purpose. So I found a recipe for garam masala here. Is it the most authentic? I have no idea; I'm sure every Indian cook has their own blend that they prefer. All I know is that the apartment smelled like an Indian restaurant while the spices were toasting, and it smelled good.

The recipe turned out well, I think; P approved. It was spicier than when I've ordered out, but good with the rice and the store-bought naan (no, I didn't make my own naan last night, too - that's coming later, probably on a weekend night). I did add the garam masala before it was finished cooking; sprinkling ground spices on top of the vegetables didn't seem that appealing to me, but I leave whether that was correct or not to the experts. I now have a ton of garam masala left over, so expect more experimentation with Indian foods over the next few months...

German potato salad

The presence of the red potatoes in the CSA share this week was just asking for me to make a German potato salad. I first fell upon the recipe in high school, I believe, excited that it didn't include mayonnaise - at the time, I didn't like it. (Honestly, I've only recently come to appreciate its charms.) And a potato salad recipe with bacon? How can that be wrong?

Now, I'm not even going to pretend that this recipe is better for you because it doesn't have mayo. However, as you may have noticed across the stories on this blog, I don't much care if something is "better" for you. Just delicious.

We had our friend Craig (whose very good blog is here) over for dinner on Thursday night. Slow-cooked barbecue ribs; potato salad, and corn bread. No green salad; sorry, folks, but some meals just don't demand them. For dessert? Blueberry slump - I had to at least show someone in person how delicious this odd-looking (and sounding) dessert really is.

I had also made Mark Bittman's pea dip the night before, thinking it would be a nice starter while I finished making dinner. Dinner was ready just as Craig arrived, though, but it was no big loss...the pea dip was just okay. Imagine mushed up peas with a hint of cheese, some chunks of pine nuts, and not much other flavor. If you're a pea-lover, go for it, but for now it's sitting in a bowl in our fridge, waiting to go bad enough for me to throw out.

In any case, the rest of the meal was delicious, and I converted Craig to the religion of blueberry slump. Here's the recipe for the potato salad:

German potato salad
adapted from New Best Recipe

2 pounds small to medium red potatoes (1 to 2 inches in diameter), scrubbed and halved if small, or quartered if medium)
Salt
6 ounces (about 6 slices) bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch pieces
1 small onion, chopped fine (about 1 cup of onion)
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tbsp whole grain mustard (German-style is good, but Dijon mustard is fine)
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves

Place potatoes, 1 tbsp salt, and water to cover in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup of potato cooking water, then drain the potatoes. But the potatoes back in the pot to keep warm.

As the potatoes are cooking, fry the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until browned and crisp. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate, reserving 1/4 cup of the bacon grease in the pan. Add the onion to the skillet; cook until softened and beginning to brown. Stir in sugar until dissolved; add vinegar and potato cooking water; bring to simmer and cook until the mixture is reduced to a cup.

Remove the skillet from the heat; whisk in the mustard and pepper. Add the potatoes, parsley, and bacon to skillet, and toss to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve while still warm.

Venison, zucchini, & potatoes

The centerpiece of last night's dinner was a delicious piece of farm-raised venison purchased at the Brickworks on Saturday. And who knew when I purchased the meat I was being trendy? (Probably some of you food-lovers out there, but not me.) Check out this article in the National Post on farm-raised venison in Ontario. The recipes at the end of the article sound delicious - but we went a simpler route.

When it's raw, venison looks a bit more like an organ meat than typical beef steaks, I believe because it has less fat running through it. This, of course, is good news for the nutrition-conscious: it's lower in fat than beef (and has other benefits, too, I'm sure). It was also an interesting purple-red color - again a departure from beef, and more akin to the color of beef liver.

Undeterred, I did as the venison farmer suggested and got out my grill pan, heated it on medium-high, and sprinkled it with fresh-ground pepper and kosher salt. A couple minutes on each side produced a lovely, rare piece of meat with flavorful searing where the grill ridges hit the steak. Yes, it is possible to grill meat indoors.

On the side: sauteed zucchini from the CSA share, and a boiled red and Yukon gold potato with butter and dill from our balcony garden. I had meant to use the garlic scapes with the zucchini, but just plain forgot; the couple I have will be used this week with any additional ones we accumulate.

All in all, this was a successful week of using up the produce. There are soup and calzones in the freezer, and everything else (other than the scapes, some green beans, and cabbage - all still usable) were eaten. I'm feeling very full of vegetables!

Kale, Mennonite Sausage & Potato Soup

As soon as I tasted the Mennonite Sausage that came with the first week's box, I knew I wanted to make soup with it. When kale came in the box the following week, it was kismet: one of my favorite things that my mom would make when I was growing up was a sausage and kale soup. Rather than use a recipe online, which would leave me with odd quantities of things in small containers in the fridge, I simply used all of the kale, leftover sausage, and the entire container of chicken broth (I didn't have enough homemade for this recipe). Here's what I put together:

Kale, Mennonite Sausage & Potato Soup

1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 Mennonite sausages, sliced into rounds
3 large red-skinned potatoes, thinly sliced
1 cup dry white wine
900 mL low sodium chicken stock (about 30 ounces))
1 bunch of kale, with the stalks removed and sliced
Salt & Pepper to taste

Saute sausages in large pot until starting to brown. Add the potatoes, white wine, and broth; bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the potatoes are mostly cooked through. Add the kale; cook uncovered for another 10 minutes or so until the kale and potatoes are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. (I added no salt, as the broth had enough in it - but if you're using homemade broth, you might need to add some.)

The soup was simple, and really put the sausage on display: the slightly peppery and smoky flavor of the sausage shone through. The kale was delicious, having soaked up the flavors of the sausage along with its leafy goodness, and the potatoes provided some necessary heft to the soup. We had some great bread with it that P picked up on his way home: an herb and onion batard from Fred's Bread. While the soup was hot, the supper was a nice, light ending to a warm day.