The co-op shopper vegetable soup

“Just to clarify, how much of the flour do you use for the ravioli?” said the smokey voiced newspaper editor on the other end of the line. I paced nervously around the living room, a hot phone glued to one ear causing a stream of sweat to form at the base of my ponytail-lifted temple. “Um, well you won’t end up using the whole pile, it really depends on the weather..just enough until the dough is sticky” I said, feeling stupid. “People will follow your directions EXACTLY” she said “you need to give precise directions, and we don’t have the space to explain all that” I began wishing I were more careful in recording my recipes, more organized.

“I loved that soup you made last week” our friend Gerry said “and I wanted to make it, but the recipe looks difficult to follow”

I am reminded of the saying: when one person tells you that you have a tail it is probably not worth worrying too much about, but when two people tell you you have a tail you better check to see if it’s true. The good news is, once the tail is identified, something can be done about it. One could accentuate one's tail, cutting slits in the backs of their pants so that the tail could break into the light of day and be waved around free in the wind. In the case of my recipe vagueness, embracing the quality is extremely tempting (who wants to bother with bookkeeping in the kitchen?). It is not very useful, however, and does not fall in line with what I am trying to do.

"What ARE you trying to do Emily?" I ask myself.

If I had a mission statement, it would sound something like this: “To try to inspire people to cook at home, and to inspire the home chef with ideas about how to palatably use fresh produce in everyday cooking.” While sharing my love of food, some stories, and some vague recipe ideas is nice, and entertaining for me, it is not incredibly useful if my recipes can't be replicated. Thus, I have lined up the measuring cups like soldiers ready for battle. I have a pen and some paper on my kitchen counter. I have called in for the backup set of measuring spoons. I am ready to face my tail head-on, and to begin a new phase of blogging. The mission: to share love, stories, AND recipes that are easy to follow.

On a side note, today is my father’s birthday. I got a lump in my throat while talking to him on the phone this morning, as he told me about what everyone ordered at his birthday dinner last night. I wished I could have been there, but he lives halfway across the continent. The people in my family have very different tastes and dietary restrictions, and finding something that can be enjoyed by everyone can be extremely difficult.

Macrobiotic, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, gluten, casein, soy free, Midwestern-New England vegetable soup. This recipe has a lot of ingredients, however I made sure to record careful measurements of everything I put in, so hopefully it will be easy to follow!

The stock

In a stock pot, add:

2 small yellow onions, chopped

½ Tbsp salt

1 cup water

4 cloves garlic, mashed

bring to a simmer. Prepare the remaining vegetables while the first group of vegetables simmer (about 10 min). Roughly chop and add:

1 cup white mushrooms

½ package of celery

6 carrots

½ Tbsp salt (again)

8 cups water

4 Thai basil leaves

1 Tbsp four peppercorn blend

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer (uncovered) for 1 hour. After the hour is up, turn off the heat, strain the stock, return it to the burner and begin the soup.

In a medium sized soup pot, add:

1 Tbsp olive oil

½ tsp salt

½ small yellow onion, diced

½ large russet potato, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced (the smell that reminds me of college)

¼ rutabaga, peeled and diced

2 cups stock

simmer, covered, while you prepare the remaining vegetables (about 10 min)

Add:

5 white mushrooms, diced

1 zucchini, diced

¼ cup cauliflower, broken into small pieces

2 more cups stock

simmer covered for about 10 min. Then add:

12 ounces crushed tomatoes (I used a can of organic, seasoned with basil)

1 tsp dill

¼ tsp white pepper

½ tsp french basil

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp salt

the remaining stock

Simmer for 15-20 min, covered

garnish with 2 chopped green onions and 1 bunch chopped Thai basil

~enjoy

Valentines Day Miso Soup

“I am getting a double chin” I whined, one crisp winter morning while gazing into the bedroom mirror. Christina was sitting up on the bed, her neck and shoulders scrunched against the wall.
“You’ve always had a double chin” she said, in the tone a person takes when they have grown all too accustomed to calming a loved one’s neurotic hyperactive sense of vanity.
“really?” I said. “always?”
“Yes” she replied, “it’s like baby fat”
“Baby fat??” I said, horrified by the words.
“yeah, it’s cute” she replied.
When Christina says things like this, she completely interrupts my self loathing. She crashes my pity party. It’s like she is hovering over my shoulder, waiting for me to reach my hand over to touch a hot stove and then WHAP, she slaps my hand away. I wake up from my trance, both more in tune with reality and less afraid of it.

It is exactly the opposite of what I was inviting her to say. Instead of denying my foibles she says “let me get a better look at that” and then “oh yeah, that’s a bad one.. and I love you even more” How can a person hate anything about themselves in the presence of such love?

When I was younger, I didn’t believe in romantic love. When a boy would tell me he loved me, I would respond with some ridiculous task, some quest to make him prove his feelings. Fortunately for me, the proving of love is just the sort of adventure that young men seem to enjoy. It rouses their competitive instinct, else I doubt that any of them would have put up with me.
“I love you” He would say.
“You don’t really love me” I would respond “you love the idea of loving someone”

My first boyfriend brought chocolates or jewelry to my locker every morning. The second started a fight in my honor in the playground. Of course playground love isn’t real love. It is not even a real drama, more like a rehearsal of lines with the professionalism of a Christmas pageant. Throughout my early twenties, I wore my relationships like an over sized costume, too immature to grasp that their was something more meaningful in love than the satiation of my ego. I didn’t stop doubting the sincerity of love until I met Christina. Her incredible ability to laugh at herself, to turn a mountain back into a molehill, makes me willing to share myself out loud. Perhaps it is my own sincerity that has relieved me of my skepticism, but with Christina I have no doubt of love. Happy Valentines day everyone!

Extra Rich Miso Soup
With mushrooms, tofu, and edemame

Dashi
(do not be afraid of the fish flakes in this recipe, you will scarcely notice the fishiness in the flavor of the soup..although the smell of fish will permeate your kitchen…still the fish adds a richness that would be hard to get without adding them)
8 cups water
2, 4 inch sheets Kombu
¼ cup anchovy bonito (fish flakes)

Soak the kombu in cold water for 45 min-1 hour. Then bring slowly to a boil, removing the kombu before the boiling starts (when the little bubbles form). Add the fish flakes and boil for 5 min. Turn off the heat, leaving the pot on the burner and cover for 15 min. Strain through a Paper towel (Viva brand works well for this), or fine mesh cloth.
Soup
½ large yellow onion sliced thin
1/3 package firm tofu cubed small
mushrooms (I used 6 oyster and 3 shitake), diced
edemame (optional)
3 Tbsp mild white miso (or 2 Tbsp dark miso)
1 Tbsp butter or oil
Wakame (dried and shredded)

Make dashi above, and keep warm on the stove. Add the wakame (optional if you like seaweed in your soup). Remove a steaming cup of the liquid and stir the miso paste in. Then pour the melted paste into the rest of the broth.
In a separate pan, heat a little oil or butter. Add onions and mushrooms and cook until they soften. Add tofu. Cook until heated through and add to the soup. Garnish with shelled edemame (optional)

The next big thing: Ash-e reshteh

"Emeelee I vas vunderings if I could talk vith you for a moment" said the short, Hungarian professor. Her black rimmed glasses dangled from one corner of her mouth. She pursed her wrinkled lips around them and furled her brow as though she were thinking hard, so as to communicate something telepathically to me. I felt sort of dim witted for not being able to hear her thoughts.
"Uh sure" I said. She whisked around and began to walk swiftly down the hallway. I was expected to follow, which I would have known had I been following along with her thoughts.
She walked quickly and freely for a woman her age, and I had to skip my step to keep up. I was lugging along my laptop and various books, and had not yet taken off my coat. She stopped before the door of her office and began to search her pockets for keys. For a moment, she was just a little old lady, and not the strict, accomplished chemistry professor, with a reputation for being intimidating. Her red hair was thin and flat in the back, and her scalp showed through in swirled patterns which had undoubtedly been created by her pillow. Her shoes were flat and sensible, and around her neck she wore a string of pearls. She turned the key and then turned her head to look at me over her glasses.
"Come in" she commanded. "Sit down". Obediently I sat.
"I vas vundering if you could halp me vith my slides." Silence.
"yes, of course" I said. Then she leaned in close and took her glasses off.
"I cannot type, you see, it is my great handicap. I have never learned. All ov my notes have been typed by the secretary and converted to overhead. I need somevone to turn them to powverpoint."
"Sure" I said.
She pulled her pursed lips back into a smile and said,
"GOOD, I vill be taking you to lunch then, have you been to Caspian?" and she swiveled her chair, put on her glasses, and with her nose two inches from the monitor began meticulously scanning the screen for the email icon. "Yes, I was there yesterday, actually. I had the ash reshdeh"
"Ah yes" She said, "that is very good". Still facing her computer,she looked first over, then under her glasses. She then squinted and furled her brow, as though trying to communicate telepathically now with the machine.

Her bookshelves were lined with scientific journals, which were dusty with age. The bound journal, which was once the booming metropolis of scientific information, is now a ghost town. Bright young minds no longer walk the printed lines of written word. The academic world has built a new glowing city, in front of which my professor now sat and peered into like it were a snow globe.

On the way home from school, I thought about my professor. In her career, she has isolated three of the different isomers of vitamin E, has published numerous articles in the field of antioxidants and lipid chemistry, has taught at major universities for over 30 years. Now the world that she has thrived in has moved out of the physical realm, and I wondered if she felt lonely.

Over the next few days, I began noticing how much of my life is lived online. Nobody really calls me anymore (except for my professor). I communicate with friends over facebook or text message. Emails are reserved for the more formal relationships. If I need to call a plumber, or order a movie, or buy new clothes, I just look online.
"Maybe she just doesn't want to be a part of the new world" Catherine said, as I told Christina and her mom about my professor.
Maybe she doesn't feel she needs to, as she has students to navigate it for her". I thought about how before I left her office, she asked me to look on my computer and research a few things. I imagined how we would sit at the Caspian, over two steaming bowls of rich and flavorful ash, and exchange stories from our adventures in our two different homelands. The physical and the virtual meeting over a common interest in chemistry and food.

Vegetarian Ash-e reshteh (this recipe is loosely based on one from Najmieh Batmanglii, I modified it so that it would be vegetarian by substituting a mushroom broth for a beef broth. The Persian cookbooks of Najmieh Batmanglii are wonderful.)

rinse and soak overnight:
1/3 cup kidney beans
1/4 cup great northern beans
1/3 cup garbanzo beans

In a soup pot, fry:
4 small onions, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
a punch of salt
1 tsp turmeric
Add 12 cups of water and the soaked beans. Simmer uncovered for 45 min-1 hour, skimming the yellow foam off of the top (but try not to lose the onions!) In the meantime, add
3 packages fresh, organic mushrooms, and
1 chopped red onion
to a wide dutch oven and cover with water. add some
salt
and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered. When the beans are cooked in the soup pot, add the strained mushroom liquid to it (about 5 cups), and
1 1/2 cups of dried lentils.
Cook uncovered for 50 min. Slice and cut into small matchsticks:
1 large red beet
and add to the pot. Add 1 cup of
chopped fresh dill
chives
parsley
and a pinch of fenugreek
after about 15 min. add
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 lb fresh whole wheat linguini
8 cups fresh chopped spinach
cook 15 more min and add
1 tsp sherry vinegar (optional)
garnish with
minced sauteed garlic, onions, turmeric, fresh mint, and a dollop of Greek yogurt.