Broccoli and Spinach Soup

It won't stop raining in San Francisco. I KNOW we need the rain and it's fantastic that we're getting so much of it because it will mean (hopefully) no water rationing in August, but every morning when I put on my rain boots and pull out my umbrella and head downstairs to wait for the bus all I want is the beautiful sunny days we had in January back. One good thing about the rain, however, is making soup. I'm learning that soup is really pretty easy. You can put just about anything in a pot with some chicken stock and call it soup.

I had some broccoli and spinach in the fridge to use, so the other night I decided to make some green soup. It turned out thinner than I wanted, but was still tasty and (other than the cream I added) fairly healthy.

Broccoli and Spinach Soup
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 tbsp garlic
5 cups broccoli florets
1 bag baby spinach
2 14 oz. cans low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste

I sauteed the onion and garlic with some evoo. I poured in a couple cans of chicken stock and got it boiling. While the stock was heating I chopped the broccoli into smallish pieces (reserving about 1 cup) and added it to the pot. I threw in the spinach and let it cook down.

After 10 minutes or so of simmering, I threw it in the blender, being sure to make sure the little cap on the lid was removed so the steam could be released as I blended it. When it was blended I added the cream and the parmesan and a little salt and pepper and gave it another whirl. I transferred it back to the pot and added the reserved broccoli for some texture, cooking it for another few minutes and... Voila! SOUP!

I served the soup with some parmesan toasts and a healthy dose of black pepper. It was green and comforing and it kept me warm until the next morning when the bus was 10 minutes late and I had to run through Union Square to make it to work on time.... even good soup has it's limits.

Who needs to create their own recipe when they can borrow someone else's

I've been reading a lot of food blogs these last few weeks. Before I started getting my CSA box the end of last year, my only real source of inspiration for cooking interesting and diverse meals every night was myrecipes.com or epicurious.com. Don't get me wrong, I have a LOT of cookbooks, but when you're looking to create a meal with a specific ingredient like collard greens it's going to take a lot of cookbooks to come up with something perfect for dinner. I had no idea there were so many professional and ameteur cooks out there willing to share their creations in words and pictures.... and these are some beautiful creations! I find myself drooling daily over the food photography and recipes, and so many of them are way healthier than the cream filled, calorie filled recipes you find so many other places online. I admit it, I'm addicted. In the past month I've found probably 20 blogs that are not only easy to read, but so easy to follow using the blogger.com tools. All of them put my cheesy descriptions and crappy photography to shame. But they also give me something to aspire to. And who doesn't like that?

Looking for something interesting to do with collards, a new veggie for me, I decided to search some of these new found sites for inspiration and decided to replicate a mexican dinner fritatta from Coles Kitch. It was delicious and exactly what I was looking for. Being a lover of eggs with a kick, I added some Tobasco to the egg mixture before cooking, and next time I think I'd add even more.
With my new found "friends" on the internet, cooking with crazy ingredients is easier than ever and the other cooking sites out there have just lost one of their best customers... If someday people come to this site and get even half as excited as I do about others, I'll be proud.

Thanks Cole for the recipe and the inspiration.

Arugula Pesto: like salad, but warmer

I've got nothing against salad. During summer when it's still light out at 8 o'clock and I can leave the windows wide open I'll make dinner salads for nights straight. That being said, when it's cold and rainy and I get home from work after dark a light, crisp salad is the last thing I want. When I got the beautiful arugula in my CSA box I had the best intentions of creating a nice spicy salad, but a week later my greens were looking wilty and I still wasn't in the mood for a cold dinner.

Always the brilliant idea guy, Ryan suggested I make a pesto with our arugula. After spending some time on Google pouring over recipes I found a blog called In My Kitchen Garden whose writer, Farmgirl Susan, had a similar quest on her hands in the Spring of 2006: Searching for the Best Arugula Pesto Recipe. I followed her recipe almost exactly (I say almost because I never measure out my greens, I just throw them in) and I added some fresh lemon juice to balance out the spice. The pesto was thick and hearty. I warmed it up and tossed it with some whole wheat penne and sliced chicken breast and it was a fantastic (and warm) meal for a cold February night.

Farmgirl Susan's blog also has some great ideas for what to do with the pesto beside just tossing it with pasta. She also has a recipe for an arugula pesto pizza that I will definitely try sometime soon.

Experimenting with Radicchio

Radicchio is one of those winter vegetables that I would never buy if it didn't come in my FFTY box. I remember picking it out of salads when I was younger (does last year count as younger?) and have never quite found a way to incorporate it's bitterness into a meal and make it taste good. When I read the recipe for Trevisio Radicchio and Red Onion Tart on iloveyoumorethanfood I decided I would do something similar with my next batch of beautiful purpley leaves.

Then, the other morning, already starting to worry about how the tart would come out that evening, I went to pull a pizza crust out of the freezer (I know I should make it myself, but for the money you just can't beat the Trader Joes almost whole wheat dough for $1.29) and realized I didn't have any left. Saddened I got on the bus and headed to work, arriving there two minutes too late and getting locked out while they pulled the jewelry from the vault. With some time to kill, I decided to head next door to the beautiful Williams Sonoma to oogle some kitchen gadgets. I thought maybe the team there would know of a place in the Union Square area to get a premade crust, and just happened to ask the house chef, who made my day by disappearing upstairs and returning with not one but two frozen pizza crusts that he'd made at a recent cooking class. I left Williams Sonoma that morning with the crusts, a vegetable steamer, and a flyer for my new friend, chef Gary Bulmers cooking classes. (I'm trying to convince Ryan to join me for Sashimi and Sushi: An Introduction on March 12.)

With this good omen for my evening meal and a new outlook on my day I headed to work and spent the day telling coworkers about how I just got free pizza crust from the chef next door and trying to work out in my head just how I was going to turn radicchio and kale into something delicious.

That evening I crossed my fingers and got to it in the kichen, chopping veggies, rolling out dough and sauteeing. I decided at the last minute to create a calzone which looked beautiful coming out of the oven (I'm so bummed I forgot to get a picture of it) and tasted unique. Ryan always tells me my dinners are delicious whether I deserve it or not, and after pressing him for his real opinion he told me it tasted "gourmet". I took it as a compliment and called the expirament a success.

Radicchio, Kale and Red Onion Calzone
1 small head radicchio
1 bunch dino kale
1 medium red onion
1 tsp garlic
1/4 cup basalmic vinegar
1 premade (or homemade if you have the time) pizza crust
1/2 cup part skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
Premade marinara sauce for dipping

Sautee red onion and garlic in a large pan until onion is soft. Add the chopped radicchio and kale and cook for about 5 minutes, until they begin to wilt. Pour basalmic over greens mixture and cook for a few more minutes, letting the vinegar seep in.

Work the pizza crust on a stone or large cutting board until it's thin and about 12" in diameter. Spread the ricotta cheese on 1/2 of the crust, as you will be folding the other half of the crust over to create the calzone. Pour your sauteed greens mixture over the ricotta and top with parmesan cheese, reserving a little cheese to sprinkle on top of the folded crust.

Place your calzone on a pizza pan on baking sheet and bake in a preheated 450 degree oven for 18-20 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Slice calzone into six pieces and let cool. Serve with a side of warm marinara sauce (whatever you have open in the fridge) for dipping.

Seafood Chowder

I created this chowder to use the leftover lobster from our Valentines Day dinner. I was hoping for something delicious and creamy like the chowder I ate back in college at Splash Cafe in Pismo Beach, but, um, low cal and cream free (yeah right). It turned out less creamy and more smoky, but it was still pretty good, and a great way to use the leftovers. This recipe made enough for two for dinner, lunch leftovers, and a freezer container for another night.


Lobster and Clam Seafood Chowder
1 yellow onion, diced
2 ribs celery, sliced
6-7 fingerling potatoes, cubed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp italian seasoning
2 packages cooked clams
1/2 cup shelled and chopped lobster
1 12 oz can chicken stock
1 8 oz bottle clam juice
4 cups lowfat or nonfat milk
1/2 cup flour

Sautee onion and celery in olive oil in the bottom of a large pot. When the onion is beginning to carmelize and the celery is soft, add chicken stock, clam juice italian seasoning and bay leaf to the pot, then add the cubed potatoes and simmer until they begin to soften. Whisk together the milk and flour in a separate bowl and add to the pot. When the chowder is fully heated and begins to bubble add the clams and lobster. Simmer for a few more minutes and then serve! We topped ours with green onions and tobasco sauce. Not dreamy, creamy, Splash! Chowder, but a nice warm dinner on a cold night nevertheless.

Eggs Florentine

As I'm learning, when you get busy, taking the time to write about what you are eating gets difficult. I am inspired by all the women out there with jobs and families that still have time to sit down at their computers and help other home cooks by writing about what they are doing in the kitchen. This week I cooked lots of great meals, but didn't photograph all of them and didn't write about any of them. I'll try to catch up this weekend.

Eggs Florentine is definitely a special treat for us. It's turned into our special occasion breakfast, reserved for holidays, but I don't know why because it's delicious and it's not that hard if you have premade frozen hollandaise available... maybe it's the stick and a half of butter that goes into the sauce that keeps us from eating these regularly. We like to make a full batch, use about 1/3 of it and store the rest in ziplock bags in the freezer where it's easy to pull out and defrost.

Ryans Yummy Hollandaise
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup butter, melter
juice of 1/2 lemon
pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste

Place egg yolks and lemon juice in a double boiler and whisk constantly until the mixture is just beginning to thicken, then slowly whisk in the melted butter. The mixture should be thick-ish... about the consistency of a heavy salad dressing. Simple but delicious.

Eggs Florentine
(this is ingredients and prep for one serving)
2 eggs
1 whole wheat english muffin, halved
4-8 leaves of spinach, depending on size
2-4 slices tomato
1/2 avocado

I get the ingredients prepped first, toasting the english muffins and slicing the tomato and avocado. When poaching eggs I've had the best luck using a large flat bottomed pan with about 2" water in it. I put the heat on medium high and add the eggs when the water is just beginning to boil (little tiny bubbles in the bottom of the pan). I read somewhere the best way to add eggs to boiling water so the whites don't separate is to break the egg into a large cooking spoon, then slowly lowering the spoon into the boiling water and easing the egg off the spoon.... I'm sure for an expert cook this is easy, but when I try to do it by myself I feel like I don't have enough hands, so I used Ryan's help. The eggs boil for 5-7 minutes, and I like the yolks runny so I pull them out as soon as a film develops over the yolk.

Assemble the eggs benedict by placing the english muffin slices on a plate. Layer the spinach, avocado and tomato on top of the muffin, creating a flat surface for the egg to rest on. Place an egg on the top of each sandwich and top with hollandaise sauce and paprika. Enjoy!

Happy Valentines Day!

Well, we're a few days past Valentines Day, and I'm just getting around to posting about the feast we made for the holiday. Last Saturday marked 4 years from my first date with Ryan, and instead of fighting the crowds for an overpriced price fixe menu we decided it would be best to create something delicious at home, with the extra advantage of eating a gourmet meal in our pajamas (and, of course, the downside of dishes). Ryan took advantage of a special at Mollie Stones and ordered us two lobsters and two 6 oz. filets and I was surprised on Friday evening to come home to the little guys walking around on our kitchen counter.

We spent the majority of the day cooking, starting with eggs florentine in the morning (which I'll post later) and our lobster filet combo in the evening. It was fun to work together in the kitchen and the added challenge of boiling lobster for the first time at home made it exciting. In the end we had a feast all laid out on the table we pull from the wall into the living room for special occasions because our tiny apartment is not equipped with a dining area. I've posted pictures and recipes below, but this meal was less about creation and more about delicious ingredients... it kind of cooked itself.

I hope you had a very happy Valentines Day and that you have lots of love in your life!


Valentines Day Surf and Turf Meal for two
2 live lobsters
2 6 oz filets

For red wine reduction
2 cups sliced white mushrooms
1.5 cups red wine
2 cloves garlic, minced.

For lobster
2 large pots of boiling water
2 bay leafs
2 tbsp italian seasoning (or fresh hebs)
2 lemons, halved
1/2 cup butter

For veggies
1 red bell pepper, sliced in strips
1/4 lb green beans, ends removed
1 bunch baby carrots, peeled

Start with the reduction as that will take the most time and it'll keep as the protien cooks. Place mushrooms in a large sautee pan with garlic and cook down. Add the red wine and simmer for 30-45 minutes on med-low until wine thickens into desired consistency. When sauce is almost finished, fill the pots with water and get them on the stove on high.

Season filets with kosher salt and black pepper. Sear filets on all four sides to keep in the juices and place on a broiler pan. Cook in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Filets should be medium rare.

Season the water with a bay leaf, 1/2 a lemon (juice it then throw it in), and the italian seasoning or fresh herbs. After putting the filets in the oven drop in the lobsters, cover and boil. Our guys, who were a pound and a half each took about 15 minutes to boil.

While the lobsters are boiling, sautee up the veggies with some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and melt the butter at the last minute, straining through a seive to remove the milk fat and add a squeeze of lemon to the strained butter mixture.

If all goes well everything should be finishing up at the same time. Plate your feast and enjoy it's decadence with your love!