So, lately I have been in a soup funk. I guess it’s not really a funk because everyone around here seems to be happy with it. Basically, I seem to be only thinking in soups these days when it comes to cooking. I even convinced my newly minted 3-year-old to have 2 kinds of soup for his birthday party. It was a “soldier” birthday party and I wasn’t really lying when I said it was perfect soldier food, ya know? In the past few weeks, I’ve made tomato soup, roasted tomato and fennel soup (x2), potato and leek soup, potato soup, roasted vegetable soup, and this asparagus soup. I can’t help myself. It is perfect for lunch or dinner, whether it’s cold or hot.
I wish I had made this today and not last week because we caught the not so very elusive airplane cold on our trip back east this week. It started with me last Wednesday and now it has 5/5 of us. Needless to see the mood is a little irritable amongst the troops. Soup would be awesome right now. I was supposed to go to a food truck gathering tonight to get a butter-poached lobster grilled cheese, but I decided taking 3 kids with runny noses to such an event would be a bad idea for us and the people around us. Too bad because it’s the first time this truck, Devilicious, was going to be at this otherwise quiet get-together. We don’t get the good trucks down in south San Diego very often. Instead, I threw together a tomato and goat cheese tart. I guess it worked out.
Yes, it’s not your computer. The picture is a little weird because it was late and the sun was down. I’m only saying that because I don’t like looking at this kind of lighting but really wanted to share the easy recipe. I hope that’s ok.
I love asparagus so very much. My Mom even knows how much I love it because she put some in my fridge for our return home.
Thanks, Mom :)
Start by sauteing all of the veggies, except the asparagus, in olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 10 minutes or until soft.
While that is cooking, prepare the asparagus by trimming the ends. The best way, I’ve found, to remove the ends is to hold the woody/hard end with one hand and grab the whole spear halfway down with the other. It will just snap where the tender part meets the hard part. It just lets you know because it’s that fabulous.
You can add it to the other veggies.
Add the vegetable stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Then, puree in the blender or with an immersion blender and season again if needed. I tried this with the immersion and the consistency ended up being a little coarse for me, but I’m sure it would have ended up fine in the blender.
I made up a bunch of grilled bread (with olive oil and salt and pepper) and a few poached eggs for everyone. I love me some poached eggs!
Asparagus soup
(adapted from Jamie Oliver)
2 onions, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2 leeks, chopped
2 lbs of asparagus
2 liters organic chicken or vegetable stock
sea salt and fresh pepper
Gluten-free bread or rustic bread, sliced and grilled
poached eggs
It’s Fall and also October as far as the calendar goes, but it could not be further from cool and scarf-worthy here. That will not keep me from enticing it with spices my kitchen and soup on my stove. I made this recipe from good-looking seasonal veggies from my fridge and tons of garlic. It was perfect for a quiet Sunday evening at home after a long week. It was good for the soul. Check out the playlist at the bottom of the page for this recipe :) I’ll try to add that when I think of it.
I love my Grandma’s dishes with this soup. I think she would have liked this soup, too.
Go out and find yourself some great looking tomatoes…organic heirloom if you can. The reason I get that specific kind is not because it sounds cool…even though it kinda does. The heirloom varieties are grown from seeds that are from an old variety of tomato plant which hasn’t been altered by cross-pollination or hybridization. Basically, the person who saved the seeds for future plants saved them in a way (involves covering the tomato blossoms to prevent cross-pollination) where they were not changed. They are pure, which I love.
Toss the tomatoes with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, to taste.
Do the same to the fennel, onions, and garlic. Roast them both in the oven at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until browned.
While you’re cleaning, beware of battle-scenes. You never know when they might happen.
After they are finished roasting, pour both pans of food in the blender and puree. I poured about a cup of vegetable stock in to thin it a bit. That’s it. I didn’t even have to season with extra salt and pepper or add any herbs. When the vegetables roast, they create their own rich flavor from the slight caramelization. The cool thing is that you won’t have to add any cream. making this a vegan dish if you leave out the creme fraiche. Maybe that’s not cool to you, but I have some friends who will think it’s cool. Plus, I think it’s cool.
Roasted Fennel and Heirloom Tomato Soup
5 pounds of tomatoes, chopped in large chunks
4 large pieces of fennel, sliced
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 red onions, chopped in large chunks
10 cloves of garlic, halved
Salt and pepper
olive oil
1 c. vegetable stock
chives, for garnish
Creme fraiche or sour cream, optional
I guess it was nice to enjoy it on the patio with a tank and flip-flops, instead of inside with no fresh air. Wherever you are, I hope you enjoy it!
New! Just added these playlists so you can rock out to it too…if you feel like it.
Matthew West Pandora Station
For a mother, it is a wonderful thing to have your kids growing up healthy and strong. The problem is just the growing up part. Until I was a mom, I never really knew what it was like to have emotions pulling you in 2 good directions. I’m excited about what my kids are going to do when they get older but I love them so much as they are now. I try to remind myself that I always love them “now”. I loved my daughter “now” when she was a feisty baby with places to go and I love her now as a feisty 6 year-old with places to go. My little buddy is the kind of boy who has me constantly back and forth about appreciating the now because he is a lot to handle right now. I pray for peace from this child every day. My ice cream supply is diminishing because he has woken up every day in the middle of the night to get a piece of it. Oh man, this is a new one for me. How do you stop a kid from waking up every night to get into something? I am installing something I could have never imagine…a refrigerator lock. This is just a tiny part.
Wow. I got sidetracked from this little guy’s birthday. Well, he is constantly surprising us and we are truly excited to see what he becomes, hopefully with less of my ice cream.
This is my little guy at 1.5 months old…sniff sniff. I made this shirt as his announcement which just started out of laziness. I had made my other 2 kids announcements with extreme care so I knew I needed to do something special but requiring less time. I’m not a huge fan of the drug store/Costco picture cards. I had used iron-on transfers a lot in the past but I don’t like the fact that they last 1 day. Seems to me that painting it myself would be better. Enter: Sharpie. It got the job done and it hasn’t faded a bit. Now all I had to do was take a picture and mail it! I thought I was going to be disappointed but I ended up loving it. Just goes to show, go where your creativity leads you and you might land in a better place than you expected.
I made what was requested: Pancakes and waffles. He takes pictures like this a lot. You know, he stares into the lens with his baby blues and just radiates cuteness. He’s cute trouble…but cute still.
We made letter pancakes because when are they not special, right? I ended up with a stack of m’s for “mommy” because they were the most fun to make.
Since bread products for a whole meal are never a great idea, I decided to make sweet potato waffles.
Sweet potato waffles
(adapted from Alton Brown’s recipe)
- 1 c. sweet potato puree
- 2 c. flour
- 1 T baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 6 egg whites, room temp.
- 1 1/2 c. milk
- 1/4 c. brown sugar
- 1/4 c. butter, melted
- 1/2 T. orange zest
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl.
In another bowl, mix the sweet potatoes, milk, brown sugar, butter, and orange zest. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the wet ingredients until combined. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add the egg whites into the sweet potato mixture a 1/3 at a time. It will be thick! Set up your waffle maker and go!
Then, he played in a box.
Played in his new helmet.
Played a little Lego.
Happy Birthday, little buddy!
I’m super excited about this post. Did you ever make something and it turned out ridiculously better than you expected. Yup, that’s this one. These were so good I actually ate some pieces of my little guys, which he for some reason didn’t eat. I don’t do that normally. I think the other reason I enjoyed this was because the man of my dreams took our enthusiastic little hiking boys out into nature for a bit. It was pretty peaceful and Miss F and I really felt like baking.
First turn on some awesome music. Really…just do it.
Whisk the flour, sugar and salt, and combine those with the butter using a hand blender or a food processor. You want it combined to the point that you have pea-sized pieces. I had a 6-year-old doing most of the blending so she got as close as she could, shown above. Over-mixing will result in less flaky crust so err on the side of less blending.
Mix the milk and eggs with the flour/butter mixture until just combined. Then divide the dough in half. One half will be for the top and one for the bottom of the pop-tart.
Roll the dough out (about 1/8 inch thick) to about the size of a 13×9 pan. Your goal is to make 9 3″x4″ rectangles. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
Brush the dough with the beaten egg.
I let my sweet girl pick the flavors so she picked cherry preserves and nutella. Love her.
Other options:
Pumpkin filling from a can or homemade
cinnamon and sugar
goat cheese, lemon zest, and thyme
other jams/preserves like this one
melted chocolate chips
onion jam
cooked meat (ode to the British Isles)
sun-dried tomatoes and feta
You can pretty much put whatever you want as a filling, sweet or savory. We were making these for dessert, so we chose sweet. When I make these again, I will throw some onion jam in…for sure. Just make sure, whatever it is, that you leave a 1/2 inch space along each side to close it off. You will see in the next photos that I overfilled mine, but I knew I would prefer them on the messy side to eating a mouthful of pastry with no filling. You get me? :)
Once filled you can place the cut out tops on. Press down the sides with a fork and poke with a few holes so they don’t puff up too much. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until slightly browned
Since we were making these for dessert, I made up a little glaze with 1/2 c. powdered sugar and about 1 T. of milk. Add the milk in gradually, as it doesn’t take a lot to make it thinned. I tossed in a little vanilla bean paste (1/2 tsp) simply because I’ve been obsessed with it for the last year. My love hasn’t faded for it yet. Get it here. I will change the life of your baking.
Drizzle after the pop-tarts have cooled.
Pop-tarts
(adapted from King Arthur Flour)
Pastry:
2 cups flour
1 T. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into pats
1 large egg
2 T. milk
1 egg, to brush pastry
Icing:
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 T. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste
There were more licking fingers than I could handle at this point.
Enjoy making these. I really did. If the weather is cool and you turn some Ray Lamontagne on, you might enjoy it more.
A very small snapshot of our week through my phone.
I love to start our weeks with fresh bread. This is Martha’s Olive Oil bread and it rocks. SO easy.
Little D is trying to use the cork remover to force his way into the locked pantry…didn’t work but I give him credit for trying.
Finally did the super easy chair re-vamp found here.
Re-stocked the beer fridge for frequent visitors of late.
Used my husbands beer to make beer can chicken. Recipe to follow soon!
Made it again but with roasted sweet potatoes, garlic, and onions for a friend followed by awesome conversation. Love that.
Following school one day, Faith and I made homemade pop-tarts (cherry and nutella) They were good. Stay tuned for a tutorial for that too!
I love this child so much. Her personality is so much like my firstborn so I am very amused by her. I kinda like her mom a lot, too :)
Dentist teeth cleaning for Miss F and I. Dr. Kint is the best dentist ever!
Miss F’s killer Steller’s Jay nature journal drawing. Frame for sure.
Toys from my childhood enjoyed by a second generation.
Bracelet crafted for a special person’s birthday coming up who may or may not live in PA. She was pretty excited about it.
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