Butternut Squash & Kale Winter Soup

Kelly Proudfit modified a recipe for this soup and she reports that it turned out so well...they all loved it! Kelly said, "Super healthy and tastes great."

1  large bunch of Kale (leaves chopped, discard stems)
2  cans 14oz Cannellini beans
1  large butternut squash (peeled, seeded and cut into small 1-inch cubes)
1  yellow onion, chopped
2  cloves minced garlic
1  tablespoon olive oil
5  cups chicken stock (lowfat- low sodium)
    salt and pepper to taste

Cook chopped onions and minced garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. In large stock pot add the chicken stock, cooked onions and garlic, beans, and cubed squash. Cook for 30 minutes on medium heat and then add the Kale. Cook for another 20 minutes on low heat. You can also just throw it all in a crock pot and let it cook all day.

Serve in bowls and top with fresh grated parmesan cheese. Sooooo good. Especially next day. Kids will like the soup if you strain it and just give them butternut squash pieces. They are sweet and the beans are good as well.

Kelly Proudfit

CoolCooksShare Factoid #1 - Turkey Giblets à l'Anglaise (Abatis de Dinde à l'Anglaise) [French for "in the English style," meaning food that is simply poached or boiled.]

In classic French cooking, the pieces of giblets, after a preliminary cooking with sliced onions and potatoes, are taken out, put in another shallow pan, covered with about 20 blanched small onions and the same number of cooked new potatoes and then the juice they were cooked in is passed through a sieve and poured over the giblets, onions and potatoes.

Larousse Gastronomique, 1961

Ribbon Celeriac Salad
Another great salad from Jamie Oliver

A wonderful Fall vegetable, celeriac is a fresh and crunchy alternative to lettuce in this salad by Jamie Oliver; a play on the traditional French Celeriac Rémoulade. The flavor notes of celeriac are celery, with a milder, nuttier flavor, and hints of anise. Celeriac is nutritionally useful, in the same family as carrots, coriander, cumin, fennel, parsley and lovage.

1  celeriac root (celery root), peeled
1  bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley
2  anchovies, finely chopped (optional)
2  heaping tablespoons fine capers, chopped or whole to your taste
2  heaping tablespoons small sweet and sour gherkins, chopped
5  tablespoons crème fraîche (substitute whipped cream)
1  heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard
3  tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2  tablespoons sherry, red or white wine vinegar, to your taste
    sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to your taste

Clean and peel the celeriac until you reach its white flesh; then continue peeling in long strips. It’s OK if they break occasionally. Put the strips in acidulated water to prevent discoloring. When you reach the fluffy inner core, discard it. Discard any thick stalks from the parsley and rough cut the thin stalks and leaves. Put the drained celeriac and parsley in a large bowl and mix in all the other ingredients. Season to your taste, adding more vinegar if necessary. I added an optional ingredient of chopped pickled little onions. It would be interesting to substitute crumpled bacon for the anchovies.

Served as a side salad with hearty meat-sauce spaghetti this was super. This would also be great covered in thinly cut smoked Salmon, or as a side dish with cold roasted chicken.

Wedding Dinner

Mr. & Mrs. Wilfred Wottrich

Tuesday, November 23, 1920

Willoughby Mansion

M. Cahn - Caterer

Brooklyn, New York USA

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Oyster Cocktail

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Consommé en Tasse

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HORS D’OEUVRES

Celery ~ Olives ~ Gherkins ~ Almonds

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FISH

Kenneber Salmon Sauce Hollandaise

Parsley Potatoes

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ENTRÉE

Sweetbread Financiere Casserole

French Peas

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Fresh Beef Tongue a la Polonaise

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Sherbet

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ROAST

Long Island Duckling ~ Compot

Roast Chicken ~ Parisian Potatoes

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DESSERT

French Pastry ~ Cream a la Fantasie ~ Cafe Noir

Mineral Water

Condé Nast Closing Down Gourmet

The New York Times noted, "[Gourmet] has suffered a severe decline in ad pages, but the cut still comes as a shock. There was speculation that Condé Nast would close one of its food titles - Gourmet or Bon Appétit - but most bets were on the latter. Gourmet has a richer history than Bon Appétit, and its editor, Ruth Reichl, is powerful in the food world.

(Editor's Note: To me Gourmet was primarily a travel magazine that taught me at a young age what was possible in the world. It shall be missed.)

CoolCooksShare Factoid - Crème de Cassis & Kir
 
Crème de cassis is a black currant liqueur (cassis is the botanical name for black currant) that was made famous by a priest, Chanoine (canon) Félix Kir (1876 - 1968). The priest was well-known as a fervent opponent of the Nazis, assisting thousands of resistance fighters to escape.

During WWII he was elected Mayor of Dijon. Dijon liquor factories at the time were fighting for survival due to the war. Kir would always give a guest a glass of white wine and Cassis, in line with an old tradition. Hence he kept alive the tradition of the Blanc-Cassis, which in time became known as the apéritif Kir.

To make a Kir the crème de cassis is poured first into the wine glass, followed by an acidic white wine. The International Bartenders Association gives a recipe using 1/10 crème de cassis, but French sources typically specify more; 19th century recipes for blanc-cassis recommended 1/3 crème de cassis, and modern sources typically about 1/5.

The white wine can be any wine, but many prefer a white Chardonnay-based Burgundy, such as Chablis. When ordering a Kir, waiters in France sometimes ask whether you want it made with crème de cassis (black currant), de mûre (blackberry) or de pèche (peach). A Kir Royal is made with Champagne or a white sparkling wine.

Blog Editor - Richard Wottrich

Sautéed Shrimp in Pastis

Norwegian Shrimp Boat (Photo: RLW)

"To know how to eat is to know enough." Old Basque Saying

The start for this recipe comes from “The Basque Kitchen” by chef Gerald Hirigoyen. We have visited and enjoyed his restaurant Fringale in San Francisco (now morphed into Piperade), where he and his wife Cameron reside. We first became acquainted with the Basque Region by virtue of meeting Tony Paget’s wife, Mercedes, in Paris in 2000. Mercedes is Basque and she told us stories about her people. Subsequently in 2005 we took a Backroads hiking trip through the Grand Pyrenees of both Spain and France and had variations of this dish.

The spirit behind this version is to adapt what is essentially a summer dish into a winter dish, by roasting fresh tomatoes for more intense flavor.

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 stick unsalted butter
2 pounds uncooked shrimp (16-20 per pound), shelled and deveined, 4 to 5 per person.
20 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 medium bulb of fennel, trimmed and sliced thinly
5 tablespoons pastis
½ cup dry white wine
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped rosemary
2 tablespoons julienned fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon snipped fresh chives
Kosher or sea salt to taste
Freshly cracked pepper to taste

Preparation: 1. Preheat an oven to 300 degrees. Place the 40 halves of tomatoes cut side up on a cookie sheet. Drizzle the olive oil over the tomatoes; sprinkle on sea salt and the rosemary. Add ground black pepper. Roast in the oven for two hours or until they resemble sun dried tomatoes. Reserve. 2. Shell and devein the shrimp. Reserve over ice. 2. Heat the butter in a large sauté pan. Add the fennel and sauté about five minutes until just soft, stirring frequently (do not overcook). 3. Add the tomatoes, shrimp and garlic and the pastis, ignite and flambé until the flame dies away. 4. Turn the heat down. Add the lemon juice, basil, parsley and chives. Adjust salt and pepper to your taste. Swirl the pan over the heat until the shrimp are completely covered in sauce. (Do not boil the sauce.)

Note: Wild caught Key West, Gulf of Mexico, or Alaskan shrimp are preferred. Much of our shrimp today comes frozen from shrimp farms in Viet Nam, Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil. China has become a huge exporter of farmed white shrimp as well. These shrimp aqua-monocultures are very susceptible to diseases, which have caused several regional wipe-outs of farm shrimp populations, increasing ecological problems, and repeated disease outbreaks. The taste of these shrimp is “muddy.” I would advise buying American.

Bulgarian snails set the pace for swift economic recovery

by Nick Iliev

Global economic crunch? An exotic and relatively new Bulgarian industry dating less than a decade since its establishment, doesn't think so, in fact, they have shown the way for a swift economic recovery.

Sadovets, a village in the Municipality of Pleven, is in the lucrative business of harvesting snails in industrial quantities and then exporting them mainly to... yes you've guessed it, France. Snail cultivation has since proven to be a very successful alternative to conventional agriculture.

For this year alone, Sadovets is responsible for the export of 900 tons of snails, and in spite of the global crisis "snail farms are germinating all over the place" and "their number is expected to increase several times over," Bulgarian National Radio reported on October 7 2009.

One of the farms in Sadovets, managed by Stancho Totov, covers five ha, has a "complete cycle of production", and employs permanently 25 staff, while in the summer the number increases to 75 employees.

The produce is designated exclusively for export to Western Europe, most of which is shipped to France, with Italy and Spain also being prominent customers.

"We expect to produce between 60 and 70 tons of snails in this farm alone in 2009," Totov told Bulgarian National Television (BNT). "In previous years we've reached up to a hundred tons, but the crunch has had an effect on us as well," he said.

Farmers say that this year the impact of stagnation was felt, as in times of crisis people tend to switch away from food branded as a "delicacy". However, there is recent trend on the domestic market of growing demand for the food. Farmers are expected to receive European Union subsidies under European programmes for the development of rural regions.

"Snails are an ancient form of food, their meat is light, delicious, ideal for dieting. Most importantly, a lot of accent is put in the food's aphrodisiac properties," said Totov, quoted by BNT.

The Sofia Echo

Joy of Cooking: 1930s cookbook has brought decades of culinary staples

By KERRY MCCRAY, The Modesto Bee

MODESTO -- After a career as a dancer, you'd think Jane Fenton's prize possession would be a memory of the stage -- pointe shoes from her days in the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall, perhaps, or a program from her stint in the Broadway musical "Oklahoma!" But the thing the Modesto woman treasures most isn't dramatic at all. It's an old, battered cookbook, held together with rubber bands, that has been a fixture in her life since before she could plie.

Fenton, 81, has what looks to be an original "The Joy of Cooking." And, like every good performer, she has a story to go with it.

Growing up in St. Louis, Fenton lived with her mother and her grandparents. Her grandfather conducted the St. Louis Symphony. Her grandmother had a reputation as a fine cook, a skill she picked up from older, well-to-do ladies in the city's German community when she was first married.

Her specialty? Baked goods. "For breakfast, I'd wake up and there were caramel rolls or crumb coffee cake," Fenton said. "When I came home from school, there'd be homemade cookies or doughnuts." One of young Jane's earliest memories is of holding her grandmother's hand, walking down the street to a dark and dreary apartment building. There, her grandmother and the woman who lived there would pore over recipes while she played on the floor.

The woman? Fenton believes it had to be Irma Rombauer, the author of "The Joy of Cooking." The timing is right. Fenton was a toddler at the time, so the gatherings likely took place in the late 1920s. Rombauer self-published her book on a shoestring budget in St. Louis in 1931.

Irma S. Rombauer

Fenton's grandmother was renowned for her abilities in the kitchen. It makes sense, Fenton said, that a cookbook author would consult her grandmother before a book went to press. The association could explain the presence of "The Joy of Cooking" in Fenton's life. Believed to be one of 3,000 first editions, the blue-covered volume was in her family when, at age 17, she asked to go to New York to audition for dance roles.

Her mother came along, and so did the book. Fenton landed the gig at Radio City Music Hall, then went on to play the Girl who Falls Down in a five-year run of "Oklahoma!" Her mother made sure she had a hot meal after the show.

"Mother always had the cookbook with us," Fenton said. "When we went on tour, we would rent a little apartment. She took care of my food." Fenton finished high school by correspondence and went on to act and dance in more productions. She married, divorced, then married again. As a young mother, she lived in Los Angeles and acted in television commercials.

By this time, the cookbook had been passed on to her. She wowed her husband's Jewish family with dishes like sauerbraten (beef shoulder steeped in vinegar and spices for a week, then cooked) and tiny dumplings (made with cracker meal to ensure their lightness).

"My grandmother always told me, 'Never make anything bigger than this,'" she said, making a circle with her thumb and forefinger. "She'd say, 'That's fine cooking.'" Fenton and her husband, Bob, moved to Modesto when the couple bought radio station KFIV. She still uses "The Joy of Cooking," but prefers the book's lighter recipes.

Like peach ice cream. She uses her food processor to combine the peaches and cream -- something Rombauer could never have imagined. Another thing that would surprise Rombauer, who died in 1962: Pristine first-editions of her book are worth up to $5,000, according to Maggie Green, who writes a blog on "The Joy of Cooking" Web site, www.thejoykitchen.com. Green wrote about Fenton in her blog.

Fenton's copy of the book is well-loved -- the cover is falling off. Pages are stained with drippings from long-ago meals. "I'd be lucky to get 5 cents," she said. "But I wouldn't trade it in for anything."

Pomegranate Tree, Korcula, Croatia (Photo: RLW)


















Mediterranean Sweet Potatoes

Serves 4-6

Wikipedia says: The most commonly-understood version of the Mediterranean diet was presented by Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University's School of Public Health in the mid-1990s. Based on "food patterns typical of Crete, much of the rest of Greece, and southern Italy in the early 1960s", this diet, in addition to "regular physical activity," emphasized "abundant plant foods, fresh fruit as the typical daily dessert, olive oil as the principal source of fat, dairy products (principally cheese and yogurt), and fish and poultry consumed in low to moderate amounts, zero to four eggs consumed weekly, red meat consumed in low amounts, and wine consumed in low to moderate amounts". Total fat in this diet is 25% to 35% of calories, with saturated fat at 8% or less of calories.

The principal aspects of this diet include high olive oil consumption, high consumption of legumes, high consumption of unrefined cereals, high consumption of fruits, high consumption of vegetables, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate to high consumption of fish, low consumption of meat and meat products, and moderate wine consumption.

That aside, the true story is that the entire Mediterranean basin was “influenced” by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), an imperial monarchy that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922. No discussion of Mediterranean cuisine can begin without examining the Turkish cuisine at its heart.

This sweet potato dish is reminiscent of one I had in Istanbul where the subtle taste of pomegranates lingered on the palate.

1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
1 stick butter, cut into cubes (substitute olive oil)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
¼ cup chopped fresh mint
1 pinch salt
1 cup reserved cooking liquid

Preparation: 1. Boil the cubed sweet potato and potato in a pot of water until soft, 10 minutes. 2. Reserve one cup of the cooking water. 3. In a large bowl combine the cooked potatoes, cubed butter, brown sugar, pomegranate molasses and pinch of salt. Mix together. 4. Take one cup of the mixture and place it in a blender. Add the cooking liquid and chopped mint and blend. 5. Return the mixture from the blender to the bowl and mash. 6. Let stand for 5 minutes and serve as a side dish in small bowls, with a spring of mint as garnish.

Try the Sultan's Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook (Paperback), by Ozcan Ozan

Richard Wottrich

Help! Can anyone get me a table at Rao's?

I've been trying to get into Rao's, the famous little Italian family restaurant, for years - located at 455 East 114th Street, East Harlem, New York.

Make Rao’s mouthwatering meatballs
Makes 14–16 meatballs

1 1/2 lb beef
1/2 lb veal
1/2 lb pork
3 large gloves garlic, minced
Salt
Pepper
Parsley
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups grated Pecorino cheese
1 cup plain breadcrumbs
 
In a large bowl, place the meat and rub the minced garlic into it. Press the meat down in the bowl, then add, in this order, the salt, pepper, parsley, 2 eggs, and the water. Then sprinkle the cheese over the top as if you are going to cover the water. Finally, sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the cheese.

When you start to mix it all together, mix from the outside of the bowl to the middle and fold it in. After the ingredients are mixed, start to roll the meatball in your hands, about 6 ounces per meatball.

After your meatballs are rolled, take a frying pan (a 10 inch sautee pan is best), add your oil (2 cups) and heat. Place a clove of whole garlic in the frying pan; when the clove of garlic starts to brown, the oil is ready.

Fry the meatballs, cooking and flipping each side until golden brown, about 4 1/2 to 5 minutes on each side. Remove the meatballs after cooking and put on a plate with some paper towels to absorb the oil. [If you want, you can bake the meatballs in an oven on a lightly greased tray at 350 degrees – the taste is totally different than frying.]

Add the meatballs to your tomato sauce and finish cooking them up in the sauce. Serve with the sauce.