Soup

One of the best things about Winter, IMHO, is soup.

I have this soup on the stove right now.

3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
1 cup peeled, cored and coarsely chopped Granny Smith apple
1 cup peeled and coarsely chopped turnip
1 cup peeled and chopped butternut squash (seeds discarded)
1 cup coarsely chopped carrot
1 cup peeled, chopped sweet potato
5 cups vegetable (or chicken) stock
1/4 cup maple syrup
Cayenne pepper
1 small whole-grain baguette
3 oz goat cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives

For soup, heat oil in a large saucepan on medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent. Add apple, turnip, squash, carrot, and sweet potato; season with salt, then sauté 5 minutes. Add stock, bring to a boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add syrup, then cayenne pepper to taste. Cool slightly. Puree with a handheld mixer, food processor or blender. For toast toppers, cut 6 slices bread and toast them. Spread 1/2 oz goat cheese on top of each; sprinkle with chives. Pour soup into 6 large bowls; float toast on top.

My proportions are off from the recipe; I had a lot of little, multi-colored carrots from my CSA and no turnip. But that's the great thing about soup! I peeled and chopped listening to Handel's Water Music, which is likely the one CD I'd take to the desert island -- you know, the desert island where you can take one book, one CD (played by solar power, I guess), one photograph from your past, and one important memory.

Yesterday, DiL, who is a really, really brilliant cook, made butternut squash soup with grated gruyere cheese. Damn, that was good! I ate two bowls!

The other wonderful thing about soup is that it often gets better served as leftovers when the flavors have had time to meld. I'll freeze some of this soup, take some for lunch a few days this week, have a bowl nuked in the microwave when I get home late, starved, and cold. Fiber, Vitamin A, and the extra, not-to-be-discounted health benefits of warm, filling, brightly-colored, and spicy food eaten in a warm kitchen in the heart of darkness.

Picture found here.

What's your favorite soup recipe?

Ginger Shrimp

I got this recipe from the divine Vicki at Eschaton.

Ginger Shrimp

1# shrimp, deveined, with tails intact

Marinade:

1 T chopped, fresh ginger (1 t ground ginger works, too)

1/4 t red pepper flakes

2 T finely chopped parsley (2 t dried parsley is okay)

1 bay leaf

1/4 teason thyme

2 T olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper, to taste

Combine the marinade ingredients and mix well. Marinate the shrimp at room temperature for a half an hour.

Meanwhile, melt:

6 T butter, combined with one crushed clove of garlic.

Broil, saute, or grill the shrimp for a minute or two. Turn them over, and
cook for 2 - 3 additional minutes.


For the last two months of her pregnancy, my brilliant DiL was on bed rest. On Saturdays, I'd cook up storm: a pot of vegetable pistou or of chicken, sweet potato, and wild rice soup, a roast chicken, collards, corn bread, tapioca pudding, spanikopita, stuffed peppers, walnut bars, berry salad with sugared ricotta dressing, blood oranges, grapefruit, pomegranate, and kiwi in honey, whatever I could cook up so that she'd stay off her feet. Someone, her doctor or childbirth coach or doula -- I forget who -- advised DiL to eat as much protein as possible, and so I made this shrimp recipe several times; Son and DiL both like shrimp and it's pretty much protein.

So, tomorrow is G/Son's third B/Day party. DiL has about 30 people, most of them three years of age or younger, coming over to her lovely, warm, inviting home. I cooked up four pounds of ginger shrimp, remembering those cold, scary months when we all worked every kind of magic that we could work to get G/Son safely here. And, I did that v odd magic that I've been doing for almost 20 years, I sent magic back to my scared self in 2006, standing at the counter chopping ginger and garlic, squeezing lemons, melting butter. I tell myself: It will turn out better than you can imagine. You can do this. Hang in there. It will be ok. And, back in 2006, I use and depend upon that magic.

Damn. This Is Good.

And, oddly appropriate for early Spring. The combination of two root vegetables -- parsnips and horseradish -- with two Spring vegetables -- parsley and chives -- somehow really works. I used vegetable broth and tripled the amount of parsley and chives. Parsnips have a lot of fiber and some vitamin C, vitamin K, and potassium.


INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 pounds of parsnips, peeled and cut into 2 1/2 inch batons
4 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup of stock - turkey stock, low-sodium chicken stock or vegetable broth
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
4 teaspoons drained, bottled horseradish (how to make homemade horseradish)
1/2 Tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 Tbsp minced chives
1/2 small garlic clove, minced.

METHOD
1 Pre-heat oven to 400°F. In a large roasting pan, toss the parsnips with the olive oil, salt and pepper. (Use a roasting pan with sides no more than 2 inches high.) Add the broth, cover with aluminum foil and roast, stirring once or twice, until the parsnips are tender and the stock has evaporated or been absorbed, 30-45 minutes. Check often to avoid their getting mushy - especially if they are to be reheated later.
2 Combine the softened butter with the horseradish, parsley, chives and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Toss the warm roasted parsnips with the horseradish-herb butter and serve.
3 The parsnips (with the oil, salt, pepper, and broth) can be pre-cooked in a covered container in the microwave for 5 minutes. Transfer to oven to finish cooking in a much shorter time. You may want to uncover them to help evaporate the liquid when in the oven.

Recipe found here.

Picture found here.

Condom Ads Rejected

My brilliant friend, E., alerted me to this:

WITH CONDOMS IN PARTICULAR, LOCAL STATIONS CAN SAY NO

[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Adam Newman]

Controversy over a new advertising campaign by Trojan, the condom maker, has trickled down to the local level, with television stations in Pittsburgh roundly refusing to show it, and stations in Seattle giving it the green light. When Trojan introduced the condom commercial last month, it was rejected as national advertising by both CBS and Fox. Fox said it objected to the message that condoms can prevent pregnancy, while CBS said it was not "appropriate," drawing a firestorm of criticism from public health advocates and bloggers. But Trojan, which is owned by Church & Dwight and a private equity firm, Kelso & Company, was in for more unhappy surprises last week. Local affiliates in Pittsburgh for ABC and NBC, two networks that had agreed to run the ad nationally, also snubbed it. The odd effect of these decisions will be that viewers in the Pittsburgh area will be able to see the commercials during national advertising slots on ABC or NBC — if with less frequency. Stations sell their own commercial slots as well, to local and national advertisers, and the ads are subject to local review even if they pass muster with networks.

E. adds: OK, the thing that's the WACKIEST here is that Fox objects to the ads because they claim "that condoms can prevent pregnancy" UM, EXCUSE ME, BUT WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, CONDOMS DO IN FACT PREVENT PREGNANCY YOU MORONS.

Jeebus!

What E. said.

Cancer Prevention Cabbage

Thorn has up a brilliant rant today that I think everyone should read. She discusses the problems caused by high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and points out that:

It is also a class issue in that healthier, organic, foods are more expensive these days, as opposed to a few generations ago when simple, non-processed, foods were cheaper. The situation also points to the ways in which our society has shifted to one where most people have to work too much to make ends meet and therefore don’t have as much time to cook nourishing food, so rely on processed, pre-packaged products, or worse, “fast food,” all of which are filled with HFCS. Diabetes is not the only physical problem caused by this.

HFCS is cheap and putting it in food keeps agribusiness rich.

Green smoothies are one easy way to have a quick meal that doesn't include HFCS. Another easy meal that I cook up on the weekends and then have several nights a week is Susun Weed's Cancer Prevention Cabbage.

Place some dried seaweed in water and let it sit. In olive oil, saute shredded cabbage and chopped onions. Add some grated carrots and continue cooking. Chop up the by-now softened seaweed and add that and the water to the sauted vegetables. Add some organic tamari (I especially like the wasabi-flavored tamari I get at Whole Foods). You can serve this alone or with rice or barley. You can top with sunflower seeds, as well. Even if you think that you don't like cabbage, you'll like this.

Recipe Blogging

So it was close, but JoAnna Colbert's Green Smoothies narrowly won the poll over Susn Weed's Cancer Prevention Cabbage. JoAnna's a wonderful artist and has one of the friendliest blogs on the internet tubes. Back in early February, when it seemed to me that Spring would NEVER come, she posted this recipe for a green smoothie. Every year along about February, I start to crave greens, longing for dandelion, baby spinach, leeks, butter lettuce, baby peas. So, odd as the recipe sounds, I tried it and have been having one or two a week ever since. A week or so ago, I tried it on the women with whom I get together once a week for exercise and a healthy dinner and they really liked it, as well. You really have to try the recipe rather than just imagining what it might taste like; it tastes lots better than it sounds. I've adjusted the recipe a bit for my taste, but the link will take you to JoAnna's blog for the original recipe

In a blender, mix the following:


1/2 ripe banana
1/2 cup frozen fruit (I use peaches or blueberries, but am thinking of trying rubarb)
LOTS of greens — salad greens, spinach, kale, etc — LOTS (I add broccoli sprouts, as well)
1/2 cucumber, peel and all (must be organic if you're eating the peel)
1 Tbsp. flaxseed oil (I buy this with lemon flavoring, but, trust me, you're not going to taste it).

Something about the banana and the cucumber make this taste fresh and springy and good.

Obviously, we're all supposed to eat lots more green vegetables than we ever manage to eat, so this is a great way to get several servings at once. Flax seed oil has been shown to have some cancer prevention properties and, depending upon which kind of fruit you choose, you're going to get phytochemicals. The banana has some potassium. Broccoli sprouts have been shown to fight breast cancer and I can't stand to eat them by themselves, but I can put quite a lot of them in this recipe and hardly taste them.

Oddly, the one time of day that I don't tolerate this very well is breakfast. It's good for lunch or dinner, though. And easy.

Update: In comments, JoAnna asks that her circle sister, Elaine Nichols, get credit for the smootie recipe. Thanks very much, Ms. Nichols for developing this recipe!