soup soup soup potato soup

So, to my surprise the onset of "fall" in LA still means soup. There were a few days at the end of summer where the temperature dropped ever so slightly and everyone wore pants and wanted to eat soup! I wanted soup all the time for like 2 weeks. Thus, my potato soup.

boil little creamer potatoes. drain. mash ever so slightly.
in another pot with some water boil carrots onions celery and add a good chunk of butter towards the end, and add in the potatos. salt + pepper too.

add cheese (lite harvarti= delish) to serve. cheesy and tasty and buttery and not too too heavy.
(i tried adding milk too the next day and it got too heavy)

so simple. so delish.

LA Farmers Markets!

I love these joints. The new Atwater Village Farmers Market is so cute and so close to my house. Just got some great produce and bread baked this morning! Off to make some great things... i'll report back later.

john's enchiladas

i've never made this but here's hoping i will before i forget they exist.

corn tortillas
chihuahua cheese
lil cooked steak pieces if you are john
no lil steak pieces if you are me (maybe something else, refried beans?)
sauce. (salsa verde, cumin, cayenne pepper, chili powder, mexican orgeano

bake it. luurrve it.

favorite edamame salad

since i am master cleansing currently... figure i'll blog!

romaine
dill
shelled cooked edamame
bean sprouts
avocado
carrots
cucmber

dressing: lemon juice, soy sauce, peanut oil, and reice wine vinegar mix it up so it tastes delish. and it DOES.
it's so delicious. it's fergalicious. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Turkey White Bean Chili

cooking light's recipe for turkey white bean chili is SO good, add a little extra lime, a little less beans, omg SO good. mmmm even the sizemore went for more.

1 tablespoon canola oil
2 cups diced yellow onion (about 2 medium)
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 (15.8-ounce) cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
3 cups chopped cooked turkey
1/2 cup diced seeded plum tomato (about 1)
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 lime wedges (optional)

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 10 minutes or until tender and golden. Add chili powder, garlic, and cumin; sauté for 2 minutes. Add oregano and beans; cook for 30 seconds. Add broth; bring to a simmer. Cook 20 minutes.
Place 2 cups of bean mixture in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth. Return pureed mixture to pan. Add turkey, and cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat. Add diced tomato, chopped cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper, stirring well. Garnish with lime wedges, if desired.

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: about 1 cup)

oscars spinach artichoke dip

for our party we used this recipe, inspired by cooking light's 5 star classic but doctored by Dr. RK of the EK

1 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
1/2 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese, divided
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 (14-ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 (8-ounce) block fat-free cream cheese, softened
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
1 (13.5-ounce) package baked tortilla chips (about 16 cups)

Preheat oven to 350°.
Combine all ingredients, but set aside a lil mozz and parm- Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until bubbly and then 10 more minutes after sprinkling the top with that extra parm and mozz. Serve with tortilla chips or the like.

this one was the crowd favorite!

cucumber salad, clam sauce

1. we figured out the secret to cucumber salad ! sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. mmmmmmmm
2. clam sauce! iron! clam sauce! iron! : boiled clams, strain the juice and use it in marinara... then rinse the clams and add them in and simmer mmm clam sauce! iron!

prosciutto wraps with port sauce

Wrap: Fennel bulb, 1 zuchini, 1 yellow squash, dill havarti cheese, dried basil, pepper, prosciutto over rice.
Sauce: 1 cup port 1 cup chicken broth 1 tbls of butter

Explanation: Idea came from A. fennel is yummy B. fennel has a bulbous round shape C. I had zuchini and sqash and rice in the fridge already. D. that roundness of fennel... i should go with that- wrap it! D. I had port in the house- that never gets used.

Process: I cut the fennel any which way to make it seem like it would work. I had never cut fennel before. The smaller rectangular (as opposed to triangular) pieces worked best for a wrap. Small = 1"x2" or so. Same size pieces of the zuch/squash and the cheese. My cheese was in thin slices. From top to bottom I had fennel, zuch, squash, cheese, prosciutto wrap, pepper, dried basil. *It's important to NOT add salt along with that pepper. Prosciutto= super salty already. I baked this in a glass dish for 40 minutes on 425. Mmmmm. For the sauce, just put all that stuff in a sauce pan and simmer until it's only 2/3 a cup. This took me a while. I was using heat too low. I'd go for a steady medium setting. I ate it with the lil wraps over the rice and the sauce on top of it all.

Next time: I think next time I'm going to not use the wraps. While really pretty for a little appetizer, it's just too much saltiness from the prosciutto. And the havarti gets lost. It's too melty of a cheese. It just runs all over the bottom of the pan, and you can't taste it in the wrap. The solution is: a casserole! Next time, I am going to use like an orechiette not rice, and ricotta instead of havarti. And tear up the prosciuttos into lil bits, and cut the veggies smaller, and reduce the sauce some of the way, then pour it in there and bake it all like that for a while. The sauce is worrisome- I don't know if it will turn into a big problem and just reduce way too much? Maybe with like 10 minutes left I'll add it in.

Moral of the story: potential is here. Such good flavors, I just am not satisfied with their arrangement. To be continued...

The EK's Roasted Vegetable Soup

Tonight's soup is inspired by Ina Garten's recipe for roasted vegetable soup. I did not come close to following her recipe, but was delighted with the result of my experiment.

Roast: Yukon gold potatoes, Sweet onions, Carrots, Yellow squash, The holy trilogy (oliveoil+salt+pepper)
Blend: With some broths
Garnish: With wonder cheese (parm), baby dill and parsley

I made these veggies last night, put them over whole wheat fusili, and stirred in some balsamic and butter while everything was hot. Delish dinner. The leftover veggies, (I made a bunch extra because I wanted to try this soup) I stuck back in the oven after I ate dinner, realizing that my handicapped blender I inherited along the way in college, might struggle if the veggies had any crisp left in them. So I roasted them to a good roasty level, took them out of the fridge today, and dropped em right in the blender with some beef broth and some chicken broth. To my delight, it all mixed together well, and I left some chunks in there to remind me it was veggies not baby food. I poured the blended mix in a saucepan, tasted it after it had simmered a lil while, and wasn't in love. I stuck in some leftover brown basmati rice I had in the fridge, and that helped a little. I was starving though, so I stuck it in a bowl and *here's the kicker* dressed it with a generous helping of grated parmesan cheese, plenty of fresh dill and fresh parsley, and voila- I had acheived superb! Truly, superb. I ate 3 bowls, gave my (wonderful!) roommate a taste and proceeded to start a blog. Given Chicago's blast of below-zero frozen depression that coincided perfectly with the Bears anti-climax in the superbowl, this soup was perfect today!