Sweet Potato and Brie Soup

Let me tell you now, this was an utter Lobster. I found the recipe, serving size 1, on a BBC site after I’d already sent out a mass text message to local friends promising potato brie soup at HG’s (this place). As the original recipe only served one, I decided to up-size it to feed eight, and add some special dipping bread to the mix.

Now, when it came to actually making the soup, I fudged a bit on some of the originalx8 amounts– I used less water and brie, for example, because the first seemed to be enough, and the latter was too damned expensive.

Soup:

16 tbsp (8 oz) olive oil

4 sweet potatoes, diced

green trimmings from 1 leek, cut into small pieces

400ml white wine (Roughly half a bottle– a bit more)

64 oz hot water

24 oz brie (three cheap 8 oz wheels, Kroger brand)

Bread:

3 or 4 ciabatta buns, cut into 1.5-2″ squares

olive oil (splash some in according to taste)

3 tbsp butter (or more, to taste)

3 small cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Heat the oil in a large pot, and add the sweet potatoes. Cook until soft and mushy. Stir in the wine, water, and leek. Keep at a low boil until tender.

Use the in-between times to cut the rind off of your brie, and cut it into chunks. Stir it into the soup until melted. Continually stir at this point to make sure the cheese fully blends. It will start smelling AMAZING.

But first you must prepare the bread. Heat oil, butter and garlic in a separate small skillet. Dip both sides of bread pieces, and then grill or bake them for three to four minutes (we used a George Foreman Grill), until just crisp on the outside, but still chewy.

After the bread’s ready, start ladling the soup and dive in!

My primary recommendation for the future would be to use less olive oil in the soup. I typed the recipe as we used it, but I think 6 oz of oil would be sufficient. Otherwise, when ladling the soup you may want to use a 1:3 ratio of ladle to slotted spoon– that way you get the nummy juiciness, more tasty potato-and-leek, and less flavour-inhibiting oil. Alternately, use the bread to sop up the extra oil, and save it for last.

Enjoy!

What I want to eat right now

This is for Kimi– I’ll be cooking it tomorrow, if my zucchini can hold on one more day. This recipe comes to me by way of my New Mexican friend Megan, who I met in Northern Ireland. It is best served over penne, with feta. Because we needed it to be even more unhealthy.

Zucchini with Roasted Peppers, Corn, and Cream

yields 2 cups, 4 servings

1lb zucchinis, cut up
1 scant teaspoon salt
1 tbs unsalted butter
1 tbs veggie oil
the kernels from 1 large ear fresh sweet corn (about 1 cup)
1 fresh chile poblano, roasted and peeled, seeded and cut up
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
2/3 cup thick cream or whipping cream

1) sweating the zucchini: (I never do this, if you leave them for even a little bit too long, they turn horrible and salty and nasty but I shall type this bit up anyway) In a colander, toss the zucchini with the salt, let stand over a plate or in the sink for 1/2 hour. Rinse the zucchini, then dry on paper towels.

2) Cooking the veggies: Heat the butter and oil over medium high in a skillet large enough to hold the zucchini in a single layer. When quite hot, add the zucchini and fry for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the zucchini is browned and tender. Remove the zucchini, draining as much butter and oil as possible back into the pain. Reduce the heat to medium.

Add the corn kernels, chile, and onion. Stir regularly until the onion is lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes.

3) Finishing the dish: A few minutes before serving, stir in the cream and the zucchini and simmer for a few minutes, until the cream is reduced to a thick glaze. Add a little salt, if necessary, scoop into a warm dish and serve.

NOM NOM NOM.

A few catch-ups

First of all, for the cookies the other day I ended up using my original Almond-Hazelnut recipe, which is a Lobster, but prone to over-baking. I’d cut back a half-cup on the oats. Other alterations include subbing the 1tbsp of peanut butter for 1 1/2 of Nutella. These are cookies that lean more towards the crispy and less towards the doughy.

Sausage and pepper pies are flipping DELICIOUS. Major, MAJOR Lobster. Two changes I would make to the recipe as posted: One, use pre-made pizza dough, because the uniform thickness is helpful; two, after cooking the sausage-pepper-onion-and-garlic mixture, for the sake of your health (and the dough), strain it. Press it well into the colander to make sure all excess oil/fat is gone. Then split and distribute.

Next on the agenda of summaries, a big THANK YOU to my favorite Gaytheist for passing along Ben Folds’ new CD, Way to Normal. It is awesome, though I prefer the “leak”‘s version of “Bitch Went Nutz”. Also, for amazing fun times running and climbing around downtown Roanoke late at night. As I told him, hanging out with him makes me feel like I’m back in high school, in all the really good ways. And yes, I had plenty of good ways back in high school.

At approximately 5.30 this morning I finished reading Neil Gaiman’s new novel, The Graveyard Book. It is fantastic, and I’m re-reading it again already. Books I still need to get my hands on: The Dark Tower series, to fulfill a promise to friend; I’m a Stranger Here, Myself, which I owe to Butch for having left his copy in a hotel room; and… oh hell, there were a couple of things. Butch is also going to loan me American Psycho, in preparation for the musical (he also loaned me the movie in the first place). I need to keep an actual To Read list, however, when I have the time to sit down and do so.

Speaking of Butch, I finally watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which was fantastic. I may watch it again before I return the disc to Butch. Of course, I may alter that nickname of his in light of a conversation we had yesterday, which will lead to my next substantial post on Hetero Sexual Politics.

Finally, I would like to say that it is a great feeling to pad downstairs in my pajamas, socks, and sweater, to get my newspaper off the porch. That’s right, I finally fulfilled a childhood dream of having the newspaper delivered to my house. In honor of this, I will now close with a list of Things I’m Doing Right:

1. I pay my own rent on a two-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood of my preference.

2. I take excellent care of my cat.

3. I pay my own utilities.

4. I pay my own health insurance.

5. I own my car, which is paid off.

6. I pay my own cell phone bill.

7. I have full-time employment.

Granted, there is a lot of negative that can said for each of these (for example, numbers 1 and 3 are often late, and 2′s litterbox isn’t always cleaned in a timely manner), but sometimes you just have to sit back and say, Hey, I could be doing a lot worse for myself at 22. There are things I’d like to change, but I will do those as I can– there are worlds enough, and time.

Remodified Crack Cookies and more

I swear this isn’t going to be an entirely-about-cooking blog. It’s just that, since it’s my week off, I have more time to cook. Plus, I spent a hundred bucks on groceries, so food is on my mind pretty much all the time.

Follow me below the fold as I go on about the merits of soup, the Domestician, and finally get around to talking about my cooking plans for the day.

HotdogLobster II: Metamorphosis

So, I took a massive break in order to borrow a video, nap, and then watch the debates. I totally tweeted the whole thing, but just realized that I’ve entered the wrong number on my Twitter account. Hope to rectify that as soon as the stinkin’ thing quits being over capacity. I’d hate to lose my commentary.

And I didn’t get around to watching that movie (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid– may fire it up here soon). But HG and I totally NOMMED the fuck out of my bread.

2 c bread flour

1 c 50/50 wheat/white flour

1/2 c oats

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 tsp yeast (throw away 1 tsp out of a packet)

1 1/3 c water

1 tsp honey (it really makes a difference!)

In medium/large bowl, mix flours, oats, salt, and yeast. Stir in water and honey. Knead dough on lightly floured (read, heavily and repeatedly floured) surface until smooth and springy, but still slightly sticky. Place in oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover with a clean dishrag and place somewhere warm to rise until doubled in size (I set my oven to the lowest setting and prayed for the best.)

Lightly sprinkle cookie sheet with flour (though the recommended cornmeal or parchment paper wouldn’t reek as horribly when stuck in the over). Turn dough out onto flour surface, gently push fist in to deflate. Flatten dough, roll into a ball, and put on cookie sheet. Cover and let rise again until doubled, again.

Heat oven to 475F (not while bread is in there). Cut an X in the top of your loaf. Put it in the oven for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 425 and bake for another 20 minutes or until bread is golden brown. Voila! You have a thick, crusty bread that would be delicious with some creamy soup. I served it with tomato-basil goat cheese. Butch Cassidy-loaning friend said I should have used Nutella. Nevermind you, Butch.

Now, I will explain how this bread went from hotdog to lobster. First of all, I fuddied with the flour requirements. The original recipe only called for bread and wheat flour, 3 1/3 c and 1/4 c respectively. I decided I wanted some oats and more fiber in there, and fudged the numbers accordingly. This lead to a much denser loaf, and probably assisted the crustiness, but I have no problem with either of those. However, it did make me a bit nervous.

Also, having your dough rise in your oven is a risky prospect. You don’t want it so hot as to kill the yeast, or so cool as to not activate it at all. And I have yeast insecurity issues– you’re not supposed to let yeast into contact with salt or water, but of course recipes call for both of such things. I’m confident in my ability to sift and mix things so that there’s not problem, but Mr. HG had to be all critical again, and worry me, especially when an hour passed and the first rising hadn’t worked. But I muddled through with considerably more success than the Afghani campaign, and turned the oven up a bit.

And I did mention the awful smell of burnt flour in the oven, right? There was also a vague cirro-nimbus effect of smoke, just as a fair warning. But on the whole, that hotdog turned out to be quite a lobster. I think HG might have left me some. It’s okay if he didn’t, because we got to watch the debate at his house. With Republicans. RICH Republicans.

Now, I know I have class issues, and I’m not going to get into that just yet (I’ll wait till the Twitter feed is up), but I can’t remember the last time I was in a room with someone who *didn’t* consider earning $250,000/year rich. Choice quote of the night? Friend of HG’s parents asks me during our mid-debate pause to have our own debate about “what is rich?”: “Okay, so what do you do?” “Well, I’m a college graduate earning nine bucks an hour working at CVS.” Kind of gave him pause.

Seriously though, I’ll give my recap of that later. I’ve got some fun pictures and stories in store for you in the realm of Adventures in Recreational Craigslisting(TM).

HotdogLobster

So, today was a big cooking and baking day for me. The Homosecular Gaytheist came over and played new and interesting music for me while I fiddled around in the kitchen. And we developed the format for recipes in this blog, which is HotdogLobster. In the future, I will list recipes, then try them out, and then rate them on a scale of hotdog to lobster. The arcane origins of this rating system shall remain clouded in mystery, known only to a select few.

The thing is, I have something of a reputation as a maverick, in the kitchen. If I don’t like what my recipe says, I go against it! I’ll side with those crazy radicals who prefer to measure in “pinches” and “dashes” and “oh, another handful or so”. Of course, this mad experimentation, which is in no way reflective of my life in general, can have some… special results. Like, short-bus special. Other times I am made of win.

Todays’ Lobster was a recipe I cribbed from some magazine at work, because that’s what they pay me the big bucks for. It’s called Bell Pepper Pasta Sauce, and it goes a bit like this:

3 tbsp olive oil

1 c thinly sliced red, yellow, and green peppers*

1 medium yellow onion, halved and sliced*

2 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 1/2 lbs. plum tomatoes, cored and diced

pinch black pepper

fresh basil to garnish*

Heat the oil* in a large (and I do mean LARGE) skillet over medium heat. Saute the peppers and onion for 5-6 minutes until tender, stirring frequently– do not brown. Add garlic and tomatoes and stir. Cook over medium-high heat 13-15 minutes until thickened (toss in a small amount– a very loose handful– of flour to help this out). Add pepper, serve over pasta with basil garnish.

*I mavericked these items. You were apparently (as I see now, recopying this recipe from my notes) supposed to use only one tablespoon of oil, and drizzle the rest at the end. Also, I don’t measure veggies, I just sliced half of each pepper. And used what was left over from a giant sweet onion I had. And the basil was supposed to be in the sauce, not on top. But I’m a maverick!

And as I said, this shit was Lobster. Whatever I did wrong, I did oh so right. Go make it now.

Join me for Hotdog, below the fold.

UPDATE: HOTDOG NOT ENTIRELY HOTDOG. Turns out that ancient Cajun wisdom holds true, and Tony Chachere’s makes everything delicious. Also, add water.