Bean and Chorizo Soup

I hate it when you have a recipe, and you don't have one of the ingredients, so you go buy it and then it turns out that you don't have several other ingredients. That's when you improvise.
Ingredients

• 12oz chorizo sausage, chopped or crumbled
  
• 1 large red onion, chopped finely
  
• 4 stalks of celery, chopped
  
• ~3c kale, washed and chopped roughly
  
• 6 cloves garlic, mashed
  
• 1 scant tbsp dried thyme
  
• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  
• 1 can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
  
• 4c chicken broth
  
• 1/2c extra dry vermouth
  
• dried parsley, olive oil, salt, pepper
  

In a large pot, start the chorizo cooking. When it starts to get a little brown, add the vegetables (except the garlic). Cook over medium-high heat until the veg are starting to get a little tender, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme and cook for another minute or so, until the garlic is "fragrant". Whatever. Add everything else plus some parsley and, yes, even some olive oil. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Serve! Thoughts: Claire and I both felt that this was missing something. We couldn't quite tell what it was, though. When we reheated the soup the following day, the flavor had improved - it was much richer. Even so, I think that this soup would benefit from, I don't know, mushrooms or something? I mean, this soup was good AND it was easy - don't get me wrong - but it doesn't have the depth of flavor I had hoped for. Disaster Index: 2/10

Spinach Avgolemono

A twist on the classic.
Ingredients

• 1 large white onion, chopped
  
• 4 cloves garlic
  
• 1tsp red pepper flakes
  
• 1 package frozen spinach, at least mostly thawed
  
• 1.5c orzo (dry)
  
• 8c chicken broth (or veg)
  
• 4 eggs
  
• The juice of 1.5 lemons
  
• basil, dill, parsley to taste
  

Heat the onion in some olive oil until it begins to look translucent. Then add the garlic, red pepper flakes, spinach, and orzo. Cook for a minute, tossing everything around, and then add the broth. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. In the mean time, in a large bowl, crack the four eggs and add the juice of ~1.5 large lemons. Whisk thoroughly until the egg mixture is frothy and yellow and completely mixed. When the orzo is just al dente, take the soup off the heat. Let it sit for a few minutes, then, taking a ladle of broth at a time (and blowing on the soup to make sure it isn't TOO hot), pour the soup into the eggs while whisking furiously. Basically, you're trying to temper the eggs. Do this with about 4 ladles-full of soup. When they're whisked into the eggs, dump the egg mixture back into the rest of the soup, stirring constantly. When everything is mixed in, serve!

Thoughts: Claire and I are a little divided on this: I felt like this was the best avgolemono we've ever made, but she liked the old avgolemono better. Even so, I would say that this was just fantastic. I don't think I'd do anything differently next time. You can add more red pepper flakes if you like - I think we eventually did. It gives the soup an interesting kick.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Oat Applesauce Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup raisins
  
• 1 egg

Combine the rolled oats with the buttermilk and let sit on the kitchen counter for 2 hours (we did it for and hour and 15 minutes, but it really should be for the whole time).
Preheat oven to 375.
In a small bowl, cover the raisins with boiling water and let them hydrate for about 5 minutes. Drain.
In a separate bowl, combine whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, wheat germ, and brown sugar.
Stir in the oat/buttermilk mixture. Add the applesauce, the egg, and the raisins. Stir to combine.
Put the batter in 12 greased muffin cups or a muffin tin. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Thoughts: While we were preparing this recipe, we were like "huh, there's no salt here. I wonder if we should add salt?" and "huh, there are no spices included. Maybe we should add spices." Despite thinking both of these things aloud, we did neither, and that was a huge mistake. The muffins came out chewier than we wanted (probably because the oats hadn't been thoroughly soaked in the buttermilk (because we're too impatient)), and furthermore, they were pretty tasteless. They badly needed both spices and salt. Thank god we added raisins (they weren't in the original recipe) because they added some flavor.

In the future, we would:
1) add probably 1/2 tsp salt
2) add cardamom or cinnamon or something -- maybe generic Baking Spice? Maybe 1/2-1 tsp
3) soak the oats for the whole time

On the other hand, this recipe is ridiculously healthy. The muffins didn't taste bad, they just didn't taste like anything. If you ate them with lemon curd, that would probably help. We might actually have a recipe for lemon curd. Hm.

Disaster Index: 4/10 - needs improvement

Eggnog

Ingredients

• 1 egg
  
• 1.5tbsp sugar
  
• 3tbsp good dark rum (I used Meyers)
  
• 1/8tsp vanilla extract (eyeball it)
  
• pinch of nutmeg
  
• 1/3c cream
  
• 1/3c skim milk
  

In a pitcher, whisk together all the non-dairy ingredients until thoroughly combined. Then add the cream and skim milk and whisk together. Serve!Thoughts: Claire did not much care for this, but she isn't a big eggnog drinker. I used to love eggnog, but stopped drinking it at some point. This stuff is great. I would definitely drink this again, though sparingly - it DOES have quite a bit of cream in it. This recipe makes exactly 1 volumetric cup - about enough for 2 people. Multiply as needed. In the future, I might add some cinnamon or other spices, just to see. Hey, I might go do that right now.Disaster Index: 1/10

Kumquat Marmelade

Very minorly modified version of a recipe we found on Serious Eats, written by Robin Bellinger, apparently based on a recipe adapted from 'wichcraft.

Ingredients

• 1/4c + 1tbsp sugar
  
• 1/4c + 1tbsp water
  
• 1 dry pint kumquats, sliced thinly, seeds removed.
  
• 1/4tsp dry rosemary
  
• 1/2tsp ground black pepper
  

slicing the kumquats is the most time consuming part of this. Put the water and sugar in a small sauce pan and heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Add all the other ingredients and stir around. Bring to a simmer and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, until most of the liquid is evaporated and the kumquats are more or less translucent. Transfer to a heat-safe container and cool, then put them in the fridge to chill.Thoughts: The kumquats we started with weren't all universally ripe - some were still a little green - but it didn't really matter once we boiled them with sugar. The result was pretty phenomenal. Next time I would slice the kumquats more thinly - this time we sliced them into 1/8" rounds, but next time I would just finely chop them and not leave them as rounds. That said, this was our first real time trying to make jam (or something similar, anyway) and I was really pleased with the result.Disaster Index: 1/10

Leek and Lemon Soup

This is based on a recipe found on the kitchn blog. We modified it, though, and I think we made a good choice.



This recipe makes about enough for 2 people, so you have to multiply it out to get more.


Ingredients

• 3 leeks
  
• 4 cloves smashed garlic
  
• 2tbsp butter
  
• 4c chicken stock (possibly a little less chicken stock plus some water) (or veg)
  
• 1/4c vermouth
  
• the zest of 1 lemon
  
• Wedges of lemon to squeeze into individual servings
  

Chop up the leeks and wash off all the sand. Heat the butter in a pan until it gets all frothy, then add the leeks and garlic and cook about 10 minutes over medium-high heat, until the leeks are starting to soften. Now add the vermouth and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for an hour to reduce. That's right, an hour. When that's done, turn off the heat and add the lemon zest. Stir to combine, and then toss everything into a blender and blend until smooth. Return the mixture to the pot and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with wedges of lemon to squeeze into individual servings - depending on how juicy the lemon is, you can squeeze about 1/8 of a lemon into each serving (or maybe a little less) to improve the flavor without overpowering it.

Thoughts: This soup is REALLY delicious. It has a unique flavor that's somewhat reminiscent of avgolemono but the leeks give it a sweeter flavor that matches the lemon nicely. The texture is weirdly velvety. And you know what? Aside from the huge amount of salt in this, it's pretty healthy. Note: as a follow up, Claire and I have made this dish like 4 times since it was posted. This is just really an unusually good recipe. And really easy.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Cleaning off my desk before moving, I found this recipe we made a while ago. I need a break from taping boxes, so I thought I'd blog this. It's my mother's recipe, though I think I modified it when I actually made it.

Ingredients

• 1/4lb ginger snaps or graham crackers
  
• 1/2 stick of butter
  
• 1lb cream cheese (the real stuff)
  
• 1 can pumpkin (12 or 14oz or so - whatever it is)
  
• 3 eggs
  
• .75c dark brown sugar
  
• .75c white sugar
  
• 1.5tsp cinnamon
  
• .5tsp ginger
  
• .5tsp nutmeg
  
• or in place of the ginger and nutmeg, use 1tsp "baking spice", which also has anise and probably cloves, I'd imagine.
  

Crush the ginger snaps or gram crackers, then melt the butter and combine thoroughly. Press into the bottom of a 9-10" springform and chill for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, beat the cream cheese in a mixer, then add eggs and then everything else. Make sure the cream cheese and eggs are at room temperature when you begin, otherwise the cream cheese gets lumpy. We had this problem - if it happens, mix everything together, then set up a double boiler and stir the mixture thoroughly until the cream cheese is more or less combined.

About 15 minutes before the crust is done chilling, preheat the oven to 350 and put pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven.

Pour the mixture into the crust and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes on a middle rack, until just jiggly in the middle (about 3/4 of the way in) but mostly set everywhere else. Cool on a cooling rack (or a stove burner cover) to about room temperature, then cover and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Serve!


Thoughts: Very similar to a pumpkin pie, but... well... better. The tangy bite of the cream cheese really helps combat the frequent dullness of the pumpkin pie filling. I don't have too much negative to say about it. Claire didn't love it as much - she's not a huge fan of pumpkin, but I think that for thanksgiving, this gives the original a run for its money.

Disaster Index: 1/10