Green Pea Soup with Tarragon

This was devised as a way of salvaging another recipe we made. When we prepared this Julia Child recipe, we wound up with like 2 lbs of cooked peas left over.


Ingredients

• 2 pounds of leftover cooked peas (or else frozen, whatever)
  
• 1 red onion, chopped
  
• 4c vegetable broth
  
• 3tbsp dried tarragon... unless it's pretty freshly dried, in which case 2tbsp. Otherwise 3tbsp fresh.
  
• plain nonfat yogurt for serving
  
• 1 round of ham (4oz?), cubed and fried for serving
  

Saute the onion in a soup pot with some olive oil until tender. Then add the broth, peas, and tarragon. Cook until the peas are done or at least warmed through - about 5-8 minutes, depending on whether they're frozen. Remove from heat and put it through a blender until smooth. Return to heat and simmer, adding a little extra broth as desired until it's the right consistency. Stir in the ham. Correct seasoning. Serve with yogurt drizzled on top.

Thoughts: We've made pea soup before in a couple of different ways, but this was actually really good. The tarragon worked really nicely, and the soup was actually thick enough. This was the first time I really felt like the ham complemented the soup, too. All in all a really good recipe. I'd make it again.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Strawberry Tarte Tatin

Gotta blog a huge backlog of recipes.

Ingredients

• 1/2lb strawberries, stems removed, halved
  
• 2tbsp butter
  
• 1/4c sugar
  
• 1.5tbsp water
  
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract
  
• 1 sheet puff pastry
  
• 2 mini tart tins
  

Preheat oven to 400. In a saucepan, combine butter, sugar, water, and vanilla and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture just starts to darken. Then take it off right away - it will keep cooking while you wait. Meanwhile, cut puff pastry to fit the tart tins and place in the tins. Layer with strawberries radially. Pour the caramel over the strawberries and puff pastry and place tarts in the oven about 25-30 minutes.

Thoughts: At least, that's how it works in theory. When we did it, the puff pastry did not puff. So we wound up taking the things out of the oven, turning them out, putting the puff pastry BACK in the oven until it cooked properly, then putting it back on top of the cooked strawberries. It was kind of a terrible mess. This is why Tarte Tatin is baked upside down, I guess. Also, the strawberries let out a lot of juice in the oven... which wasn't to their credit. I would say the flavor of the dish was fantastic. It was just a terrible mess is all. If I can think of a better way to combine similar ingredients, I'll do it.

Disaster Index: 6/10

Green Mountain Cooler

Maybe we'll start a separate drink blog? Hm.

Ingredients

• 3 oz apple brandy
• 2 oz grade A maple syrup
• 1 oz lemon juice
• peach slices

Combine everything and shake it up the way you do with any drink. Pour it out over ice cubes. Put peach slices on top. Drink it. Makes 2 drinks.

Thoughts: We originally found this in an issue of Martha, but she recommends using apple slices instead of peaches. Why? I ask you. When you can use peaches, apples are just a poor substitute. So excuse me, Martha, for disagreeing, but the peaches go perfectly with the maple syrup here. This is an awesome, delicious, drink and I highly recommend it. Dan says "awesome."

Disaster Index: 1/10

Gazpacho Andaluz

Ingredients

• 2 thick slices of day-old bread, preferably French of some sort, crusts removed and cubed
  
• 1.5-2 lbs tomatoes (you can do all fresh or all canned -- it doesn't really matter)
• 2 tbsp sherry vinegar (we used red wine vinegar because that's all we had)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp ancho chili powder
• sea salt
• 1 medium-sized cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
• 1 small red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 small green bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1/2 small red onion, peeled and chopped

Put the bread in a bowl and drizzle some olive oil over it. If you're using fresh tomatoes, squeeze some tomato juice over the bread. If you're using the canned stuff, just pour some of the juice over it. Add 1 tsp of whatever vinegar you're using and set aside for 10 minutes.
Transfer the bread to a food processor and add garlic, cumin, cayenne, ancho powder, and salt. Process until smooth.
Put all the raw vegetables, the olive oil, and the salt in a large bowl. Process them (with the bread mixture) in batches until smooth.
Add any extra vinegar or water or salt to taste.
Chill for at least 3 hours before serving.

Thoughts: Sort of a complicated recipe, and that first step is just stupid. We would skip it in the future. Also it just didn't taste right. I mean, maybe I'm not the one who should be writing this post, since I don't like any type of gazpacho. Dan says "enh" about it. I don't know what makes this gazpacho "Andaluz" but so be it. It wasn't that bad, but we probably wouldn't bother to make it again. It was good as gazpacho goes, maybe, but we would try to incorporate more textural elements. Maybe we would blend the whole thing until really smooth, and then garnish with fresh tomato? I think this was a little one-note. Maybe also garnish with the cilantro oil we blogged.

Disaster Index: 5/10

Wheat Berry Salad with Tomato, Feta, Zucchini, and Olives

Based on a dish we had in Italy that originally uses farro instead of wheat berries. We couldn't find farro in our local Giant. Wheat berries worked just fine.

Ingredients

kalamata olives, as many as you'd like

chopped tomatoes, as many as you'd like

1/2 cup dried wheat berries

1.75 cups water

crumbled feta cheese, as much as you'd like

salt

pepper

basil (though mint would be even better)

olive oil, to drizzle on top

grilled zucchini, if you like that sort of thing.

The trickiest part of this recipe is making the wheat berries (i.e making sure you have the ratio of berries:water correct). We tried doing it on the stove, but you know what happens when you turn your back on stovetop wheat berries? They totally burn and ruin your new cookware (we actually salvaged the pot but we did start a fire and now our apartment is filled with the lingering scent of burned wheat berries. What does this smell like? PRAY YOU NEVER FIND OUT). We also tried cooking them in our new slow-cooker, which worked much better but which left a lot of water. If you do it on the stove, you will need to stir constantly. CONSTANTLY. SERIOUSLY. I would recommend using a slow-cooker, if you have one.
Once you have your wheat berries made, refrigerate them until they're cool (several hours).
Mix in your tomatoes, zucchini, feta, olives, basil/mint, salt/pepper, and olive oil. Toss. Eat.

Thoughts: Oh my goodness this is so good. It's like, taking all of the most savory things from the Mediterranean and putting them together and then eating them. It's exactly like that. The only thing we're missing is anchovies...we'll have to experiment with this. The first time we made this (on the stove) the wheat berries were not quite soft enough, but the second time we made them (in the slow-cooker) they were perfect. Seriously, I could eat this all day and it's hella easy. It's a really nice summer dish.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Creamed Corn

From Martha

Ingredients

• 6 ears corn
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter (Or however much you need. You need more? I won't judge.)
• 1 garlic clove
• .5 -- 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper, to taste

Grate four ears of corn into a bowl. Carefully slice off kernels from remaining two cobs using a sharp knife and transfer them to the bowl. Scrape cobs with back of knife blade to extract liquid into the bowl. Don't just scrape the knife in one direction -- scrape it bidirectionally. Otherwise it won't really work.
Melt 1 tbsp butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant (30 seconds or so). Stir in corn mixture, thyme, salt, and pepper.
Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for about 25-30 minutes or until corn is slightly toothsome. Stir often, otherwise the corn will stick to the bottom and your kitchen will start smelling like popcorn and you'll be like "oh my god, that's so weird -- my kitchen is smelling like popcorn" and then you'll realize your corn is burning. Avoid this.
Stir in remaining tablespoons of butter. Serve immediately.

Thoughts: This was sort of a pain to make. Grating the corn isn't the worst thing, but scraping all the cobs afterward was really tedious. There must be a better way, but I don't have enough time to attend to this sort of corn research. Someone get on that and let me know. But otherwise the process was easy enough. Despite this, I didn't really like this dish. The texture was all well and good, but the thyme made the whole thing taste like Thanksgiving, which was off-putting for a summer dish. Also I don't really like thyme, even for Thanksgiving. Should I have thought of that before endeavoring to make this? Possibly. I had one serving and then made Dan eat the rest. I think he liked it all right, though he would also put in less thyme in the future (ho ho ho). In the future I think I would see if Paula Deen has a recipe that involves cream or something. This one was a little lacking in the rich flavor I have come to associate with creamed corn.

Disaster Index:4/10

Waffle Cookies

A SERVICEABLE RECIPE.


Ingredients

• 3/4 stick of butter, softened
  
• 1/8c oil
  
• 1/2c brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1tsp vanilla extract
  
• 3/4c flour
  
• 1.5c rolled oats
  
• 1/2tsp baking soda
  
• 3/4tsp salt
  
• 1c dark chocolate chips
  
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
  

In a bowl, whip together the butter, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Heat a waffle iron and cook big spoonfuls of the batter according to the normal waffle iron procedures.

Thoughts: this idea is almost as cool as it sounds. And it nearly works. But there need to be some modifications. For starters, I would add baking powder. The soda just creates a basic environment so you get browning, but I wanted a little lift. Second of all, I would soak the oats for at least an hour beforehand in milk. I thought the cookies turned out pretty dry, and that's a danger if you're basically creating MORE surface area. I think the oats should help retain moisture, but they need to have moisture to begin with. Flavor was good, though I had to adjust the salt up from 1/4tsp... .75tsp may be an understatement as compared with what I eventually used. Finally, I would probably use whole wheat flour, but that's just me. In general, though, the recipe needs more moisture somewhere. The trick is to sneak it in without ruining the consistency of the dough.

Disaster Index: 3/10, but I'd definitely try it again.