Is It Fall?: Carrot Soup

It’s.. I don’t know.. 6,000 degrees outside and 250% humidity.

What better meal than a smattering of local summer flavors (fresh littleneck clams), sweet summer corn, and..

Carrot soup with nutmeg.

Nothing says summer like nutmeg.

Here’s the way this was done.

1. A bunch of local carrots. About half came from my garden, 1/4 from our CSA and 1/4 from god knows where with god-knows-what chemicals, feces, and the imprinted suffering of our planet.
2. A handful of small onions from my garden.
3. A small new potato from my garden.
4. A delicious red beet from my garden.
5. Fennel from a local farm.
6. Olive oil from… the supermarket.
7. A blender from the day my wife and I got married 14 years ago.

Chop the onions and fennel into small random bits. It’s all going to get blended so don’t worry about being a slicing artist. For the fennel, cut the dilly leaves, the celery-like stalks and the bulbous bulb. It’s all fennely. Get some olive oil going and chuck your onions in.. sweat them. Chuck in the fennel. Cut up the potato and beet. Chuck them in. Sweat them all a bit until they’ve flavored one another scandalously. Get your carrots sliced up and chuck them in also. The thinner you get everything, the faster it will all get soft. The carrots will outnumber the other veggies by a lot.

Cover it up and let it stew a bit until it’s all getting tender. Now, add some spice. I used nutmeg, salt and pepper. (After eating it, a little ginger would not have hurt.) Add some moisture. Chicken stock is great.

Veggie stock is great. Water works too. That’s what I used. I covered up the mixture to about 1/8 inch over.

Let it stew a bit.

Now, if you’ve got one of those cool wand blenders, go to town. Puree away.

If you’re like me, you don’t have one of those cool wand blenders. Go ahead and use your Isaac-The-Bartender-From-The-Love-Boat blender. Spoon it all in. Puree away. You want to eliminate any vegetable individuality. Those stinkin’ veggies are too uppity anyway and too sure of themselves. Make ‘em all look like a paler shade of carrot, that’ll teach ‘em.

Get it back to your pot and let it simmer. If you want to add some more moisture to thin it a bit, go for it. I did.

It looks a little bit like baby food, but it’s all adult. Just look at this picture of my son trying to pretend like he likes it. Are you fooled? That took 15 pictures with me saying “work it, work it.. you love it baby, you love it… it’s like chocolate.. yeah, yeah that’s it.. now smile, now pout, now primp… you are a golden god of carrot eating.”

Anyway. The soup is great. Could have been a bit sweeter.

The littleneck clams, the sweet corn, the soup, the beer…. great, wholly mismatched meal.

Filed under: recipes , carrot soup recipe

Cook It, Post It: Ginger Dressed Chard

A special treat!  This blog entry from guest blogger Chris.  He cooks.

 

I cook whatever he grows

He arrived uninvited late last Sunday night. In one hand, a bag bursting with freshly picked Swiss chard and in the other hand, two feet of wilted, gasping heirloom tomato. Without a word he handed me the chard and moved through my house to our back deck. In a moment he planted the forlorn fruit in an old bucket. He came into the house, jerked his head toward the chard and whispered, “Cook it, post it”. Then he was gone.

I should explain. Sjones71 (Compostings) is one of my best friends and lives less than a mile from me. But last year I watched his slide into vegetable garden obsession. No, I didn’t just watch, I helped. I bought him books and a grow light. I helped build the fence, and promised to pitch in a lot more than I did… I’m an enabler.

Then the bounty came in and I got addicted to the fresh stuff. So, now I cook what he grows (or gathers- he should post about his adventure in wild grape foraging).

When he asked if I would post about something I cooked from his garden, it seemed like any easy way to support his compulsion, without actually perspiring.

Let me level set. I’m a passionate home cook with NO formal kitchen experience.

So at his request I post my attempts at improving on what nature made perfect. Here is how I perverted this beautiful chard last night.

Ginger Dressed Chard.

Swiss chard cooks fast. You must be faster. So do your prep. Make this delicious pseudo Japanese ginger dressing  (or try a good bottled version).  Wash the leaves thoroughly, unless they are from your friend’s house, who you trust implicitly.  Lots of books suggest using a knife to strip the leaves from the stem like a razor on a strap, but I find it faster to just fold them in half on the stem and pull or cut the stem along the fold. Tear the leaves into smaller pieces. Do not dry the leaves.

Heat a pan over medium heat with a tablespoon of olive oil. When oil shimmers add 2 tablespoons of dressing. Watch closely as the dressing carmelizes. As soon as it thickens and darkens slightly, add the chard. Stir. The wet leaves will deglaze the pan and pick up all the carbonized goodness.

Keep stirring, keep watching. In my limited experience there is a very small window for perfectly cooked chard. I overcooked it last night, but drizzle a little of the cool ginger dressing in the center and all is forgiven.

Alright, that ought to be enough for farmer Jones to keep the veg flowin.

 

Filed under: recipes , chard recipe, ginger dressed chard, swiss chard