FOOD ON THE FOOD

Curried Zucchini Soup

Summer squash getting you down? Do you have enough bat-sized zucchini to supply a major league baseball team? If so, then you need to make this soup. It's bright and flavorful with Indian flavors and only requires a half hour of work. More importantly, you will use up a full three pounds of zucchini while furnishing yourself with lunch for a week.

Curried Zucchini Soup  

I like to brown the vegetables to give this soup extra flavor. Feel free to adjust the amount of curry powder to your liking. You can add a little cayenne, too.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium carrots, peeled, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 small onion, peeled, chopped
1 teaspoon curry powder
3 pounds zucchini (about 3 medium), cut into cubes
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

In a large soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat until it begins to bubble. Add the carrots, celery, onion, and curry powder. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the vegetables soften and start to turn brown.

Stir in the zucchini. Add the stock, salt, and pepper, and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes or until the zucchini is tender. Stir in the cream. Remove the soup from the heat to cool slightly before blending.

Using a blender, process the soup in batches until smooth (or use a stick blender). Reheat and season the soup to taste. Makes 8 servings (or freeze half for later).

Source: Adapted from The Dinnertime Survival Cookbook by Debra Ponzek and Mary Goodbody

Local Ingredients:
Zucchini, carrots: Waltham Fields Community Farm, Waltham, MA
Onion: School garden, Waltham, MA
Butter: Cabot, Cabot, VT
Cream: High Lawn Farm, Lee, MA

Roasted Salmon with Dill Yogurt Sauce

Well, we're off on vacation. As always, I've booby-trapped our home with poison ivy, both inside and out, so steal our junk at your own risk.

Before I go, I thought I'd leave you with a quick summer dinner that got the thumbs-up from the kids. It's from the book Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach. I can't find a single thing wrong with it. Enjoy!

Roasted Salmon with Dill Yogurt Sauce  

You can grill the salmon, too. Your call.

6 4-ounce salmon fillets
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used Green Mountain Greek yogurt, which isn't too thick)
1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Squeeze of fresh lemon
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Season the salmon with salt and pepper. Place it in a baking dish and roast in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until flaky but still moist.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, mustard, dill, and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve the fish with a dollop of sauce and perhaps some green beans.

Source: Adapted from Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach

Grapefruit Fennel Salad

To celebrate me losing all of my dessert cookbook weight, let's have a salad!

I've been enjoying this grapefruit fennel salad for months now. It was inspired by a recipe in Amanda Cohen's cookbook, Dirt Candy. If you're unfamiliar with the NYC veggie-focused restaurant by the same name or its comic-book-themed cookbook spin-off, I suggest you seek out the latter the next time you're at the library or your local bookstore. It's an entertaining read as it illustrates, quite literally, the reality of opening a new restaurant, Cohen's stint on Iron Chef America, as well as cooking techniques for vegetables. As the author and heroine of this graphic novel, Cohen dons her chefly superpowers with wit and humility. The book is great fun, as is her blog. Check out this hilarious post on how her celery salad went over at the NYC Wine & Food Fest. If you find yourself defecting to her blog, I'll totally understand!

But back to the salad. Cohen's version includes candied grapefruit lollipops and grilled cheese croutons, which are no doubt delicious, but my version is a little more pared down (read: lazy). I've settled on this basic arrangement: mixed greens with thinly sliced fennel and red onion, segmented grapefruit, and crumbled feta. The salad benefits from having something fatty and salty in the mix, so if you forgo the cheese, fill the void with crumbled bacon, chopped almonds or pistachios, or cubed avocado with a sprinkling of sea salt. The dressing, which I make with anise seeds instead of fennel seeds, is mildly fruity and refreshing. It's the perfect pre-summer salad.

(It also reminds me a little bit of dessert!)

 

Grapefruit Fennel Salad     

Below are my suggestions, but use what you like in the proportions of your choosing. Just be sure to slice the vegetables very thinly. A tangle of radish sprouts would be a nice addition. The amounts below serve two grownups. Scale up as you wish.

Salad
1 to 2 cups mixed lettuce, spinach, and baby kale
1/2 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced (only cut what you'll use)
1 red grapefruit
Crumbled feta, goat cheese, or queso fresco
Chopped salted almonds or pistachios (optional)

Anise Dressing
1 tablespoon finely grated grapefruit zest (from 1 grapefruit)
2 tablespoons grapefruit juice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon anise seeds
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the salad, toss the lettuce, fennel, and onion in a bowl.

Finely grate the zest from the grapefruit and set it aside for the dressing. Cut the grapefruit in half and reserve one of the halves for the dressing. To segment the other half, place it cut-side-down and slice the peel off the grapefruit in swaths, following the contour of the fruit. Then turn it over and cut between the membranes to remove the juicy flesh in between. Set the grapefruit segments aside in a shallow bowl.

For the dressing, add the grapefruit zest, grapefruit juice from the reserved grapefruit half, lemon juice, anise seeds, and mustard to a blender. Blend on high, then reduce the speed to low and slowly stream in the oil until smooth and emulsified. Add salt and pepper to taste. (The dressing can be stored in a covered jar in the refrigerator for up to a week.)

Lightly dress the greens and veggies just before serving. Arrange the salad on plates with the grapefruit segments, cheese, and nuts if using. Serve additional dressing at the table.

Source: Adapted from Dirt Candy by Amanda Cohen, Ryan Dunlavey, and Grady Hendrix

Parsnip Soup and Righteous Clichés

I have a milestone birthday coming up this year, like many of my friends. And as much as I'll be glad to reach it, I'm also bummed out about this whole aging thing.

You know what I'm talking about. Back in high school, everything is poised to get better. The braces will be pried off soon. The glasses can be traded in for contact lenses, maybe even the kind that turn your muddy eyes a cool shade of aquamarine like a mood ring. You're finally easing up on all the Aqua Net (step away from the can of hairspray, Tammy). The ugly duckling becomes a swan and all that crap. Meanwhile, you're making a little cash throwing together sandwiches on the weekends and you feel real smart with that diploma in your hand.

The world is yours for the taking!

In high school, you can't wait for college. In college, you look forward to getting out of college because all this studying is putting a damper on your social life. Plus, you want a fun job with a decent paycheck. You want a mode of transportation besides your own two feet. Dates at fancy restaurants. A place to live that's not a dump. Vacations. Soon you have some stuff, and you like your stuff, but you want something more. You want love. You want a family of your own. Then you get a family of your own and, for the whole first year, you can't believe what a horrible mistake you've made. No more dates at fancy restaurants. Your place becomes a dump. Vacations take on an entirely new and unwelcome meaning. Sometimes you wish you'd just stayed home.

But then you learn to stop being so selfish all the time and things gets better. Your family becomes your whole life. Does anyone else have kids as awesome as yours? NO WAY! IMPOSSIBLE! And then you realize something. Your kids are halfway through their childhood already. They're going to spend the whole second half hating you. And then they're going to leave.

They say you get better with age, but in what way specifically? Nicer? I don't think so. If anything, I'm getting more crotchety and even less charitable behind the wheel of a car. Wiser? Uh-uh. By my calculations, I'm getting stupider by the day. I've always been a wee bit forgetful, but this is ridiculous. I left my coat somewhere last week. At the library? At Walgreens? Where? How did I not notice my coat was missing? True, it felt colder, but all that ran through my head was: That's New England for you. One minute you're toasty warm in your nice winter jacket and the next minute you're shivering by the parking meters fumbling for change while the icy wind sucker punches you in the spleen and there's no logical explanation for it whatsoever. (I still haven't found it, by the way. My coat. It's puffy and gray with a big hood.)

The other night I looked in the mirror and realized that it's all downhill from here. This is as smart/healthy/attractive as I will ever be for the whole rest of my life. And, I'll be honest, the bar didn't seem very high.

Is this what a midlife crisis looks like?

Spring Parsnip Soup     

This recipe is stupefyingly simple. I don't even use stock anymore, just water. It's silky and surprisingly sweet. Snip a few chives on top and you have something tasty and healthful to warm you up on a chilly spring day when your coat is nowhere to be found.

1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
3 cups water (or veggie stock)
1 pound parsnips, peeled, cored*, diced
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Sauté the chopped onion and celery for 4 to 5 minutes until soft and translucent. Don't let the vegetables brown. Add the garlic and sauté for 15 seconds until fragrant. Add the water or stock and the parsnips. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the parsnips are soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool and purée in a blender or with a stick blender until perfectly smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Serves 2 or 3. The recipe can be doubled (just be sure to purée the soup in half-batches if using a blender).

*Some parsnips have a woody central core that runs from top to bottom. To remove it, I usually just slice the peeled sides right off the core, which is a slightly different color. (Then chop up the sides and discard the core.) But if you're not sure exactly where or how big the core is, you can also quarter the parsnip the long way. Then you can see it a lot better. Just trim along the interior edge of each quarter with a paring knife to remove it.