Poblano Corn Chowder (Cheat)

While walking down to the train earlier this week, I could "see my breath." So it's officially soup season. Unofficially, I've been making soup for weeks. The freezer at work is chocked full of containers of butternut squash soup with white beans and kale, lentil and swiss chard stew, and one of two servings of pobalno corn chowder, inspired by the version served at Whole Paycheck.

I actually made the soup twice in as many weeks, using the last of the season's corn and some poblanos I found at the market. The first go around was largely improvised based on what I had in the fridge -- leek for onion, chicken stock for veggie stock, fresh red pepper for roasted, and mashed potato for whole. Yes, I used Trader Joes' frozen mashed potato to thicken the broth. The potatoes, which come in pellets are actually really good and extremely convenient.



And you know what? The improvised version turned out a lot better than when I made it again by the recipe. Just goes to show that most soup recipes can handle a little improvisation...and that everyone should keep some frozen mashed potatoes in the fridge.

Roasted Corn Poblano Chowder

Ingredients

3 Poblano peppers

1 Red pepper (or .25 C. diced, roasted red pepper from a jar)

4 T. butter

1 Celery stalk, diced 2 Garlic cloves, minced 1 Onion, diced

.25 C. Flour

4-6 C. Stock

1-2 C. Milk

12 oz. Potatoes, either peeled and diced or mashed

2 C. Corn kernels

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Place red pepper and poblanos on foil and put under broiler, turning until all sides are charred. When blackened, place peppers in a medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

In the meantime, melt butter in a large pot; sauté onion, garlic, celery, carrot.

Add flour to pot to make a roux. Cook over medium heat for five minutes before adding the stock and milk.

Bring the mixture to a simmer, add corn and mashed or diced potato. Carefully separate the blackened skin and seeds from the peppers. Important: Do not rise under water (you'll rinse away flavor too). Roughly chop the remaining pepper flesh and add to pot.

Cook uncovered for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste

Danish Potato Salad

I have yet to meet a potato salad I don't like. Scratch that - a homemade potato salad I don't like (some of the grocery deli case specimens are just gross). With mayo, with Miracle Whip, with a herbed vinaigrette, it's all good in my book.

So when I had my first taste of Danish potato salad this summer, I was hooked. And it's a perfect farmers market salad this time of year. You can literally find almost every ingredient there: new potatoes, jewel-like radish, crisp cucumbers, leafy celery, slender scallions, a variety of herbs and maybe even farm-fresh eggs. I used red new potatoes in my version, but they were a wee bit firm, so I'd suggest using a potato with a higher moisture content (that will break down a bit after cooking). I also used a bit too much scallion, so would also suggest tasting your vegetables as you go (How much of a bite do those onions have? Does the radish taste mild or bitter?) so you can adjust quantity as needed.

Sadly, summer is speeding by, so do yourself a favor and hit up your farmers market soon so you can try this salad the way the Danes intended.

Danish Potato Salad

Apparently, a true Danish potato salad has what's called a cooked dressing. I cheated and used prepared ingredients.

Ingredients

4 C. Diced white potatoes

Water for boiling

Salt for boiling

2 T. Cider vinegar

2 T. Dijon mustard

1 C. Miracle Whip

Splash of pickle juice (optional)

2 Eggs, hard boiled and chopped

1/2 Cucumber, peeled, de-seeded and chopped

5 Medium Radishes, sliced into thin half moons

1/4 C. Red onion or scallion, chopped

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Handful of chopped herbs (parsley, tarragon) (optional)

Method

Boil potatoes in salted water until just cooked through. Reserve one cup of the cooking liquid.

A la the Julia Child Method, drain and combine hot potatoes with vinegar and about a third of the reserved cooking liquid. Allow to sit and cool for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the mustard, Miracle Whip and pickle juice (if using). Add potatoes and toss to coat. Then add the egg and chopped vegetables, herbs (if using). Combine well.

Add additional salt and ground black pepper to taste. Chill before serving.

Soup for a Snowy Day

After a long dry spell, we've been getting "a lot" of snow in the metro NYC area this month. There was about an inch on the ground when I left the house today, which was nothing compared to the "snow day" last Wednesday. Fearing "blizzard-like conditions" (which never quite materialized), I elected to work from home.

There are two benefits to working from home: I had a window to look out of (since I worked from my kitchen table) and I was able to make lunch at home. In fact, I dragged out the root vegetables I had purchased at Union Square a few weekends before -- fingerling potatoes, carrots, parsnips and turnips -- and set to make soup.

Taking inspiration from Ina, I peeled (all but the fingerlings) and chopped the green market vegetables into small pieces, combining with diced onion and garlic, sea salt and Penzey's Parisien Bonnes Herbes mix. After 40 minutes in a 400 oven, they were ready to join the broth and chicken bubbling on the stove. I let a handful of egg noodles cook in the broth (yes, it's a double carb soup) and stirred in a teaspoon of dill just before serving...myself.

Although the garlic flavor was a little too pronounced, the end result was hearty and healthy, and gave me enough energy to go out and shovel eight inches of snow off the car. Spring cannot come soon enough.

Chicken Soup with Roasted Root Vegetables

*Note: I diced the garlic and roasted it with the vegetables but think that roasting the cloves unpeeled and whole would have given the soup a more mellow and more desirable garlic flavor. If you go this route, don't forget to peel and diced the roasted garlic before adding to the broth.

Ingredients

3 Carrots, peeled and diced 2 Parsnips, peeled and diced

1 Medium onion, peeled and diced

2 Small turnips, peeled and diced

3 Fingerling potatoes, diced 2 T. olive oil 1 t. salt Freshly ground black pepper, to taste 6 C. chicken broth

2 C. water

2 C. cooked chicken, diced or shredded

1 C. egg noodles

1 t. dried dill

Method

Preheat oven to 400.

Combine vegetables, olive oil, salt, pepper and extra seasonings (if using) in a large pot; dump contents onto baking sheet that has been covered in foil.

Roast vegetables for 40 minutes, or until they start to turn brown and caramelize.

Heat chicken broth and water in original pot, bring to boil and add egg noodles; cook for six minutes or until noodles have softened.

Turn off burner. Add roasted vegetables* and diced chicken to pot and let sit for 10 minutes.

Stir in 1 teaspoon of dried dill and serve immediately. This soup is best eaten fresh as the noodles will continue to soak up moisture as it sits.

Ham for the Holidays

January 5. Also known as the 12th day of Christmas, making it an apropos time to reflect on the holiday season. Although I am back to the grind, I did enjoy a great few weeks upstate with family and friends. And while I did not do a lot of cooking, I did do plenty of eating. But when I did drag out the pots and pans, the one ingredient that kept showing up time and time again was ham. Full disclosure: I don't even really like ham (it has something to do with college and the biology for non-majors class I was required to take -- I'll spare you the details). But there is something about spiral ham that screams holiday. So serve ham diced in a jambalaya-style stew, or hide it under scalloped potatoes, and I'll eat it. Especially if the potatoes are covered with leeks and cream and Gruyere, as in the Williams Sonoma Potato-Leek gratin recipe. I think this is a perfect holiday recipe because, frankly, it's time consuming to clean and cut and cook the leeks, and peel and slice the potatoes, and grate the cheeses. But the end result is worth it. An easier weeknight take on the recipe would be to use the ingredients to make a potato leek soup (after all, if you're going to puree everything, no need to take the care to make perfect 1/4 inch slices!). Of course, this is also a perfect holiday recipe because it's not exactly low calorie. But if your New Year's resolutions allow for a splurge now and then, bookmark this recipe. Happy New Year!

Keuka Gold meets Green Leeks: Potato Leek Soup

Hard to believe there are only two more weekends for most outdoor farmers markets (many shut down the weekend before Thanksgiving). Judging by the weather, and bounty of produce and prepared food at my local market on Saturday, you'd never guess. Since the end is near, I went a bit wild, dropping a bundle on staples like red onions, apples and yams, but also special items like Tuscan kale and vanilla yogurt and Indian food (you gotta love a market that has a stand selling samosas next to a stand that sells winter squash). However, despite being in a buying mood, I wasn't really in a cooking mood over the weekend. But with a new bunch of leeks, and those Keuka Gold potatoes from the Irvington market sitting on my counter for almost a month, I decided to throw together a quick potato leek soup. Keuka Gold (featured in The New York Times last month) have really thin skins, so I just left them unpeeled and diced the well-scrubbed spuds. Perhaps because I chose to leave the skin on, the final product took on the slightest greenish (leek) gray (potato skin) cast. But it tasted great. And was simple to make, leaving me more time to enjoy the Indian summer sun and less at the stove.

Easy Potato Leek Soup

Believe it or not, this soup actually freezes ok, but the components do separate, so you must add dairy after it's thawed to bind the ingredients back together. And if you bring a frozen container to work to heat up for lunch? Stir in one or two of those small containers of creamer at the end! This recipe makes two, 2-cup servings.

Ingredients

2 Leeks, washed and roughly chopped

1 T. Butter

1 T. Olive oil

1 Shallot, roughly chopped

2 Slices of Bacon, diced

1 Lb. of Potatoes, 1/2 inch dice (I used Keuka Gold, but you can sub Yukon Gold)

3 C. Chicken broth

Splash of milk/half and half/cream

Chives, minced (for garnish)

Salt

Fresh ground black pepper

Method

Saute leeks in butter and oil over medium heat for about eight minutes (until softened but not browned).

Season liberally with salt and pepper; add shallot and bacon to the leeks and cook for two minutes.

Add potatoes and broth; bring broth to a boil and then turn down heat and simmer, uncovered, until potatoes are tender.

Turn off heat and let cool slightly; puree with an immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender) until desired consistency.

Stir in a splash of milk, half and half, or cream before serving; garnish with chives.

Sunday Salads: Hot Weather Cooking

Summer has finally hit NYC with temperatures in the mid-80s and high humidity. So it was rather serendipitous that this week's New York Times dining section had an article with 101 Salad suggestions. Based on my farmers market haul this week ($16.40 worth of produce -- pretty restrained for me!), I've already made riffs on three of the salads. Number 30 called for red skinned potatoes, but I used a small handful of Russian Banana fingerling potatoes, sliced into half moon shape and tossed with a Dijon-shallot-lemon-olive oil dressing, capers and chopped parsley. It turned out a little too acidic for my taste, so I added a tablespoon of Miracle Whip to tone it down a bit.

I "slaved" over the stove the longest for Number 27. Without a grill, I had to soften the eggplant in a small stir fry pan on the stove. Despite the size of the eggplant, it took 20 minutes over a medium low flame until it was ready.

But at least I had time to make a pesto sauce and use some of the basil growing rampant on my fire escape. I blitzed about four cups of basil leaves with the zest and juice of half a lemon, 4 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of toasted pine nuts, one clove of garlic and lots of Romano cheese. It made a ton, so I reserved about 1/4 cup for later and tossed the rest with the chopped eggplant, grape tomatoes and half a can of cannellini beans. Stuffed INSIDE a small pita with some baby spinach, it was a light and refreshing lunch.

I love quinoa, and made note of Number 94, but was fresh out of mint (sacrificed earlier in the week for a pitcher of mojitos!). So instead, I decided to make a kitchen-sink style tabouli, combining quinoa and bulgar with a ton of chopped vegetables, parsley, crumbled feta and a Greek-style dressing.

Yes, it was a lot of chopping, and yes, I did a lot of dishes, but the end result was worth it. Now I have salads for a week's worth of lunches. Three salad recipes down and only 98 more to go...

Kitchen Sink Tabouli

Be sure to rinse your quinoa very well before cooking. The outer layer contains saponins, which tastes really bitter and is not always completely removed during commercial processing (as I discovered the hard way the first time I made quinoa!).

Ingredients

1/4 C. Quinoa, rinsed

1/4 C. Bulgar

1/2 Lemon, juiced

2 T. Red wine vinegar

2 T. Olive oil

1 Persian cucumber, diced

1/4 C. Grape tomatoes, quartered

1 Large radish, small dice

2 Scallions, chopped

1/4 C. Grated carrots

4 C. Flat leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped

1/4 C. Feta cheese, crumbled

Method

In a large bowl, combine bulgar with 3/4 C. of boiling water; cover and let sit for 30 minutes; drain any excess water.

In the meantime, cook quinoa in approximately 1 C. of water over low heat until the quinoa "unfurls"; drain, combine with bulgar.

In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil and Greek seasoning (a combination of salt, oregano, garlic, lemon peel, black pepper and marjoram).

Add all vegetables, the parsley and dressing to the grain mixture and mix to combine; add feta and toss well before serving.

Everybody Loves Hashbrowns

I come from a potato lovin' family (must be those Eastern European roots). In fact, my parents literally cannot make less than 5 lbs. of potatoes at a time -- be it mashed, scalloped, in salad or baked. Growing up, the one way we did not prepare potatoes was fried. Oh, sure, we had home fries (what do you think we did with all of the leftover baked potatoes?) but never crispy fried potatoes in oil. "Deep" fried potatoes were left to the experts (a.k.a. McDonald's). But I've learned it's very easy to whip up hash browns at home that are so much better than the "puck" served at the golden arches (and that's saying something because fast food hash browns are still pretty darn good). All of the main elements can be found at your local farmer's market, and you probably already have the rest in your kitchen.

Zucchini and Potato Hash Browns

I don't like using a lot of oil, so I fried these in a small, non-stick stir fry pan. The sloped slides also make for easy scooping/flipping. Since these are best hot from the pan, it's a perfect treat when cooking breakfast for one (half recipe) or two.

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini, coarsely shredded

Salt

8 oz. potato, peeled and coarsely shredded (I used the last of what I bought from Paffenroth Gardens at the greenmarket a few weeks ago)

1 shallot, minced

1 egg white or 2 T. liquid egg white

1-2 T. Bisquick or flour (to bind)

Black pepper

Canola oil

Method

Mix shredded zucchini with a few dashes of salt; place in colander and drain for 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix salted zucchini and shredded potato.

Add egg, Bisquick/flour and black pepper, mix well.

Drizzle about 1 teaspoon of canola oil in a small pan over medium heat.

When oil is hot, add hash brown batter in heaping tablespoons, taking care not to crowd the pan. Flip when edges begin to brown, adding more oil as needed.

Drain briefly on a paper towel.

Sprinkle with extra salt as desired.

More 'Props for Fingerlings

I actually ended up watching the Super Bowl alone this year. Well, “watch” may be the wrong word. I had it on in the background and would stop and watch a commercial or a play every so often. What can I say? I am not a big football fan. But I did feel honor-bound to eat football party food for dinner. Digging around in the fridge and freezer, I found fixings for Ellie Krieger’s Buffalo Chicken Salad recipe. While not quite the same as a greasy batch of chicken wings, it was actually a good substitute, particularly as I have never been a fan of skin-on chicken on the bone, miniature or otherwise.

To accompany the salad, I whipped up a personal sized batch of potato skins, using Russian Banana fingerling potatoes from the Union Square farmers market. Since I was already trading salad for wings, I couldn’t really justify frying potatoes, so I baked them instead, using a technique recommended by Elise at Simply Recipes. Even with low fat cheddar and Oscar Mayer ready serve bacon, the end result was gooey and delicious – so worth the minimal effort.

Better than Foam Finger[ling] Potato Skins Adapted from Simply Recipes

By nature, a fingerling potato has very thin skin. Ironically, I found it easier to scoop out the smaller fingerling potatoes, so try to choose ones that are uniformly narrow and scoop out “flesh” using your smallest measuring spoon.

Ingredients 3 fingerling potatoes (I like Russian Banana fingerlings) 1 t. olive oil Coarse salt 1 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded or finely diced 1-2 strips bacon, diced 1 T. finely chopped scallions Method Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare fingerlings for baking (scrub, prick with fork, rub with oil and salt); bake for 20 minutes or until soft. Slice potatoes in half lengthwise across narrower side to ensure maximum surface area for toppings. Scoop out most of potato “flesh,” rub interior with a little oil and return to oven. Bake another 10 minutes or until interior starts to brown and crisp. Sprinkle with cheese, bacon and scallions; return to oven until cheese is melted. Serve with sour cream or blue cheese dressing (like the one from Ellie Krieger’s Buffalo Chicken Salad).

Yea for the fingerling

Between the holidays, my social calendar and long hours at work, most of my recent dishes (and farmers market buys) have been old standards rather than new experiments. Perhaps the most versatile veg I've been consuming is the fingerling potato. I've seen them at the market for years, but only started buying them a few months ago. It's the lazy woman's potato -- thin skinned so no need for peeling, perfectly sized when cooking a frittata for one, equally good diced and boiled in soup, sliced and roasted as pseudo french fries or just eaten with cheese, as I did over Thanksgiving week upstate. Fingerlings can be stored for months, but they say the taste does change slightly. These had been stored under my parents' sink (I know, I know) for over two months, which may explain why the potatoes seemed a little dried out. But let's be real -- in this dish, the fingerling is the mere supporting actor and the star is the raclette cheese. So why this may not have been as tasty as my first taste of raclette in Switzerland, or the version available from Neal's Yard Dairy in Borough Market, London, to use the words of Ina Garten, potatoes and cheese,"how bad could that be?"

Easy Raclette

Ingredients

Fingerling potatoes, halved

Raclette cheese

Assorted condiments such as pearl or sliced onion, cornichons, etc. Method (for those without a Raclette grill)

Boil or roast fingerlings until fork tender, liberally salt and pepper

Place in in shallow baking dish, cut side up

Slice cheese an place over each potato, melt under broiler and serve