Soup photo

I made the red lentil soup the other night and tossed some arucola on top. It was insane. You guys really have to try making it.

PS. I doubled the red pepper. It had some kick!

Potato Leek Soup

Last week we got a ginourmous leek in our CSA box, so I decided to try
out a soup recipe that a colleague had shared with me. It was
excellent and super easy. Here is the recipe I loosely followed.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (I used 1/2 cup)
2 leeks, sliced (I used 1)
salt and pepper to taste
1 quart chicken broth
1 tablespoon cornstarch (I skipped this)
4 cups Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and
diced
2 cups heavy cream (I used 2% milk)

Directions:
1. In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter. Cook leeks in butter
with salt and pepper until tender, stirring frequently, about 15
minutes.
2. Stir cornstarch into broth and pour broth into pot. Add the
potatoes and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper. Pour in the
cream, reduce heat and simmer at least 30 minutes, until potatoes are
tender. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

This weeks soup

For some reason, I've really gotten into making soups lately. Last
week I did a fun potato leek soup that was amazing (I'll post that
too). Here's the one I'm going to try this week...

Red Lentil Soup Recipe

Be sure to pick through your lentils carefully. I somehow always find
pebbles or clots of dirt hiding in their midst. Better to catch them
on the front end, before you chip a tooth. And to make this soup
vegan, just skip the feta at the end i bet some chopped avocado would
be a good alternative.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 shallots, chopped
1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes

6 cups good-tasting vegetable stock (or water)
1 1/3 cup red lentils, picked over and rinsed
1/2 cup brown rice, picked over and rinsed
as much fine grain sea salt as you need

slivered almonds, toasted
black oil cured olives, chopped
feta, crumbled

In a big soup pot, over medium heat, combine the olive oil, onion,
shallots, and red pepper flakes. Let them brown, and caramelize a bit,
stirring occasionally.

Stir in the broth, bring to a boil, then stir in the lentils and rice.
Simmer for about 30 minutes or until the rice is very tender, and not
at all toothsome. By this time, the lentils will have collapsed into a
thick slop of sorts. If you need to add more water/broth at any point
do so a splash at a time, until the soup thins out to the point you
prefer.

Unless you used a salty broth, you will likely need to salt
generously, until the the soup no longer tastes flat. Serve each bowl
topped with almonds, olives, feta, and a slight drizzle of olive oil
if you like.

Serves 4 - 6.

Rice pudding courtesy of Joel :-)

Rice Pudding recipe (from Mops):

2 qt. milk
3/4 C rice (I often use 1 C)
Rinse rice and bring these to boil then lower to a simmer (stirring from time to time so it doesn't stick) for about 1 hour, until most of milk is
consumed. If you have it, I often add a piece(about 2 in long) of cinnamon
to the milk-rice as it simmers.
3 eggs
1 C sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Blend these together in a small dish and pour into rice mixture. Cook, stirring often (so it doesn't stick) for about 10 minutes more on very low heat (so it doesn't splatter). Cool and serve with raisins, cinnamon (if not simmered with milk), whatever else you like.

Jalapeño-Cheddar Scones

This weekend is our big camping trip and we've been assigned breakfast. I've been dying to test out these savory scones that I saw online a while back (http://nymag.com/listings/recipe/jalapeno-cheddar-scones/). Finally I'll get to use up some of those jalapeno's that are collecting on my plant out back. Here is the recipe with some notes in paren from my trial.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
8 tbs. cold butter, diced (separated)
½ cup heavy cream (I used half and half)
2 eggs
¼ lb. sharp Cheddar cheese, diced
2 small jalapeño pepper, minced (could have used more)
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tsp. water)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400. Sauté jalapeños in a skillet on v. low heat w/.5 T butter until soft, 2 minutes. Place in a bowl w/Cheddar cheese and coat with 1 T of flour. In another bowl, combine the rest of the flour with baking powder & salt. Cut in remaining butter with a fork until the butter is pea-size.

Lightly whip eggs and cream (put them in a bowl &whisk until they're pretty bubbly on top) and add to the flour-and-butter mixture. Fold into flour mixture until it begins to come together. Add Cheddar-and-jalapeño mixture to the dough & mix until everything is incorporated. Turn out the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead gently for less than one minute. Roll dough ¾-1-inch thick and cut into 8 triangles. Brush w/egg wash & place on well-oiled baking sheet (I used parchment).
Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. (I made mine smaller and baked for only 15 minutes.)

Follow-up to lemon curd!

As you already know, I have a new found love and its name is Lemony Deliciousness. I made my first batch last weekend, served up parfait style with blueberries on top.

This weekend we have a party to attend and I thought it might make a tasty summer treat. So I decided a lemon blueberry tart would be a good thing to try.

Having never made a tart before I had no idea what to expect (or what to do). But I must say that I am VERY pleased with the results. Below is the link to the recipe I followed, be warned... It's very unusual.

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2009/05/french_tart_dough_a_la_francaise.html

I had my doubts. But I was shocked at how easy it was and how good it turned out. I'm thinking of trying it again soon, but instead filling it with some homemade chocolate mint pudding. Mmmmm.

Homemade lemon curd

One word. Amazing.

Aside from taking the time to squeeze and zest the lemons, it basically took care of itself. At 10 minutes it still looked like soup and then voila at 11 minutes it was lemon curd.

Seriously, take the time to do it. Maybe 30 minutes total. Pop it in the fridge and then serve with fresh blueberries.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/LemonCurd.html