French Onion Soup

I have always loved French Onion Soup, so good with it's crusty cheese bread on the top. Most recipes call for beef stock, but vegetable stock is just as good, if you've got nice vegetable stock. I ran into some organic, vegetarian, french onion soup stock, so I decided to brave making the soup myself. Lucky us!

After reading a few recipes online, I used (mostly) this one. I prefer the longer slices of onion to small chopped onion in this soup, although I'm usually partial to finely chopped onions. And I like my bread in the soup. But you can chop how you like, and serve the bread on the side if you prefer. On the second go-round I added more wine, and I think that made the flavor even better.

Prep should take about 15 minutes, depending on how you chop the onions, and cooking time is about 30 minutes.

Ingredients (serves 2):

2 medium onions, sliced
500ml broth (beef, veg, french onion if you can find it)
1 tbl spoon olive oil
1 tbl spoon butter
1 cup white wine
2 teaspoons fresh thyme, chopped (or 3 teaspoons dried)
1 clove garlic, chopped
shredded cheese to taste - gruyere is best, mozzarella is great, I used an aged, crumbly chedder, which was also delicious.

Prep your broth, so you can put the onions in as soon as they reach perfectly cooked. Slice your onions and then saute them in the butter and olive oil. The lower the heat, the less likely you'll brown the onions, but of course it will take them longer to cook. I like a medium heat, and I stay close to stir often, keeping them cooking without letting them burn. This can take from 10 minutes to 30 minutes, depending on temp. If you can stand there stirring constantly, it'll be fast. So prep that broth! The onions should be cooked, transparent, but not totally gone, because they will cook a little in the broth, as well. I accidentally over cooked the batch in this photo, but the soup was still yummy. So...

Once the onions are done, throw in half the garlic and stir for 30 seconds. This puts a little fry into your garlic flavor, which adds depth. Then add onions and garlic to the broth, also adding the wine and thyme, and the rest of the garlic. Stir and leave on the stove at a medium heat to cook for 15-20 minutes. Don't let the onions dissolve, best way to see if it's done is to taste an onion. If it's delicious, take it off the stove.

While the soup cooks, toast two pieces of bread. Baguette is good, but we had some nutty brown bread so I used that. After it's toasted, sprinkle cheese on top and put it in the oven on broil until the cheese is mostly melted.

To serve I put the soup in bowls, then put a piece of bread on top, adding a bit more cheese and letting that create a bit of a layer on top of the soup in the oven. If you have better bowls than I do, you can probably do this more successfully.

I guarantee that the first time you make this, it'll be delicious. Then, the second time, it'll only get better. It's quite fast, but seems like a fancy dish - great for entertaining, I would say. Now that I know, I'll be making this more often.

Yummmy!

Simple Side Salad - Raspberries

If you don't want to make anything fancy, but like the feel of a fancy salad, you can always get some lettuce mix and throw raspberries on top. This isn't even a recipe, but if you put together the salad dressing posted earlier, it'll feel like something special. And it looks beautiful!

Chipotle and Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

Finally some photos! Exotic and so delicious. I made my own adobo sauce (see below) and the cheese here is amazing. So enjoy this as a side, or alongside some sautéed green beans, like we did. I made a lot of extra, assuming this would be a nice leftover for tomorrow. Potato size is not so important. The important part is that they are cubed into pieces that are all about the same size.

3 large and 2 medium potatoes, cut into cubes
3 cloves garlic, broken by placing them under the flat side of a knife and pushing down until they pop
1 cup grated or crumbled cheddar cheese, the sharper, the better
2 tablespoons chipotles in adobo sauce (or one chile and one tablespoon adobo)
salt and pepper to taste


I like potato skins, so I cut my potatoes into pieces that have nice-sized squares of skin. If you want to skin the potatoes, I recommend cooking them whole, running them under cold water, then peeling them. The skin will almost fall off of cooked potatoes and you don't waste so much. That goes for sweet potatoes, too.

Boil the potatoes and garlic in enough water to cover them for about 30 minutes, or until tender when forked. Drain, add milk and butter, and mash roughly. Return to head and add cheese and chipotles, mashing until desired consistency is reached. Serve 'em up.

This epicurious recipe is nice for mashed potatoes and this recipe. I also liked this recipe.

Note: I like little chunks of cheese rather than grated cheese that's been well blended into the potatoes. If you are like me, wait to add the cheese and chipotles until the potatoes are mashed well. Then stir in the chess and chipotles with a wooden spoon over low heat. Yum.

Simple, Delicious Garlic Green Beans

Sometimes we just eat green beans for dinner, because they are so good. If you can figure out how to get a wok or frying pan hot, and at just the right heat, you can use butter and scald the crap out of some beans and garlic. This is what you want. It took me a long time to figure it out, so I can say from a place of experience: err on the undercooked side. Raw green beans are edible, burnt green beans are not. It all starts with a very hot pan, and if you've got some oil that doesn't burn until a very high heat you're on your way. I use butter and olive oil. I love the olive oil flavor, and the butter raises the burn temperature just enough. If you can be patient and just let your pan heat up, then add the oil/butter for just the minute it takes for it to get really hot, then add the beans, you'll make something really delicious. Good luck!


Serves 2 hungry people:

2 handful of beans, tipped and toed (chop the ends)
2 table spoons butter
1 teaspoon olive oil (as I said, pick your oil as you will)
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely


Heat your pan. And let it get really hot. Add the butter, and it should immediately start to bubble and melt, like true frying butter does. Drisle over your oil, so it mixes with the butter. Once the butter is completely melted, but don't let it brown, add the green beans. Be careful! If they are at all wet the whole thing will sputter and try to burn you with little flecks of very hot oil/butter/water. Ouch. Use the longest handled wooden spoon you've got to stir the beans, but allow them to settle for a minute at a time so they get that wrinkly skin you want. They should cook for less than 10 minutes, more like 5 - depending on the heat you've worked up.

At 3-5 minutes (or 1 minute before they're done) add the chopped garlic, and continuously stir for 30 seconds or 1 minute. Let the garlic brown a bit. A little bit of burnt bean skin is okay. But the brilliant thing about these is that they will stay crispy in a way. Having trouble getting this? Comment and let me know what happened. I'll do my best to help.

Adobo Sauce with Dried Chipotles

I love adobo sauce, the stuff that canned chipotle peppers come in. Well, here I've got some dried chipotles and no adobo. Why not make my own? How can it go wrong? There will be chipotle peppers in it.

Here's the recipe I used, although I did half the portion because I wanted to save some dried peppers for... later maybe.

Makes about half a cup of sauce.

5 dried chipotle peppers, whole
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
1/4 teaspoon of oregano
1/2 a small onion, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
2 tablespoons of ketchup
1.5 cups of water
2 tablespoons of malt vinegar (use cider vinegar, or red wine vinegar, if that's what you've got)
1 tablespoon olive oil


Heat a pan and put the oil, onions, and chipotles in to cook for about 4 minuntes, then add the garlic for one more minute. Add the vinegar to the water and mix, then pour it all into the pan. Add salt, cumin, oregano, and ketchup. Stir so things seem evenly spread. On very low heat, let reduce for 1-2 hours, or until there's about 1/2 a cup of liquid left and the peppers are soft. If you want it to be really smooth, take out the peppers, put the liquid in a food processor until blended, then put the peppers back in.

These are so good as a topping for burgers or hot sandwiches of any kind. They're not as hot as you think they'll be. I suggest chopping them up a bit and spreading them on a toasted roll, then adding black beans, avocado, queso fresco, and if you're into meat, some barbecue. Yummmmm.

Zucchini Sticks and Tortilla Espanola

Tonight I will make two dishes I have never made before: Tortilla Espanola and Zucchini Sticks. Making them simultaneously might be a challenge, since the zucchini needs to be served hot and the tortilla requires attention until it's almost done.

I searched around and found plenty of Tortilla Espanola recipes that agree with each other. Important points: the thinner you slice the potato, the faster it will cook and once the first side has cooked, don't be ashamed to use a plate to flip it (or put it in the over under the broiler for a few minutes at the end).

And lucky me, I found a fried zucchini recipe that calls for you to prep it and leave it in the fridge for half an hour. That might work out perfectly. I can deep fry while my Tortilla finishes cooking.

There are many, many recipes out there for both of these treats. There are oven-baked options for the zucchini, if deep frying freaks you out. Most of those recipes call for some kind of spray oil, which kind of freaks me out. I also noticed that a few recipes mention patting dry the zucchini once it's cut, which sounds like a brilliant idea. And another tip is to first put the zukes into flour, then the wet stuff, then the bread crumb/flower mixture. I also made myself some bread crumbs. Panko is not so readily available at the local Spar.

Bread Crumbs for 2:

One or two slices of bread. You can toast them or put them in the oven of 15 minutes. Once they're dried out enough, crumble them. Putting them in a large plastic bag and rolling over it with a dough roller works well. As does using your hands. If you use seasoned salt or garlic salt, throw in a few pinches of that. Or just plain salt will do.

Zucchini Sticks

I used a slightly modified version of Dianasaur's recipe.

So this went terribly for me, but the result was still edible and even delicious. My plan of doing two rather needy dishes at once was not a good plan. Take your time with these, especially the first time.

Serves 2:

1 medium zucchini
1 cup flour
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 large egg
enough oil (I used olive, but sunflower, rapeseed, or any veg oil will do) to reach about 2 inches high in a small pot.

Put the flour, egg and breadcrumbs in separate bowls, for dipping. Beat the egg until blended. Slice the zucchini lengthwise and then in half or thirds. Then slice them into four or five pieces lengthwise. That doesn't make much sense... Just try to make pieces about 2/3rd the size of your finger. Size does not matter, except they must fit in your dipping bowls.

About 40 minutes before you want to eat, prep your zucchini. Dip each piece into the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs and place on a plate. What happened to me during this part was hilarious. First I was making tortilla espanola, and trying to get the potatoes cooked just right. So I threw an egg on the floor, just to make it harder on myself. Then because I was rushing, I did a terrible job with the dipping. My egg was almost immediately made into sludge by flour. And often the egg didn't stick enough, so the breadcrumbs wouldn't stick either... But I made it through. Put them on the plate and put them into the fridge. This is because when you deep fry something, the best crispiness comes from a very very cold thing going into very very hot oil.

About five minutes before you're ready to eat, heat 2 inches of oil in a small pot. You'll probably do 5 or 6 zucchini sticks at a time, depending on the size of your pot. You want the oil to be very hot, so start it up and leave it. After 5 minutes or so, drop a little spare piece of your crumbly stuff (assuming your zucchini turns out somewhat like mine) into the oil. If it immediately starts to bubble and fizz, you're ready.

Prep a plate with a towel on it, where your zucchinis will go to lose some of their oil after frying. Using a slotted spoon, put about 5 sticks into the pot. It should go kind of crazy, but if it doesn't don't worry. It will. They only need to be in the oil for about a minute, maybe 90 seconds. You'll just have to experiment. The more you deep fry, the better you get at understanding the heat of oil and its relationship to fried things.

Dipping Sauce:

I mix a few tablespoons of sour cream with a little salt and pepper. The traditional dip is marinara sauce - that part is up to you.


Tortilla Espanola:

Essentially this recipe, although I took tips from other places.

Serves 2

4 eggs, beaten
4 medium potatoes, sliced very thinly
1 medium onion, sliced very thinly
butter
salt
pepper

The trick here is to get the potatoes cooked first. It should take you about 15 minutes to cook through your potatoes. I use butter in the pan, but you can use oil. Make sure your potatoes won't stick, because if they are as thin as they should be, stuck will be the same as destroyed.

Sauté your potatoes one layer at a time, turning them before they brown. You want them cooked but not browned. I don't know why. Because I was busy throwing eggs on the floor I browned some of my potatoes and it turned out delicious anyway. You'll do the same kind of sauté with the onions.

Beat the eggs and add a teaspoon or so of salt.

Once all of the potatoes and onions are cooked, put them into your beaten eggs and let them settle. Then tip the whole thing into your pan, and even out the potatoes so you have a relatively level dish. Your pan should be hot! And after 5 minutes or so you will notice that the egg is mostly cooked, except on the top. If it starts to burn or brown too much on the bottom (which happened to me) take it off the heat and flip it. How? Well, I suggest doing this over the sink. And get a plate that's just smaller than your pan so you can set it in there evenly. Quickly flip the tortilla out of the pan and onto the plate, then slide it back into the pan on it's wet side. It'll only need a couple of minutes after that. Alternately, before it's really browned on the first side, you can put it into the oven for 5-10 minutes, until the topside has cooked.

Flipping the tortilla is fun. And traditionally you'd flip it a few times to get the shape just right. However, that won't change the flavor. I would serve this with some chopped parsley on top. Slice it like a pizza and serve!

Jalapeño and Cheese Risotto

I bought some risotto rice the other day, because I thought "How hard can that be? Risotto. It's just rice, with some stuff in it. Right?" But then it sat in the cupboard, and I made pasta with pesto instead.

Tonight I finally went for it. Found a lot of risotto recipes online... oh boy. And the most convincing was the Jamie Oliver site. Plus I just kind of trust him, for no good reason.

I used the recipe for three cheese risotto, but omitted the cheeses he mentions and added a double glocester (my version of a jack cheddar, here in Scotland) and some jalapeños, straight from the jar. No fresh jalapeños here. We'll only be here another month, otherwise I'd grow some myself. Yum. Off you go!

Serves 2, and risotto just isn't that great the second day so don't over do it.
Total time: give yourself an hour, including chopping all those things (aka prep)

Ingredients:
a dollop of butter and a swig of olive oil
500ml broth (vege or chicken or whatever you pleasure)
200g arborio rice (risotto)
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 garlic clove, chopped fine
1 celery stick, chopped fine
1 glass dry white wine (or two shots of tequila, if you've got that handy)
75g cheese (preferably a monterey jack, but any cheddar will do) roughly chopped
small handful of chopped jalapeño peppers (note: this recipe is for jalapeños from a jar, if you have fresh jalapeños add them to your onions and cook them along)


Get your broth going. If you use broth cubes, put them in water and put them on the stove. Stir them in well (chop up a bit beforehand for ease of dissolving) and get them up to almost a boil. Leave broth on the stove, staying warm but not boiling, you will be ladling this into your risotto and it needs to be hot.

Put about a tablespoon of butter into a large saucepan on medium high heat(this will be the pot you cook the risotto in, so it should be a real pot). When it starts to bubble a little, add some olive oil (just a splash) and then add your onions. After 2 minutes add garlic and celery (and fresh jalapeños, if you're going that route). Cook for about 5 minutes, until soft. Stir often, so the onions don't burn.

Add risotto, stirring for about a minute. The risotto will start to appear translucent around the edges. Now add the glass of wine (or tequila) and keep stirring. Go ahead, watch the pot. And stir. The booze will cook off and the flavor will cook into the rice beautifully. When it gets almost dry, add your first ladle of broth. Lower temperature, the rice shouldn't be boiling, but simmering. Then, as the broth cooks into the rice, keep adding a ladle at a time. This should take 15 to 20 minutes. Test the rice after 15 minutes. Does it seem done? If you run out of broth, add a little water.

When the risotto is done, and you can tell because it'll be able to hold it's shape, take it off the heat and add the cheese and, if you didn't already, jalapeños. Stir in. Then take about 2 tablespoons worth of butter and whip it right in. Let sit for 3 minutes, so it can turn into restaurant grade risotto, and serve.

Garnish? I had some mixed green salad from a bag (yuck, plastic), and I put out some dressing I'd made the day before. See my dressing post below.

Feedback welcome!

Salad Dressing

The best way to ensure you'll include some salad with your meals? I say you should have some dressing handy - something delicious that store bought dressings never hit (besides Goddess Dressing, which I can't resist). Below is my simple fool-proof recipe, as well as variations. Don't be afraid to mess with portions and turn it into something you love. Dressing is easy!

It can also be super delicious as a dip for bread, by the way.

This basic dressing can sit on the counter for a few days with no bad effect. I keep adding to my little ramekin of dressing as we use it up. Olive oil is a preservative. Garlic is even better.


Ingredients:
equal parts:
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
two pinches of salt
two pinches of pepper


That is basic. Really. Once you get the proportions, you'll never go back to store bought. Then you can start adding things.

Asian Influence:
sesame seeds
soy sauce
peanut butter
rice vinegar

French Influence:
herbs de provence (yes, dried herbs will work. give it about five minutes and they won't taste like sticks.)
rosemary
thyme
sage

Italian Influence:
oregano
basil

For a little variety:
try adding a table spoon of whole grain mustard, or some peanut butter.
if you've got any fresh herbs, use a lot! don't be shy, pick a big bunch of parsley and chop it up fine.

Even if you use the basic four ingredients and just add parsley, you can serve it over plain old lettuce and salad suddenly becomes exciting. Experiment and taste as you go along. If it seems too taste-less, or too much like olive oil, add more vinegar or mustard. You can always revert to salt - it is a flavor enhancer and will make most things taste good. Just don't over do it. Add a pinch at a time until it seems right. That goes for all ingredients. Except for peanut butter. Don't pinch it, just use a fork and scoop it in. Then whip it up. So delicious.

Basic Potatoes

Potatoes are a tasteless starch for many people. Or they are an excuse for a vegetable as french fries next to a burger. Well. I make potatoes and green beans, and maybe a touch of salad, and call it dinner. The parts of this recipe which you'll have to adjust are cooking time and size of potato chunk. Every oven is different, and weird things can happen. Just go for it, and check in to see how your potatoes are going. The best part about this recipe is that if you over-do it, you'll just have deliciously browned - or blackened - potatoes.

Serves 2 (for two meals, great as leftovers)

Ingredients:

6 potatoes
olive oil
salt
pepper

optional: rosemary


How to? Pre-heat the oven to about 400F (200C).

Slice potatoes length-wise in half, and then slice into wedges. The size or shape isn't so important, as long as they are all about the same. You want them to cook at the same rate, so don't make some slices tiny and others bulbous. Roughly the same size and shape is all that matters, even if you make cubes, like home fries.

Take a cooking pan - this can be a cookie sheet with a lip, a glass casserole dish, a metal dish, whatever as long as it has a raised edge - and put about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom. Add about a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper. If you've got it, add two or three teaspoons of rosemary. Stir it up with a wooden spoon, perhaps, but I recommend adding your potatoes and getting your hands in there. Try to make sure each piece of potato is oiled, and then the potatoes should be roughly evenly spread in the pan.

No worries, though, because halfway through you're going to stir the whole lot.

Put your potatoes in the oven. Leave them for 20 minutes. Take them out (carefully) and mix with a wooden spoon (or whatever you've got). Put them back for another 20 minutes. Don't be afraid to peek at them every 10-15 minutes while they're in the oven. They shouldn't take more than 40 minutes to cook, but if they're not starting to brown, take one out, let it cool a minute and test it. It is really hard to over cook these babies, so your main concern is not cooking them enough. Eventually, you'll learn what it feels like to stick a fork in a done potato, and you can skip the tasting step. If you want to.

The First Post

Sure, everyone has a blog. I have four, but don't let that worry you. They're not all about cooking.

I'm no chef, in fact I'm only picky when I can be and at the moment I live in the tiniest town you can imagine. The store just a minutes walk from home has the bare minimum, and none of it is organic. The eggs, I'm pretty sure, are the healthiest eggs I've had anywhere. And the milk and cheese are fantastic. Scotland is good for those things. I can also tell what is local - the tomatoes are from Spain, potatoes are grown here, green beans come from Egypt. I'm trying to stay as close to 'home' as possible, so nothing from the Americas or South Africa. But I think Egypt deserves my financial support at the moment, seeing as they just had a revolution.

I don't own a car, so what I find for ingredients are either from the local store, the store in the neighboring town, or from a town I took a 45 minute bus ride to reach. That's where I got the really good chevre, and some pretty good double glocester. Also, the wine is cheaper over there.

But here's the point: I'm not running down the street in my fancy car to get all the prime organic, free-range, local ingredients available. I don't want to own a car, ever again. I live extremely inexpensively, and I enjoy making that work. If I could, I'd buy organic. But I make do. And I'm finding that I can make some really delicious food. So you can, too. I'll try to post photos with my recipes, and I encourage you to do something very important: shop around.

My strategy is this: maybe I have risotto, some onions, garlic, and bottles of red wine handy. What do I do with that risotto? Well, I look online. I find a bunch of recipes for risotto and I read them all, noting similarities and little tricks that some people include. Then I realize I also have jalapeño peppers - does anyone make jalapeño risotto? Blackle search reveals that I will not be the first. Again, I read multiple recipes. In the end I choose a basic three cheese risotto recipe, and incorporate those jalapeños when it seems appropriate. That is my first recipe post... coming right up.