Leek Stock: 100 Days of Recipes, Day 59

It feels like it's the pinnacle of harvest time at the Tailgate Markets, with flowers and plant starts everywhere, strawberries and blueberries abounding, piles of greens, radishes, squash, carrots, garlic... it goes on and on (and don't forget the cheeses, eggs, fish, poultry, and meats), and the tomatoes are JUST starting! It's a huge blessing of abundance, and I feel like it anchors my week when I get to stroll an early Saturday morning away through the crowds and chat with the wonderful people who produce all this goodness.

I've also been more mindful of getting as much as I can out of all the wonderful locally produced foods I bring home, and that's included looking at the parts that often get relegated to the stock pot or even the trash bin. I love making good veggie stocks out of skins, tops, and other bits and pieces, and I usually keep a bag or two in the freezer on hand to collect all those scraps. It didn't occur to me to make specific stocks out of just one ingredient (possibly because I have a skinny 'side' freezer, and I have to be creative about the 'stock' items I keep in addition to all my other freezer residents). That was about to change.

My Tailgate finds for the weekend - those lovely, wide, bands
of green are my leek tops!

This weekend, I picked up a generous bunch of beautiful leeks, and unlike those I might get at the grocery store, these have not had their green tops trimmed down, so there was a LOT of extra greens. To be honest, to save time I might just lop off the top third (the really green parts) and toss them, saving the rest of the stalk (minus the bulb) for stock. But they smelled so good, and were just so beautiful, I couldn't believe they wouldn't be good to eat with the proper treatment - I knew they could be a great steaming bed or wrapper for fish, and I had seen them used to tie up a 'bouquet garni', but I hoped for more. A quick scan online showed me multiple recipes using leek greens, so I knew I wanted to keep them for something better than 'just stock'.

Leeks pre-blanche: I wish you could smell this - leek heaven!

They are a lot tougher, and are more fibrous, than the softer parts near the bulb, so I cut them into smaller pieces and then blanched them. Actually, I'd say I did more of a double or triple blanching - not just a quick toss in boiling water, but more of a simmer for about 5 minutes. I was multi-tasking so ended up letting the leeks cool in the liquid on the stove before draining them into a big bowl.

I changed my mind - NOW I wish you could smell this!

So now I have these beautifully softened leek tops, ready for a nice leek tart, or maybe inclusion in a meatloaf, or a curry, or who knows what else? Even better, I have this GORGEOUS leek stock. I really didn't even think about that part when I was simmering away, but just before I was about to drain the liquid into the sink, I got a whiff and realized I needed every drop of this goodness as well. My freezer has an ice maker, so I don't have ice cube trays. I used my popsicle molds so I could get some stock into the freezer for later use. These other two jars will soon become a base for a soup (cauliflower/sweet potato is what I'm thinking right now), and also a braising liquid for other cooking this week.

I had ideas for several uses of the blanched leek tops - they got a LOT smaller,
so maybe one really nice tart for the tops, and several uses ahead for the stock!

This recipe is more for an ingredient to be used in another recipe. In short: I cut up the leek tops, put them in a stock pot, covered them with water, and brought them to a boil. I lowered the heat to a simmer and let them go for about 5-7 minutes. They cooled in the pan, and then I drained the leeks, squeezing out the excess liquid, which I retained in jars and molds for the freezer. The leeks were then double bagged, labeled and also headed to the freezer.

I'm sure you'll see them pop up again in another recipe!

Beet Greens Soup: 100 Days of Recipes, Day 38

It's been a good while since I've done weekend shopping and cooked from that all week - it seems that in the past couple of years, it's been a day to day pondering, with the exception of making a large batch of something that lasts 2-3 days. "The Pleasures of Cooking for One", my current cookbook muse, is motivating me to create meals that feed into other meals, and is reminding me to think differently about all parts of the foods I'm using.  Today's "recipe" will take you through what I did yesterday, and while I am not writing this out in recipe form, if you read it all, the recipe is in there!

I'm a huge fan of leftovers and throwing things together with 'scraps', and reading this book in combination with recently discovering the Instagram feed called 'cookscraps' is giving me all kinds of great ideas!

All the bits and ends from weekend cooking and prep - soon to be a yummy stock!

Over the weekend, I started by preparing some salads for the week, and I tossed all the stems, peelings, ends and little bits left over into a stock pot with some water and a few herbs, and simmered a lovely veggie stock throughout an evening. I took that to the studio yesterday, with the rest of my beets, kale, garlic scapes, some onions, sweet potatoes, a random few mushrooms and carrot.

Note: Beet leaves are also great added to other greens in saute,
or even thinly sliced and added to other soups

I chopped up the beet stems and kale bones and softened them in a bit of the stock with a small spoon of coconut oil, adding more stock as I kept chopping stems and the liquid reduced. I also chopped up the onion, bulbs and greens of the garlic scapes and added that. And I finely chopped up about 2" of ginger and added that with about 1 tsp each of cumin, cayenne, smoked paprika, and turmeric. While that simmered away, I cut down the beet greens and kale, then added that to the pot with the rest of the stock (I had 2 quarts total), put a lid on it, reduced the heat to a high simmer, and let it do its thing until the greens and stems were completely tender. While that was happening, I peeled and cut 2 small sweet potatoes into cubes, peeled the beets, cutting the larger ones into smaller pieces, and cut the mushrooms into quarters. Those were tossed with a slight drizzle of olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, and roasted in a 400 degree oven until tender, but not overly soft. 

Green soup: pre-blend. I had gallery activity during the blending, so didn't photograph that part.

I forgot my immersion blender at home, but we have a small blender at the studio, so I did a few batches of the soup in the blender to get it all smoothed out (*tip: when pureeing hot soup in a blender, don't fill it all the way up, and drape a kitchen towel over the top before you go - the heat will expand out when you do, and if you're not holding on and/or if your lid isn't tight, it will pop off and shower you with hot soup. I did not find this out the hard way, I witnessed it years ago in a kitchen and never forgot!)

The pureed soup was returned to the stock pot, but it was thinner than I had hoped. We didn't have much for thickening, but luckily I had been busy enough that I never got around to my own breakfast, so I harvested some uncooked oats and walnuts, tossed them in the blender with a cup of the puree, and created a nice thickener to add back to the pot, along with the roasted veggies.

What resulted was a lovely, thick, maybe not velvety but smooth enough, green soup with a delightful depth of flavor.

Sexy, velvety soup with roasted vegetables over soft vegetable polenta.

As I was cooking at the studio, I was cooking for more than one, and we wanted to stretch the soup a bit more (and add a starch for those who wanted it). I hadn't planned for that, so another quick tour of the studio kitchen cupboards gave us our solution: a bag of grits and a can of vegan vegetable soup. I brought the soup, plus two cans of water to a simmer in a small pot. Meanwhile, we picked a casserole pan out of the backstock inventory (a beautiful piece by my studio mate Sarah Wells Rolland - we were all so hungry by the time this was done, it wasn't until later that I realized we never took a picture of that!). It got a quick 'greasing' with coconut oil, then 2 cups of grits, salt and pepper and mixed that together. The simmered soup/sauce was poured on top, mixed well, and the casserole was placed in the cold oven. We set that to 350, and about 35 minutes later, the grit/polenta was stirred up, then baked another 10-15 minutes. 

The result: a nicely seasoned soft polenta under the velvety, green soup. SO. GOOD. Note to self: I wish I had brought a lemon with me - it would have added even a touch more brightness, but I'm certainly not sad about it being left out!


PS - I ended up with yet MORE scraps that went into a bag. When the bag is full of other bits and ends, I'll start another round of stock. And so it goes on...

Quick Shrimp Noodle Soup. 100 Days of Recipes: Day 21

True confession: 100 days of recipes in a row is hard! I could just pull things from older posts/archives, but I had approached this challenge as more of a way to highlight the every day 'recipes' that I create. Some are created with great planning and care, some just kind of happen. Some are recipes for food, others for other things to nourish the soul. And some days, those things happen, but they don't get chronicled or even thought about until all there was to chronicle was a pile of empty plates or a distant memory. I've done a better job of capturing glimpses, at least, on the Instagram page, so if you're following there the gaps won't be as noticeable. :)

Case in point - Day 20 was yesterday, and it was a lovey and full day that actually presented multiple opportunities to be that day's post: a surprise housewarming for a Lindsey and Michael that had a table laden with bagels and all sorts of yummy things that go with it. The real recipe from that experience, however, was the peace found sitting on comfy couches, watching lovely birds dance around feeders in their new front yard, while Michael swung gently on the porch swing and strummed his banjo. Later in the afternoon, Lindsey and I attended an inspiring, if not chilly and damp, Healthcare Townhall, where we heard the new progressive voice of Matt Coffay, and celebrated his announcement to run for office (recipe for change!). That was followed by a warming bowl of soup at Blossom on Main, in Waynesville, NC. We were too busy talking and getting rid of the chill to think about photos or recipes, but later when I got home and was thinking about dinner, I just wanted more noodle soup!

So in fact, today's recipe is yesterday's recipe! When I got home I was happy to see I still had some rice noodles, and I found a few other things to add to the mix:

Noodles, shrimp, kale, mushrooms, miso, broth, and sriracha to start.

 Also from the pantry: some tamari, garlic, onion, and ginger. I'm going to list this in 'recipe' form at the bottom of the post, but admittedly I was tired, so amounts are estimates! I think it's a simple enough dish, however, to say that almost any ingredient may be added "to taste".

The finished soup, except that I snapped the picture before
I poured more broth over the noodles, so this is really the goodness
that was IN the broth!

Quick Shrimp Noodle Soup

8 oz pre-cooked shrimp*
4 oz. rice noodles
2 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 cup kale leaves, thinly sliced
thumb-size knob of ginger, thinly sliced
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
2 TBSP miso paste
2 squirts of tamari sauce
Sriracha sauce to taste
Salt to taste


prep note: *The shrimp were pre-cooked, and because if was the end of a long, if not lovely, day, I didn't want to take a lot of extra time for a slow-cooking soup that would give me more fully developed flavors. Miso is a wonderful ingredient to add depth to a quick recipe - I created a quick "marinade" for the shrimp by finely dicing some of the onion, garlic, and ginger into some miso. I loosened it up with a bit of the broth, and coated the shrimp with it and let that sit to the side while I prepared the rest of the soup. 

In a sauce pan, heat just enough broth to cover the pan. When you see it simmer, add the onion, garlic, and ginger and saute until they soften and become fragrant. Add the kale and mushrooms, and a bit of salt. Saute another minute or so to soften those vegetables, then add the broth. Bring it all to a high simmer, and add the noodles. Cover the pan and let the noodles completely soften - they will absorb a good bit of the broth, so add more if it gets less soupy than you like. Add the tamari and taste the broth for any seasoning yo might like to add. Reduce to a light simmer, and add the miso paste and the shrimp, stirring to fully dissolve and incorporate (and to heat the shrimp). Add sriracha to taste (more at serving, even!). 

Scoop out noodles, shrimp and veg to a bowl, then pour over as much broth as you want for your soup-slurping delight!

Scraps Soup. 100 Days of Recipes: Day 6

Finishing up what was started last night, and a lovely, therapeutic morning puttering in the kitchen. Here's what became of my pot full of scraps:

I think I'll just call it "Scraps Soup", as I doubt it will ever be the same twice, and I think that may be what I like most about it! Because this is intended to be 100 days of recipes, here it is, more or less:

Scraps Soup

In my large stock pot, I tossed leftover scraps of cauliflower stalks, bits of sweet potatoes, onions, fennel bulb,and a few cloves of garlic. I covered it in some open containers of vegetable and chicken stock from the fridge, threw in a handful of crushed thyme leaves (dried out from last year's herb garden), a generous toss of salt, and several grinds of pepper.

That simmered, covered, on a med/low heat for several hours. That's probably not necessary, but I fell asleep watching a movie. Luckily there was enough liquid, and the heat was low enough, that it didn't dry up and burn off. I turned it off and left it to finish this morning, when I put it back on that heat to warm it while I scoured the kitchen for any more scraps. I found two little ends of fresh-but-drying-out turmeric and ginger, so they were grated into the pot along with a bit more salt after tasting. In the fridge, I found the leftovers of a small tin of chopped up mushrooms and truffles*- in they went. I picked up some ramps at my favorite tailgate market yesterday, and added the tender leaves to the pot as well.

As it heated up under cover again, I saute-ed the ramp bottoms with some trumpet mushrooms, also collected at the tailgate, in a bit of olive oil.

Once the goodness in the stock pot was heated again, I went at it with the immersion blender, melding all the good flavors into a velvety, thick soup. 

The result - a soul-warming soup base to hold the seasonal goodness of the ramp/mushroom saute. And plenty in jars, ready to nourish throughout the week!


*I love shopping at Hopey & Company! It's on my daily route, great selection of organic produce, lots of local products, and then the occasional, random find that pops up. The little tin of chopped truffles and mushrooms in oil was one such find - I grabbed it on a whim to top some of the sweet potato toasts at the annual meeting. The finishing flavor on this soup is a nice blend of the ramps, melting into a soft truffle sweetness.