| Organically Evil Tomato Soup |
Yes, it's been over a year. That's because the Evil Housewife is now Evil Mum -- a state that was a long time coming, but very welcome.
I've had to adapt both cooking routines and times; gone are the days when I had hours to prepare a single dish. Now it's all about speed and nutrition. I've been relying heavily on Pinterest's supply of crock pot recipes to keep my sanity!
This one is not a slow cooker but it is easy. I like that it has a bit of substance to it without being overwhelming, thanks to the "stock." Naturally sweet, delicious & creamy without having any cream; this tomato soup is a great way to finish off that crop of summer tomatoes.
I wouldn't know, because my zombie tomato plant (I didn't plant it, it sprang out of the ashes of 2010's massive tomato plant) died of black spot. Curses!
Sweet & Lovely Tomato Soup
625g of red, ripe tomatoes, seeded and cut in half
Olive oil
Sea salt
Pepper
125g sweet potatoes (1 small sweet potato will do)
1 tin organic tomato paste
Preheat the oven to 375 F. and adjust the rack to the highest position. Line the tomatoes up in a baking dish and sprinkle with olive oil, sea salt & pepper. Place the baking dish and the sweet potato directly on the highest rack & roast for 1 hour.
Peel back skin of roasted sweet potato and squeeze contents into a food processor. Add tomato paste & 100 ml. boiling water, then puree. Add enough water to make a thin but not too runny stock. Pour this into a saucepan. Now put the roasted tomatoes & the liquid from the baking dish into the food processor & whiz until well pureed.
Combine pureed tomatoes with stock & heat in saucepan until evenly warm. Serve immediately, topped with your topping of choice -- I used goat cheese crumbles, but I've seen it served with mozzarella & basil or plain garlic croutons. |
|
|
|
| The "I Totally Did Not Rip This One Off From Panera, Honest!" Tomato Soup Recipe |
*ahem*
With a few crazy weeks now behind me and the lovely smell of burnishing autumn in the air, it's time for some cold weather recipes to kick in. Soups, stews, and doing-it-the-long-way breads are in.
Since I have been doing a lot of writing from Panera, I have been eating a lot of Creamy Tomato Soup. It's almost become a ritual. Last night, at 11 pm, I sat here craving that soup (I can't eat much these days) and wondered what would happen if I googled "Panera Tomato Soup Recipe". So I did.
Lo and behold, there it was! Tomatoes and cream pureed together for a velvety blend of rich goodness, how could I resist? So I tried that recipe tonight.
It failed. Dear lord, it failed. I checked my measurements, checked several sites to cross reference the recipe and apparently that *is* the one from the Official Panera cookbook (available at Barnes and Noble). My soup, though, was a watery imitation of the original - and I was not pleased. I do not do recipe fail! I am the Evil Housewife! I will have my creamy tomato soup!
So I started from scratch, making allowances for the low-carb switch. Your mileage may vary, but this recipe produces a reasonable facsimile of the soup at Panera. And here goes!
You will need:
5 tablespoons unsalted butter (get Kerrygold if you can)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
5 tablespoons flour (I used whole wheat flour here)
4 cups whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar OR 1/2 teaspoon Splenda (this is WAY sweet and I've learned the hard way to go easy on this and add more later if necessary!)
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon bicarb (baking soda)
6 cups (2 large cans) crushed tomatoes in puree
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Add the onion and cook until softened.
Sprinkle flour over butter mixture and stir.
Add milk slowly, then stir in salt, sugar, oregano, pepper, and the bay leaf. Stir until slightly thickened.
Add bicarb to tomatoes. Do NOT do this too early or your tomatoes explode like a second-grade volcano project. Ask me how I know. The bicarb keeps the milk from curdling when the tomatoes are added.
Add tomatoes to thickened milk mixture, bring to a simmer.
Remove bay leaf and serve!
Panera also makes asiago cheese bread, which is what they make their croutons out of. You can do that if you have the energy - I don't! |
|
|
|
| A Boozy Meal |
It all started with a little pot for my birthday.
Not just any pot, of course, this was high grade stuff. Strong. Powerful. Smooth.
I'm talking, of course, about my enameled cast iron Le Creuset casserole from my grandparents. I have been coveting this cookware since I chucked my last, rather rusty, cast iron skillet at my ex's head (he prides himself on his noggin's ability to fracture them). It was a real joy to gaze at this blue enameled smoothness once out of the box. It doesn't need seasoning, is simple to clean, and is supposed to cook like a charm.
Of course, it sat on my shelf for over a month before I had the time to use it, and that's what I've done on this lazy Saturday. Inspired by Sue Perkins' cassoulet in the latest episode of The Supersizers Eat..., I've decided to recreate this meal using my 1920's style enameled cast iron pot.
You will need:
1 1/2 lbs. of stew meat
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
225 grams of baby carrots
Red and orange bell peppers, sliced
Merlot that you would actually drink
2 cups of water
Oregano, rosemary, salt and pepper to taste
Start by heating the oil in the pot on the stovetop over medium to medium high heat, and turn the oven to 300 degrees F/150 degrees C.
Saute the onions and garlic until tender.
Then add the beef and brown. Choose beef with marbling, as the fat will keep it tender during the long cooking time.
Add the carrots, peppers, and herbs & spices. Mix.
Add the water, and two cups of merlot. Cooking with wine is a simple thing if you ALWAYS use a wine that you would drink. Only a desperate wino would drink the stuff sold as "cooking wine" in the baking aisle, so please don't be a desperate wino.
Cover and place in the oven for three hours. Plenty of time for plotting in three hours.
I decided to serve this with stout based beer bread. I love beer bread for it's easy quick bread nature. This particular bread comes from a mix, however I substituted one 12 ounce bottle of Newcastle Brown for the beer.
This results in a sweet, delicious, dense bread that is heaven with fresh butter!
Serve, and enjoy the evil meal.
 Labels: beef, one pot meal |
|
|
|
| Baked Potato Bliss |
Warning: South Beach UNFriendly content ahead!
Sometimes, you just have to. I am an absolute sucker for a perfect jacket potato. I think I must have eaten at Spud-U-Like in the shopping centre more than any other fast food chain. With delicious butter, sour cream, or some tangy melty Irish cheddar, there's nothing like a baked potato.
Consequently, preparing this root vegetable is a bit of an obsession of mine. Having experimented with almost every conceivable method - steaming in the microwave, toaster oven, poking holes in them - and have finally honed my chosen preparation to perfection. This is so good it's been adopted by my mother, the semi-original Evil Housewife!
You will need:
Good baking potatoes. I like Yukon Gold.
Olive oil
Sea salt
Preheat the oven to 350. Scrub the potatoes down well to get rid of potato dirt. Pat dry.
Rub the potatoes with some olive oil. Do not punch holes in your potatoes. They will not explode unless you decide to stuff them with gunpowder (not recommended). Roll the oiled potatoes in sea salt.
Place directly on the oven rack and bake for one hour.
When ready to serve, cover potato with a clean tea towel and give it a good thump with your fist. This releases the steam quickly and makes for a lighter, fluffier result! Serve with butter, sour cream, cheese, chili, or whatever your heart's delight is.
They can quickly become the centerpiece of your meal! |
|
|
|
| Late night kebabs |
Where I grew up, late night drinking was followed by a late night trip to the diner and a huge order of cheese fries with gravy. This is probably a contributing factor to the current state of my waistline.
The British equivalent of this institution is the kebab. Served hot, in a pita, from any number of semi-grotty cookshops, it is late night heaven and a heck of a lot more calorie friendly than a plate of heaving, congealing gravy loaded carbs.
Unfortunately this just isn't something that has caught on in the US. While we remain on the quest to find the perfect kebab shop (the closest one we know of at the moment is in Boston and they're certainly not open very late), I am on the quest for the perfect kebab.
Kebab shop kebabs are marinated in some sort of yoghurt based marinade, and I found this recipe on RTE. I've modified it somewhat to better approximate a kebab shop style.
It's a heck of a lot easier than kidnapping a kebab shop owner, at any rate.
You will need some decently trimmed chicken breasts for this, and some bamboo or metal skewers.
Marinade:
250ml natural yoghurt
Juice of 2 limes
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon Garam masala
1 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon Turmeric
Start by chopping the chicken into 2" x 2" cubes and threading onto the skewers.
Combine all of the marinade ingredients and stir together.
In a glass or plastic dish, pour the marinade over the kebabs. Cover and chill until you are ready to cook them. I meant to marinate for four hours and it wound up closer to eight, which seems to have worked reasonably well.
Place on heated grill and cook for 5 minutes per side or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle.
I served this with couscous, another ridiculously simple whole grain. Boil water, pour on couscous, let stand, fluff, done. How much easier can you ask for?
These came out as a reasonable approximation of what we've been missing. I love using yoghurt as a marinade base, it gives an awesomely tangy flavor! Until we can get to Boston or back to the UK, this recipe passes muster.Labels: chicken, expat food, Moroccan, whole grains |
|
|
|
| Outside the Box |
Mondays. Who needs them?
Mondays are the day I like to get my grocery shopping for the week done. This assumes I've been a good little worker and gotten myself organised with some menu planning and cookbooks.
Grocery shopping is probably one of the biggest differences between the places I've lived. It's a mundane household chore, and it's surprising to see how different it is all over the world. As a socially-conscious Evil Housewife, I like to be able to buy local items, particularly meat and produce. This is something I've noticed isn't as easy here in the US as it was elsewhere.
Since it's springtime, cold, and rainy, my time in Ireland springs to mind. There were a few things about grocery shopping in Ireland which made keeping the "green factor" in the lists was much easier.
The first thing to notice is that the Irish haven't yet given up a localized way of life in exchange for convenience. There certainly are a good number of Tesco's and Superquinns, but they haven't yet overtaken the likes of local butchers and produce markets. In fact, the local Tesco's where we lived had a butcher's shop inside it. Was it kind of a pain to have to go to the butcher, then to a separate shop for produce? Sure; plenty of times I ignored those options in favour of a ready meal from Marks & Spencer. However even living relatively rurally in America, it's still much more difficult to find local items unless you really know where to look.
The second thing I noticed is that even when you are shopping in a supermarket, local items are emphasized. Our Superquinns, for example, had the origins of the produce down to the name of the farm that shipped it in. The meat was packaged with this information (possibly due to a few disease outbreaks, but I'll take what I can get!) so I could choose between the cow from up the road and the cow from Argentina. Yes, there is a difference!
The last thing, and this is fairly important, is the lack of high fructose corn syrup. This goes for pretty much anywhere I lived apart from America! Sure, the jury is still out on whether HFCS is the Great Evil; what I *do* know is that I was two and a half stone lighter when I lived there, and it's not down to lifestyle or any real diet changes.
So those are the thoughts that were in my head as I was grocery shopping, and pining for the old country, as it were. Then I came home and set to making the marinade for tonight's dish - sweet soy marinated steak.
You will need:
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1 tablespoon granulated brown sugar substitute
1 tablespoon sugar substitute
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 sirloin steaks
In a shallow glass dish, combine the soy sauce, brown sugar substitute, sugar substitute, and the garlic. Add the steak and turn to coat well. Let stand for at least 20 minutes or refrigerate for up to 4 hours, turning once.
Since this is a sugary marinade, take care that you don't char the steak! Sear the meat over high heat and then reduce and continue cooking until the inner temperature is at 160 F.
I served this with simple steamed carrots and fresh bread rolls. Not carb-healthy, but yum!Labels: beef, marinades, observations |
|
|
|
| Bad weekend |
Even evil housewives can fall victim to emotional eating, and eat I did. I don't think a single morsel crossed these wicked lips that wasn't loaded with salt, sugar, and fat.
Getting back on track is going to be interesting. It certainly is something that happens to the best of us. After all, I'd have to say that most of the issues people have with diet is adapting to the lifestyle change. Had I been home, I probably wouldn't have fallen victim so easily, but the weekend was spent shuttling back and forth between the barn so food, or food preparation, was out of the question for a very drained me.
Ah well. Your Evil Housewife will return tomorrow, hopefully with better words!Labels: fail |
|
|
|
|
|
posted by Gwenneh at 
