Alone in the kitchen with farro soup

On a recent trip to the library, I came away with no less than 4 cookbooks, 3 food-related books and the requisite couple of novels.



The one that's relevant to this post, however, is the one with the best title: Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone) [WorldCat].



I've been doing a lot of said cooking for one and dining alone, so I fairly cackled with glee at the idea of reading a book about it.

While there were just as many fantastic recipes in the book as there were hilarious and poignant stories, the one that I just had to try was Mark Bittman's Luccan Farro Soup. Being a fangirl of Bittman myself, I really couldn't resist. Even though the recipe wasn't reprinted in the book, I was able to find it with a quick google search.



I did take some shortcuts from the original recipe: I substituted canned diced tomatoes, canned white beans and Trader Joe's 10-minute farro. If you want to make things hard on yourself and use raw beans and raw farro, check out Bittman's original recipe for cooking times and directions.

You can use either farro or barley (or even spelt), but farro is whole grain whereas the most popular form of barley--pearled--is not. It's had its outer husk and bran layers removed and undergone a polishing process. This means it takes less time to cook but also has fewer nutrients than its whole grain counterpart, where only the inedible hull is removed. In the picture below, the barley on the left is pearled, whereas the barley on the right is the whole-grain form. Since TJ's sells 10 minute versions of both, it made sense to go with the farro.



I also have this problem with buying celery. Since I almost exclusively shop at Trader Joe's, I'm stuck with buying the only celery they sell: celery hearts. It's two bunches of celery, trimmed, and with most of the outer stalks removed. You get maybe a layer or so of the bright green, crunchy stalks, and then you're left with mostly the pale green/white, limp, flaccid stalks in the middle. Can you tell I hate the hearts? I actually enjoy eating celery raw, but only the outer, bright green crunchy stalks.

I'm trying to cut back on waste, so I decided to dice up all the celery (yes even those pale, limp, flaccid stalks) and freeze it. I made a note on the ziploc baggie that I froze it in how much the equivalent was of a single stalk (in volume and weight), so I could just take what I needed in the future. Then I went a little crazy, and diced up an entire bag of carrots and a few onions and stuck those in the freezer too. Ready-to-go mirepoix!

Having the majority of the ingredients ready-made really sped up the prep for this soup, and prep is the part I hate the most about cooking. I've only recently allowed myself to feel this way, and have been buying more ready-made ingredients, like diced/crushed garlic. Garlic is just one of those ingredients that, for me, feels like it takes 30 minutes to prep. Then after I finish it, I realize I still have vegetables to chop and other ingredients to measure. It's really bad for morale. So I take shortcuts in some areas, but they're the areas that really make a difference for me and encourage me to cook more!

Case in point: this soup. I suspect I would have liked this recipe far less if I actually had to do all the prep at once. And taste-wise, it truly surpassed my expectations, even though I used shortcuts for about half the ingredients in the recipe and used a rather suspect vegetable broth base. James even declared it as "one of my best soups yet." Even more telling though, was that he managed to put away another serving just as big as his first. My amatuer photography doesn't really do it justice. But try the recipe for yourself and you'll see just how simple and delicious it is.

Luccan Farro Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion, sliced

2 celery stalks, trimmed and chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 cup 10-minute farro*

1 can white beans (~15 oz), drained and rinsed

1 can diced tomatoes, no salt added (~14.5 oz)

6 cups stock, more as necessary*

juice from 1 lemon

chopped fresh parsley, optional (for garnish)

chopped fresh basil, optional (for garnish)

grated Parmesan

Instructions

Put oil in a large, deep saucepan over medium heat; a minute later add onion, celery, carrots, a large pinch of salt and some pepper. Cook until vegetables are glossy and onion is softened, 5 to 10 minutes.

Add garlic, farro, tomatoes, stock; stir. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Simmer for 10-20 minutes.* Stir in beans during last 5 minutes of cooking. Do not overcook beans.

Remove from heat. Garnish before serving with lemon juice, parsley, basil and parmesan. Serve immediately.*

Notes
*The TJ's 10-minute farro package contains 1.5 cups. I used the whole package, but it did end up being a bit farro-heavy. It wasn't bad, so if you don't think you'll use the farro for anything else, go ahead and dump it all in!
*I used Smart N Final's store brand of "vegetarian soup base", and while it was a bit salty for my tastes, I just used less per cup of water than they suggested. I'm happy to report it tasted great. But do use a broth that you like the taste of--that's what you're going to be mostly tasting in this soup!
*I simmered for 10 minutes, but the farro was still a bit underdone in my opinion. I'd recommend 15-20 minutes. 

*If you have leftovers or aren't serving it immediately, separate the solids from the liquid and store separately. Otherwise, the barley will absorb all the liquid and you'll be left with barley stew instead of soup. If you forget, you can always just add more stock to the leftovers before you warm it up. 

Adapted from Mark Bittman's NYT Luccan farro soup recipe

Mexican Wedding Cookies

I'm going to a birthday/white elephant/Christmas-y party this weekend, and I thought it'd be a great excuse to try out another cookie recipe! I love love love these not-too-sweet cookies that have a great crunchy exterior but then they just totally melt in your mouth. I always knew them as Mexican Wedding Cookies, but some google searching revealed that they are known by quite a few names: Polvorones, Russian Teacakes or Snowballs. Turns out in Mexico, they're not even called Mexican Wedding Cookies (they're called polvorones)! They're also not.. Russian. Leave it to the US to attach random, unrelated ethnicities to a food item.

I found quite a few recipes with some slight variations among them. I'm all for simple and straightforward, so I did what I'm wont to: mixing and matching, picking and choosing. I went with the basic proportions found in smittenkitchen's recipe, which was originally from epicurious which was originally from bon appetit! Based on some reading of other recipes I did, I wanted to make these the easy, one-bowl way. Forget creaming the butter, fuhgeddabout clarifying it first. Being a highly inexperienced baker, I can't tell you what the difference is going to be between doing those things or not, but there were recipes that didn't call for those time-consuming, electric-mixer-needing things. So I went with those.

I wanted to do a test run of these first, so I quartered a batch. Because the ratios are so beautifully even, and it doesn't use any fussy ingredients like baking powder/soda, this is an extremely easy recipe to scale.

If your nuts aren't already toasted, toast them over med-low heat in a pan on the stove. Let them cool, then grind them up either in a coffee grinder, blender, or by putting them in a ziploc baggie and crushing a rolling pin over them. You want them pretty fine and dusty, but be careful not to make it into nut butter if you're using an electric grinder. These are perfectly ground:

Next, you'll whisk together the nuts, powdered sugar and salt. Once that's well blended, you'll work the vanilla and cold cubes of butter into the dough with your hands. This is my favorite part! I love squishing butter in between my fingers. It reminds me of playing with playdoh as a kid. While it's not totally essential that the butter stays cold, it'll take less time to chill if you're working with already cold butter, especially since the warmth of your hands will melt it a bit. Once the butter's well incorporated, start adding the flour gradually (about a 1/2 cup or so at a time), working it in with your hands.

Pretty much the only fussy thing about this recipe is that you have to chill the dough before you bake it. This is absolutely essential, unless you want your cookies to turn out like this sad one:

[Pati's Mexican Table]

So if you're in a hurry, divide the dough into half or quarters, then flatten it out into discs. Wrap it in plastic wrap and stick in the freezer for 5-10 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of your discs. If you've got time to spare (or a good book to read), just scrape the dough into a ball in the bowl, wrap it closely with plastic wrap, and pop it in the fridge for about an hour.

Once the dough is chilled, scoop 2 tsp sized balls onto a heavy baking sheet lined with parchment. While the last oatmeal cookies I tried spread like crazy, these don't (shouldn't if you chilled them sufficiently!) spread much, so a 1/2 inch of space in between them is fine. Try to handle the dough as little as possible, so it stays cold. I don't have a fancy baking sheet (yet?), so I just added an extra baking sheet underneath the ones the cookies were on. If you have especially thin baking sheets (and you know your oven temperature is accurate), your baked goods are apt to burn on the bottom before the tops are done. Double panning solves this problem! You may need to do this in two batches, so keep the extra dough in the fridge while the first batch is baking.

After 18 minutes (or 21 if you double panned), check them. The bottoms should be golden brown on the bottom and lightly browned on top. I really had to resist keeping them in longer, since I also love love love super browned cookies. Take them out to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then dust the still-warm cookies with powdered sugar using a sieve (or a powdered sugar duster if you're fancy like that). A lot of the recipes I saw called for rolling and shaking the cookies around in a pie tin filled with powdered sugar, but I had zero success with that. The warmth of the cookies melted the sugar, just leaving them with an unappetizing gray, patchy glaze. Dusting them on top gets plenty of sugar onto the cookie and is much cleaner, too.

According to some recipes, they're only good for a couple days in the fridge, but I bet these'll keep for a good couple weeks (uhh.. if they last that long). They're already crunchy and crumbly, so there's not much that drying out can do to them, I bet. IF I have any left, I'll update you in a couple weeks!

Enjoy the absolutely heavenly smell that will fill your kitchen while these bake, and try to resist eating these all yourself.

Mexican Wedding Cookies / Polvorones / Russian Teacakes / Snowballs

Ingredients
Makes about 4 dozen

2 sticks butter, softened or melted (not hot) (225g / 1 cup)
2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)
1 cup toasted pecans (or walnuts, skinless almonds, skinless hazelnuts) (110g)
1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus more for dusting (60g)
2 tsp vanilla extract (10 ml)
pinch of salt (less than 1/8 tsp)

Instructions
If your nuts aren't already toasted, toast them. Spread them on a baking sheet and let cool. If using a blender, food processor, or other electrical grinder, add 1 cup of flour* to the nuts and grind using short, quick pulses. Or put them in a ziploc baggie without the flour and run a rolling pin over them.

In a large bowl or food processor, whisk together the ground nuts, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and salt until well blended.

Add the vanilla and butter and work them into the mixture. Add the flour gradually, working it into the dough as you add.

If you're pressed for time, divide the dough into discs, wrap in plastic wrap and chill about 5-10 minutes in the freezer. If you're not in a hurry, scrape the dough into a ball, cover closely with plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Once the dough is chilled, work quickly* to scoop 2 tsp sized balls with 1/2 inch spacing onto a heavy baking sheet lined with parchment. If doing in batches, keep the extra dough in the fridge while first batch is baking.

Pop them in the oven for about 18-21 minutes, until bottoms are golden brown and tops are just barely browned. Take them out to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then dust the tops of the still-warm cookies with powdered sugar using a sieve or sifter. Remove to a rack and let cool completely.

Notes
*When grinding nuts using an electric grinder, the heat and the friction causes them to release their oils more quickly, which can turn your nut flour into nut butter if you're not careful. Adding a cup of flour to the nuts absorbs the oil as you grind, giving you more room for error or allowing you to grind them finer.
*If the scooping ends up taking too long, stick the entire sheet with the cookie dough scoops into the fridge or freezer for 5-10 minutes before baking.