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

Corn potage (cream corn soup)

This is a classic recipe that I always have a craving for come winter. While I'm always tempted to just keep some packets on hand, I refuse to believe that this soup is difficult to make. It's basically just corn and cream, for chrissakes. Then again, the simplest recipes can be the most challenging. It's the same with writing--saying what you want to say in fewer words is always harder than using more. But I am determined to get this corn potage soup right, packets be damned.



Because my cravings only come once or twice a year, I've never bothered to create/record my own recipe. Seems like too much effort for something I rarely eat. But I'm doing it this year!

Every year, I inevitably find these two recipes from Little Japan Mama: classic corn potage and easy corn potage. Every year, I'm inevitably tempted by the easy version. Last year, I was so tempted I stocked up excessively on cans of creamed corn. So excessively that I still had a can leftover this year. Every year, I think that this is the year that the recipe will work for me. What do they say about insanity? Oh yeah, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results -_-

So I tried the easy corn potage recipe again, and without fail, it produced incredibly subpar soup lacking in flavor. It tasted like milk with half-blended corn mixed in. Which it basically was. Even after I blended like crazy with my hand blender. So, I added about another cup of frozen corn, some dashi, lots of white pepper, and decided to try out my roommate's fancy new Vitamix.

I don't know how I'm going to be able to make this soup again without the Vitamix. That thing is amazing. Whenever I've tried blending this soup in the past, it comes out chunky, no matter how long I blend it. The membranes of the corn kernels just refuuuuuse to break down. And straining it seems to remove half the volume of the soup. Not with the Vitamix! It really did make the soup silky smooth. (I feel like at this point I should be saying that they sponsored this post, but sadly, they did not, and I was not given a Vitamix for free just to write this post). Since I may not always have access to a Vitamix, any blender will probably work, but my old hand blender tends to give fairly paltry results.

After blending it, I added in some potatoes and about 1/4 cup of frozen, whole corn kernels. And more white pepper. Always more white pepper!



I had to cook the potatoes still, so that took more time. I should have just boiled them in water separately and then added them in. I did make sure to use the waxy variety, so they would hold their shape, although I realized that starchy would just mean thicker soup, and wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. So with all the lessons I learned from this year, here's what I'll do next time!

Corn potage

Ingredients
1 can creamed corn, no salt added (~14 oz)
1 can whole kernel corn (about 1 3/4 cup or 9 oz), 1/4 cup reserved
1 2/3 cup milk (the fattier the tastier, and anything from 1% to cream is fine, just don't use nonfat!)
~1/2 cup potatoes, small dice (optional; waxy like white or yukon gold is preferred, but whatever you have on hand is fine)
1 tsp white pepper, more to taste
2 tsp dashi granules or any powdered stock (use however much they recommend for 2 cups of water)

salt

Instructions
If using potatoes: in a medium pot, bring diced potatoes to a boil, then simmer until fork tender, about 10 minutes. Drain, and set aside.

In a medium pot*, add the creamed corn, whole kernel corn (minus the reserved 1/4 cup), milk, dashi/stock, white pepper and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.*

Using a blender, blend until very, very smooth.*

Return to the pot, taste, then add salt and more white pepper if needed. Add the cooked potatoes and 1/4 cup reserved corn. Heat on medium until just beginning to bubble, then remove from heat. Serve in your favorite mug.


Notes
* Like the one you just used to boil the potatoes in; hurray for less dishes!
* The milk has a tendency to burn on the bottom, so it's best to use a nonstick pot and stir occasionally. If you're not using nonstick, then stir frequently.
* Vitamix is best, a non Vitamix is second best, and my old hand blender is worst. The final consistency is up to you--if you don't mind it chunky, then blend it until you're satisfied. But if you want a true replica of a corn potage packet, then strain out all the little bits until it's silky smooth. 

Creamy potato and leek soup

Missing front tooth.

Braces.

What am I, like twelve?

My tongue is rubbed absolutely raw on one side from the metal bracket on my molar. This means that even swallowing is painful, since my tongue does this inadvertent bobbing motion whenever I swallow. I imagine everyone's tongue does it, you just don't notice it until you start bleeding because of it. Both sides of molars are still sore from the spacers they put in some three weeks back, so chewing is pretty much out. Suffice to say, I'm on a soup binge this week. And probably next week.

I've always wanted to make potato and leek soup. I love the simplicity and the heartiness of it. Potatoes and leeks! So much flavor from two ingredients.

This is a recipe I lifted (almost) directly from my newly discovered How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. It's everything I've dreamed of and more. Just like this potato and leek soup recipe.

Creamy Potato and Leek Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
3 medium potatoes, any type, peeled and cut into small cubes (the smaller, the quicker this'll be ready)
2-3 leeks, white and light green parts only, well washed and sliced into thin rings (Trader Joe's package of 2 leeks are perfect for this)
salt and black pepper
1 tsp white pepper (optional, but great if you have it)
4 cups vegetable stock, warm
1/2 to 1 cup of cream, sour cream or yogurt
chives, for garnish (or parsley, basil, chervil, etc)

Instructions
Heat the butter in a large, deep pot over medium heat. When the butter is melted, add the leeks and potatoes. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper (and white pepper if using) and stir, cooking for 2-3 minutes.

Add the warm vegetable stock and cook until the potatoes and leeks are very tender, about 20 minutes.

Remove from heat. Using an immersion blender or regular blender in batches, blend the soup until thoroughly pureed. Stir in the cream/sour cream/yogurt. If you're using yogurt, don't let it boil. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with minced chives.

Variations
If you want vichyssoise, cool the soup completely and garnish with chives just before serving.

Vegan vichyssoise: Use oil instead of butter. After you've pureed the soup, let the soup cool a bit, then stir in coarsely chopped ripe flesh of 1-2 avocadoes instead of the cream. Chill thoroughly before garnishing.

Cook about 1 cup of shredded carrots or cabbage along with potatoes and leeks. Increase stock proportionately so the soup doesn't become too thick.

Grate a little parmesan over the finished soup.

Add another vegetable in place of a portion of the potatoes (Bittman recommends asparagus or peas).