In autumn, when the vegetables are still crispy and fresh, soup hits the menu, big time. Broccoli and cheese soup is a long-time favorite that I don’t indulge in very often. It’s the guilt of the cheese, don’t you know. Healthy soup it isn’t — despite its high vegetable content — so I save it for special occasions.
Such as when the veggies in my garden are so fresh and flavorful that they deserve extra special treatment. (Or when I need the comfort of creamy cheese sauce, whichever moment applies.)
It’s December, folks. And, honestly, I’m not mentally ready for the baking season. My psyche is still lagging behind in early fall, wondering where my tomato gardens disappeared to.
However, since it is the holidays, regardless of what my mental calendar says, and since baking must be done, it will be. Only, it has to be easy. It has to be fail-safe. And preferrably, do-ahead.
This cake is all that and more — and I haven’t even gotten to the part where it’s positively loaded with chocolate and Kahlua. (Two of my very favorite dessert flavors.)
Make it ahead of time without spending all dang day in the kitchen. Freeze it for a party later in the month. (Icing whips up with a whisk and a bowl lickety-split.)
Holidays, I’ve got you covered.
Bolognese — or ragù, as I knew it growing up — and I have a long history of discontent. My go-to method was clunky, plain, and lacked finesse — barely a method at all. Meat in tomato sauce — meh. Passable, but I didn’t understand the fascination and adoration it received in the cooking shows.
It wasn’t until I tried Mark Bittman’s version that I finally understood the error of my ways and learned to make a bolognese worthy of its reputation: don’t cheat on the long simmer — 3 hours is the minimum — use good wine, and don’t forget the cream at the end. Perfection.
These days, my consumption of beef is practically nil, but I still crave that saucy dish, especially as we slip into winter and sub-freezing temps, and I need something warm and glossy to drape over a comforting heap of carbs.
I found the answer to that craving in the mushroom: hello, wild mushroom bolognese! Meaty, savory, and earthy, its flavor and texture creates an amazing bolognese in its own right.
I don’t bake desserts very often anymore, as you might have noticed by my posts. With just two to feed, it’s dangerous to make a whole pie, or an entire batch of cookies or brownies, or — my sweet-tooth-will-power downfall — a full size cake. Even when a recipe is easy to divide in half, I usually lack the smaller pan to bake it up. And even when a recipe is easy to divide in half, ingredient-wise, the effort is the same (e.g., dividing eggs, whipping up egg whites, folding in this, that, and the other thing). All-in-all, fudging small batches of full-sized yummies is more aggravation than they’re worth.
That’s why I fell in love with desserts in jars: piecemeal assembly and baking in individual containers means they’re small-batch friendly.
Plus, they’re just so dang cute. Meet pumpkin cheesecake bars … in a jar.
We love simple recipes, right? Good eats that come to together effortlessly and produce a disproportionately high level of enjoyment.
That’s this recipe. And for the sriracha addicts among you, here’s yet another way to enjoy your favorite condiment: roasted with honey and select spices on crunchy, fresh pumpkin seeds until caramelized goodness develops. A sweet crunchy heat that keeps you reaching for more.
ZOMG, they’re addictive. Guys, I ate almost an entire batch while watching an episode of The Walking Dead. (Good thing they’re healthy, too.)
Thanksgiving is nigh, guys. The holiday where families gather to celebrate togetherness — assuming we all don’t strangle each other before dessert — and express gratitude for the gifts we have in life.
It’s also the holiday where the poor sweet potato is drowned in sticky-sweet syrupy goo and capped with marshmallows. Like the texture of shredded coconut {shiver me timbers}, this is a dish I just don’t understand. Please don’t take offense if it’s your Thanksgiving specialty — I know it’s just me with the thing about sweet potatoes and marshmallows.
I simply prefer a savory treatment (and for the folks who believe they harbor a general dislike of the sweet potato, it’s worth a try to salvage the enjoyment of this healthy tuber, too).
As a plus, this method for baking sweet potatoes in a bed of salt yields a super-tender inside with a crispy skin outside, subtly infused with salt and herbs.
Happy Election Day, Everyone!
Regardless of your political leanings, I hope we can take a step back and be grateful for the opportunity to freely express our individual choices without retaliation or threat to life and limb. Our country has seen hard times, not for the first time, nor the last, but we always pull through. And we will again.
But, republican or democratic or libertarian or independent, the one thing we all can gather around with good cheer is the stove. Food connects people in primal, essential ways that few other things can. So, if you can, break bread today with the people important to you — even if they voted for the other guy — and celebrate togetherness and our right to choose and be heard.
As I type this, the winds are screeching around my house like a kindergarten class on a sugar high running from a swarm of bees. (Take a moment to soak in that imagery — I swear, that’s what it sounds like, but I don’t want to look out the window, in case sugared-up children are actually being chased by scary clowns, and, knowing thusly, I would be expected to rescue said children. But in the case of scary clowns, it’s every woman for herself, man. Zombies, I’ll grab up all-y’alls’ kiddies and stab the undead in the forehead with my Shun chef’s knife, but clowns, they’re on their own.)
Every once in a while, the lights flicker, but hold (thankfully … thinking about my freezer full of summer preserves). Hard, crunchy leaves from the nearby mighty oak tree hit the west-facing windows with loud !PINGs! as they’re ripped from their branches and hurled outward. Far and away, Superstorm Sandy is showing New Jersey and New York what hurricane hospitality is all about, and the wind storm here that is torturing the nerve endings of everyone in the household is rushing eastward to hook up with her, promising snow on Tuesday. It’s a crazy night in the eastern half of the country.
And so, October makes a dramatic exit. And comfort food hits the menu, big time.
A cold, breezy Saturday called out for something stewy and spicy, like chili. Coincidentally, with the farmers’ markets prepping to close down for the season here, it’s time to stock up on both winter storage vegetables and local, grass-fed beef, pork, and poultry.
Of all the many things I grow in my vegetable gardens, I have to say, alliums win the title for all-around awesomeness. They are so easy to grow, and the reward for cooks is huge. Most are great storers, and last 6-9 months. Some, like chives and leeks, can be grown nearly year round (chives do this by themselves; leeks, with a little planning and staggered planting, can be available 10 months out of the year).
The reluctant gardener might mark tomatoes and zucchini as traditional must-haves for the garden, but hesitate to make the commitment because of the care and maintenance they require. I get that.
So, for those folks, I always recommend something from the onion family as the garden starter vegetable. In most temperate areas of the U.S., now’s the time to plant garlic and shallots. Their bulbs will produce slow growth over the winter, concentrating on root development, and by the time spring hits, they’ll be ready to shoot right out of the ground.
And in the meantime, you do nothing but sit back and relax, snuggled warmly in your house with a hot bowl of soup.
Earlier this summer, I posted about my garlic and shallot harvests. Now I can show you how they came to be!
I set my garlic and shallots a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a peek at my garden and a how-to.
(Folks who received the email update today about this post from October, sorry ’bout that – I have absolutely no idea what happened there. Google FeedBurner, which serves those emails, must have had a glitch of some sort.)
Baked kale chips were a revelation, the first time I made them last year (even though I burned them a little, ahem). You’re with me on this one, right? Baked kale chips = awesomeness.
But, my long-ago history with kale was sketchy, at best. My mom, with her Eastern European roots, served us cooked kale and kielbasa on a regular basis. I honestly don’t remember whether I liked or disliked it, because that detail was drowned out by an unfortunate kale incident involving a worm. More specifically, a plump worm corpse.
Stuff gets into food, especially wrinkly, foldy kale leaves — it happens — but I was at some ‘tween age where worms were neither kindergarten cool nor adult just-scootch-that-portion-discretely-to-the-side. A worm in my dinner was just plain gross, and man, did it scar me (in Mom’s defense, I’m fairly certain she was using packaged frozen kale, which one could reasonably expect to be worm-free). Kale and I went our separate ways for many, many years.
But, bygones must be bygones: kale’s health benefits simply can’t be denied. Getting reacquainted with kale has been a pleasant, non-scarring experience. Kale made regular appearances in my soups last winter, and warmer weather welcomed back the kale chip, the only snack that, for me, is a satisfying alternative to the potato chip.
Recently, after investigating the health benefits of various herbs and spices, it hit me {bonk!} that I should be using these spices everywhere … including on my beloved kale chips. And so I whipped up my own super simple superspice mix, sprinkled it on, and holy. moly. You might already be spicing up your kale chips, but I wanted to share my blend and the health benefits each spice provides.
Hello, and welcome to SoupAddict, my little corner of the foodie world on the Interwebs. I'm Karen, and it's true, I'm addicted to soup. The seasons guide my cooking and eating, and when I'm not behind the stove — or the keyboard: I'm a writer by trade — you can find me in my vegetable garden. 
