mid-january minestrone

my my. i've been really bad at keeping up with my blog, among other things, this past month. it's already mid-january! where has the time gone?

what have i been up to?

i'll spare you a long, boring story about my life.
here's the point form:
- glamour shotz
- all things christmassy
- short holiday & new years eve with my boyfriend in sunny-but-not-so-warm california
- photoshoots
- photo-editing dates with lightroom


i have many food-things to blog about. we had some tasty food in california - mexican, lebanese, vietnamese... but i'll save those for another night.

i've been trying to grocery shop better (instead of buying whatever i feel like with absolutely no plans in mind), so i've been flipping through my cook-books and trying to pick (easy) meals to cook, then shopping for that. tonight i made minestrone soup from my donna hay cookbook: seasons - the best of donna hay magazine.


here's the recipe with a few of my own modifications:

2-4 T olive oil
1 medium yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed & chopped
2 carrots, (peeled) & chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 bulb baby fennel, chopped (or half a bulb regular fennel)
2 x 397 ml cans chopped tomatoes
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
100g or a couple handfuls of green beans, trimmed & chopped
1 x 397 ml can white cannellini beans, drained
sea salt & cracked black pepper

directions:

- heat a large saucepan/pot over medium to high heat. add oil, onion, garlic, celery, fennel & cook for 5 minutes or until tender.
- add the tomatoes, chicken stock & water. reduce heat, cover & simmer for 25 minutes.
- stir in the green beans and season with salt & pepper. simmer for another 10 minutes.
- stir in white beans & cook for another 5 minutes until beans are tender.
- taste & serve

i served the soup with bread & butter. whole wheat and honey bread from a bread affair (which my grocery store is finally selling! yay!). i warmed it up by wrapping a chunk of it in aluminum foil and tossing it in a 400F oven for about 8 minutes.

hot harira soup for my cold body & soul

i realise that there are colder places on this earth at the moment (i'm truly sorry for you, calgarians), but i am not liking the ghastly cold vancouver weather right now. AT ALL. i leave my house bundled up with all the warmest clothes i have, i look ridiculous, and i STILL freeze my butt off. well, my toes, mostly.

sooo... i've been staying inside a lot. and i made a huge pot of hot, comforting soup yesterday to warm my cold, bitter soul. moroccan harira soup. it seems that this soup is traditionally made with lamb, but i used chicken instead. i mostly followed this recipe, at epicurian.com but originally from gourmet magazine issue march 1994.


i tweaked a few things to make it even better:

ingredients:

• chicken (i used 1 thigh, because i am poor. you can use however much chicken you can afford)
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups water (i probably added a couple more cups onto that)
• 4 blanched tomatoes, de-peeled & chopped up (or a can or 2 of diced or pureed tomatoes)
• 1/4 or 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds (optional)
• 1/4 tsp coriander (optional)
• 1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped fine
• 14-oz. can chickpeas, rinsed
• 1/2 cup raw long-grain rice
• 1 & 1/2 cup lentils
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (optional. i didn't have any)
• salt & pepper to taste

directions:

• in a large pot, bring chicken, broth, water, 1/2 a cinnamon stick & 2 cloves of garlic to a boil. simmer for 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. remove chicken & let cool. remove cinnamon stick & discard.
• while pot is simmering, saute chopped onions, garlic & spices (mustard & coriander) in a separate pan on low to moderate heat. about 5-10 minutes.
• add to large pot onion mixture, tomatoes, rice, lentils, & chickpeas
• close lid & simmer for 30 minutes, covered.
• remove bones & skin from chicken & shred/chop up chicken.
• stir chicken into soup; add salt & pepper to taste. simmer for another 10 minutes or so.
• add half of the chopped parsley (& cilantro if using).
• serve soup hot and garnish with the rest of the parsley.
• enjoy with toasted bread or fresh, warm biscuits (recipe to follow)
  

i made my mom's biscuit recipe. super quick & easy!


ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 Tbls baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter/shortening
• 3/4 cup milk/milk substitute

directions:

• heat oven to 450F (225C)
• whisk flour, salt & baking powder in a bowl.
• blend in butter with hands or pastry cutter until mixture looks like fine crumbs
• stir in milk, only until flour is all moistened. do not beat!
• transfer dough to floured surface & knead about 10 times.
• roll or pat dough until about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thick.
• cut out shapes & put on baking sheet.
• bake 10-12 minutes.
• serve with honey-butter. (1 part honey to 1 part soft butter)

now that i'm done typing out the recipe, i remember that i've already posted the recipe here, back in 2008. oops!

soto ayam

soto ayam is a yellow, spicy chicken soup served with thin noodles (vermicilli) and a variety of other toppings. the broth is flavorful and quite tangy, from the lemongrass and lime leaves used.

while i was in indonesia last week, i was shown how to properly make it. i've made it before back in canada, but i used a pre-made paste, so that doesn't really count. the process is quite time-consuming, so this is not a meal you would cook very often. maybe more of a special occasion or for when guests come over. the lady who taught me says she never makes it just for her and her husband.





ingredients to go into the paste:
- turmeric (kunyit)
- ginger (jahe)
- red onion (bawang merah)
- garlic (bawang putih)
- candlenut (kemiri)



blend the paste with some water. fry the paste with a few stalks of lemongrass (serai) and lime leaves (daun jeruk).



add water to the fried paste and boil the chicken in the soup. once the chicken is cooked, remove, drain, fry, and shred. keep the soup.

now for the soup toppings:



1. slice potatoes really thin, and deep fry.








2. deep fry emping (a chip made from a dried, smashed nut)

3. chop up cabbage:



4. soak bean sprouts (tauge) in water

5. soak the vermicilli in water

6. chop up green onion (daun bawang)

7. boil eggs, peel and chop:



8. slice little limes (jeruk nipis) - hard to find these in canada

9. chop up celery leaves

10. put fried shallots in a bowl

11. chilli paste (i don't use this, i'm a wimp when it comes to spice)

put noodles, and everything else in your bowl and ladle soup on top. ta da!

dāo xīao mìan

this whole blogging thing is kind of time-consuming. i'd love to do it every day, but man... it takes up so much time. this is the second time i'm posting in a week. i'm already beating my average for blog posts per week. :)

these past 2 weeks i have been meeting up with old friends from high school. one of those friends is a kiwi (she hails from new zealand. special note: a 'kiwi' is a person from new zealand. not to be confused with the kiwi fruit or the kiwi bird) but she spent over 12 years of her developmental years living in singapore. so, even though she is caucasian, i trust her judgment of se asian foods. or maybe i trust her judgment because she is caucasian? who knows. anyways, last week she introduced me to 'popiah.' (for you caucasians out there it is pronounced kinda like 'poe-pyah') its this wrap with turnips and veggies and peanuts inside. i didn't get a photo and i'm probably not describing it to its justice and i honestly have no idea whether its chinese or malaysian or a lovely mixture or what. but it was amazing. i will definitely be having popiah again, and not just to grab a photo. but this past sunday, we were having lunch and i decided to try something completely new. i had no idea what i was ordering, except that it was some sort of soup, and i had the options of chicken, beef, or pork. it was pretty good. it was called dao xiao mian:

'dāo xīao mìan' (刀削麵, knife-sliced noodles)
(thank you wikipedia)

it was a soup with hand-cut noodles. i had it with chicken (which i am not sure if i would do again - they only give you the options of using a spoon or chopsticks, and yet the chicken was in full drumstick form. i'm sorry but i am not exactly deft enough to be able to cut up chicken drumsticks with chopsticks.) and it was quite tasty. the interesting part was watching the chef handle this lump of dough, because he shaved the noodles off the dough into the hot boiling soup right in front of you.

in my quest to be more adventurous with foods here, one of my friends has shared with me a list of over 50 foods that one has to eat in singapore, so i will have to try to work my way through it while i'm here. we'll see how that goes...

soup explosions & other fun things in my new home

this is what my kitchen looked like the second full day after moving in:

yeah, 'awesome' was the first word i thought of too, after other choice words, of course. apparently pureeing a hot soup isn't always a fabulous idea. the salvageable bit of the soup (see the green bowl bottom left?) wasn't half bad, though. my sister gave me a 'soup' recipe book for my birthday last year and i am attempting to actually use them, and be intentional with my grocery shopping. why was i being so ambitious when i had barely just moved into my home? ... i'm not sure. i'm never sure.

enough of my negativity. wait, no, not yet. our smoke detector? yeah, it goes off almost every bloody time we make food that involves some heating. like frying eggs. or making toast. oh yes, and the alarm goes off upstairs in our landlords' apartment too. 'awesome' fits this situation also.

okay, now i can be positive and post pictures that are oozing with positivity and warm fuzzies.


these were taken our first night here. below is our commemorative meal, but most importantly: wine. a really yummy Riesling Gewurztraminer, to be specific (and only $10!)

kale and potato soup (and biscuits)

i made some pretty fantastic kale & potato soup today. and then i made biscuits for the 3rd time this week. however, i made them without butter, and used coconut oil instead. coconut oil is somewhat pretty much solid at room temp, and has a similar consistency as shortening, so it works pretty well. its just a bit more pricey. it gives a great taste to the biscuits though.

like usual, i don't really follow recipes well unless i'm baking, but i will still attempt to explain how i made the soup. into a large pot i threw in some celery stalks, some onion, some herbs (dill, parsley, rosemary), salt, peppercorns, chopped potatoes (around 5 medium sized). i covered the veggies in water and boiled it, then simmered for a long time. in another pot, i steamed the chopped up kale (i took the leaves off the stems) with some salt & dill. i did it separate so that i could puree the stock while leaving the kale leaves intact for texture. while waiting, i made these biscuits. after some amount of time had passed, i pureed the stock in a blender with some coconut milk and put it back in the large pot. then i added the kale & the water it was steaming/boiling in. i tasted the soup, added some more salt (if you are overly concerned about your sodium intake, this is where you wouldn't add more salt), added some more coconut milk, and let it simmer a bit longer before dishing out and eating.


oh yeah and my sister made a pumpkin tart for herself for dessert (she's selfish that way).

i spent all evening in the kitchen

i spent almost my whole evening in the kitchen. it was a cold, rainy evening & i bought chicken thighs (non-medicated ones, in fact) for the sole intent & purpose of making chicken noodle soup. you'll notice that i only took a picture of the soup PRE cooking. it looks prettier before all the veggies turn brown. but luckily it tastes better after its all cooked. i'm not one for raw chicken broth. not very appealing. chicken soup alone isn't filling, however, so i made more biscuits. the ones i blogged about yesterday. then, while i was waiting for other family members to come home & dine with me, i made some humous. but i added sundried tomotoes to it, which is quite tasty.



i don't have a recipe for the soup or the humous, though. the soup is pretty easy, but it changes every single time. the basics are: chicken (either raw, or the carcus of a roasted chicken... mmm carcus...), veggies (like celery, carrot, onion), herbs (dill, thyme, rosemary, parsley...), salt, pepper, water. boil it; simmer it; strain it; pick the chicken off the bones. and cook up some noodles to go with. egg noodles are great, but if you can't do wheat, or want to try something different, rice noodles are also fantastic. the kind that you find in the asian section of the grocery store.