Ok, y”all. Halloween is over. The election is over. It”s time to really delve into comfort foods like soup and bread. Or better yet, both. My house recently smelled like garlic and freshly baked bread for two days. Let”s face it–those are the best smells on earth.
I adore soup and just had to share this recipe; it”s soooo good, and healthy to boot. This is probably my favorite soup I”ve made so far! Make it, for realz.
Plus, a bonus bread recipe! I spoil you, so.
Hey, guess what? I got an opportunity to review Carla Hall”s brand new cookbook, Cooking with Love: Comfort Food that Hugs You. I was obviously very excited. Thanks, ES!
I have been a fan of Carla Hall since her first season on Top Chef, Season 5. When she came back for All-Stars, I also enjoyed rooting her on. She has a southern style of cooking that focuses on comfort food and fine dining spins on classics. Plus, she has a super perky and positive personality, but not in an annoying sort of way. Like in a contagiously sunny kind of way.
This book has so many great recipes that I”ve bookmarked to try, like goat cheese grits and buffalo wing burgers (yum!) It also has some little anecdotes and tips from Carla. Carla was a caterer before she made it big and has some great tips about serving large groups, if you are into that kind of thing. If I had to give a constructive criticism about the book, it would be that I would like a picture for every recipe. That”s probably not doable to have so many photographs, but that”s what I like. Although the pictures that are already in the book are quite stunning.
All in all, I”d say everyone should definitely have this cookbook on their shelves. It”s pretty rockin”.
So, I decided to make the mushroom nbso tart recipe and it was pretty boss. Super easy and oh so tasty. I didn”t use a paddle attachment on a food processor , so my dough was a little more crumbly than hers appears. It was still really good, though.
You should make this and pop over to Amazon to preorder her book, which comes out November 6th.
Guest blogger Jack Mauro brings ES a recipe that proves salad season doesn’t have to end.
Though the temperature is dropping lower and lower with each passing day, it doesn’t mean you have to rearrange your diet around chilis, stews and hot porridge. A delicious means of sneaking summer sunshine into the shortened days, autumnal salads are a light meal that whets an appetite as well as provides necessary nutrition for the upcoming season. We like incorporating fresh citrus into our salads as the boost in vitamin C can mean the difference between being knocked out by the flu, and winning the neighborhood snowball fight. Ramp up the flavor by making your own dressing from scratch—whisking gourmet vinegar and unusual olive oil together with subtle citrus tones.
Ingredients
Dressing:
Directions:
(Photo: CAC)
Question: What do vegetarian zombies eat? Answer: “GRAAAAINS”
I was chomping through my second pound of bacon last Sunday while tossing around some ideas for a horror screenplay that I am writing, and I thought to myself, ‘How sad would it be if after you turned into a zombie you were destined to roam the world consuming only plant-based foods?’ Now THAT would be something that I would dread! Can you imagine? Laying there late at night in your boarded-up home, listening to the zombies munching on your garden and fruit trees? Huge groups of them wiping out fields of young corn and alfalfa, slowly chewing through farm stands like mindless, two-legged cows. And the remaining unaffected humans arming themselves and making a desperate last stand in front of their wheat fields. “Come on you grain eating devils!” a farmer screams as he drives his tractor into a crowd of attacking vega-zombies. “You’ll never take my plants alive!!”
What? Treating vegetarians as spooky, hollow-eyed creatures that repulse and shock us with their unstoppable lust for organic, fresh plants and vegetables? Don’t we do that already? I could film a version of this movie every day if I wanted. I would just sit in the local Whole Foods parking lot around noon and yell, “Action!”
ATTACK OF THE VEGETARIANS
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If a woman really doesn’t want to know how she looks in a dress, why does she ask? I don’t know either but what I do know is that you shouldn’t say “Like a sausage in a twist-tie.”
Trust me on this one.
Which brings me to today’s topic: The Post Breakup Meal. During the last few months, I seem to have consumed these quite frequently. I’m not talking about breaking up DURING a meal. I’ve been there before and believe me, most red wines leave a permanent stain. No, I’m talking about the meal AFTER the breakup. Some splits are so heart-wrenching that you just can’t eat, while others make you come home and do a fist pumping victory lap in your living room. I’m referring to the day or so after, when you need to be alone and all you want to do is curl up with a good exploitation-beat-down-action-adventure movie, and a bowlful of soul-healing proteins and carbs (along with your favorite bottle of rotgut).
Yeah, guys are different, but we still need sustenance during the healing process, and I’ve got something for my newly solo brothers out there. My go-to meal has to have pasta and a rich, soothing tomato sauce. And usually some meat—which almost always includes pork—but for some reason, this time I didn’t feel like sausage. So, let’s go meatless on this one. I’ll keep it simple, yet fulfilling. Almost as easy as calling an escort service. And a lot cheaper.
Katt’s Soul Healing Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
¼ cup of olive oil
3 28 oz cans of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes (Find ‘em…they’re worth it.)
3 peeled carrots
3 stalks of celery
1 large red onion
4 cloves of garlic and 2 sprigs of thyme
1 1/2 cups of chicken stock
Kosher salt
Fresh cracked pepper
1 tsp of red pepper flakes
Heavy cream
2 handfuls of fresh basil leaves
Your favorite pasta
Crusty bread
Unsalted butter
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (Man up and grate it yourself!)
This is my stock tomato sauce recipe, minus the cream. You will need either a hand blender (kinda looks like a boat motor), or you can mix it in batches using a countertop blender. Or you can leave it chunky, but blending it imparts air into the sauce, which makes it creamy and smooth.
First, chop up the onion, carrots and celery. Dump them all into the same bowl because you’ll sauté them together. Then mince the gloves of garlic, but keep them separate. Pour your olive oil into a large soup pot and kick up the heat. Sauté the vegetables until the onions are soft and then throw in the garlic. When you smell the garlic coming from the pot, pour in the chicken stock. Garlic will quickly burn if you’re not careful so I don’t cook it too long over a high flame. Let that come to a simmer and cook down for about 5 minutes. Then, add your tomatoes and their juices one can at a time. Use a potato masher to break up the wholes tomatoes before adding the next can. Strip the thyme sprigs of their leaves over the pot and sprinkle them in. Add the red pepper flakes, salt and black pepper to taste and bring it up to a simmer. Here’s where I blend it well. If you don’t have a hand blender, use your countertop blender BEFORE you bring it up to a simmer. Let it cook uncovered for at least an hour. Two or three is better.
Now prepare some salted water to cook your pasta in. While your pasta is cooking, turn the heat off on your sauce and add some heavy cream. The worse the breakup the more cream you’ll need. Mix it well and then throw in a couple of tablespoons of butter for good measure. Next, coarsely chop up the basil and add it to the sauce. I like it at the end so that it doesn’t cook down and lose its flavor. Once the pasta is done, remove it from the heat and take some straight from the pot to the plate. Don’t rinse the first couple of batches. The pasta water will help the sauce coat the pasta. Ladle on some sauce, spoon on the cheese, and butter up a couple hunks’a bread. Pour yourself a tall one and pop in the DVD. It’s been a rough couple of days but things are looking up. Let the healing begin!
On a recent trip to a local market we were greeted by a gorgeous array of orange pumpkins and irregular gourds. Instead of heading straight for the quintessential Halloween symbol, we simultaneously reached for the oblong, sunny spaghetti squash. When roasted, the bright yellow squash is transformed into pasta-like strands, so we thought it was only appropriate living, in the North End of Boston, a historic Italian neighborhood, to use it like spaghetti.
While in Italy, we were big fans of the famously pungent and spicy Puttanesca sauce. The deep, rustic red sauce with bursts of green briny capers transforms any pasta, or in this case, the subtly sweet squash ribbons. With the addition of earthy eggplant, a sprinkling of fresh chopped basil and Parmesan cheese, it’s our fresh, seasonal take on an Italian classic.
