(almost) Instant Soup

Did you know that in roughly the time it takes to open a can, pour the contents into a saucepan and heat it to a simmer, you could have prepared a tasty, nutritious and low-sodium soup from scratch? Such is the wonder of miso.

Many groceries sell instant miso packaged in little cups to which hot water is added. This is certainly a nice convenience for the office, but if you have access to a stove, you can make your own in about the same time it would take to heat the water.

Miso, a fermented soybean paste popular in Japanese cooking, can often be found in the produce section of the grocery, although at my favorite food co-op it is kept in the dairy case. While the price for a jar or tub may seem expensive, a little goes a long way. Depending on the variety and your taste preference, as little as a teaspoon can adequately flavor a cup of broth.

Miso Soup

I'm partial to the miso produced by the South River Miso Company, which can be purchased online or in some natural food stores. The company sells several varieties of miso, traditional and more boldly-flavored. My favorites are garlic red pepper and dandelion leek. Kept in the refrigerator, an opened jar will last indefinitely.

To make the soup pictured, I diced a carrot, a rib of celery and a slice of onion, sautéed them in about a teaspoon of coconut oil, added a cup and a half of water and brought it to a simmer, tossed in a handful of baby spinach and let it wilt. After removing the pot from the heat, I stirred in about 2 tablespoons of garlic red pepper miso. That's it! In less than 5 minutes, I had a delicious, filling, healthy, low-calorie and inexpensive lunch (2 points for those on WW).

Shedding Excess Weight

Ah, the New Year. January is peak time for new resolutions, and the most common of these is to lose weight. We've all read, and seen the evidence, that the majority of Americans are now overweight and an increasing number are obese. This alarming situation is costing billions in health care, negatively impacting our quality of life, and even shortening our average lifespan.

I believe we're suffering from a bloating that extends beyond our waistlines. Overconsumption of food may be one of the easiest excesses to identify and chastise, but the effects of other types of overconsumption are also pernicious. Studies and dire warnings abound of the lethal consequences of our abuse of fossil fuels. Concurrent with this has been the production of toxins whose damage may never be fully understood.

Cheap energy and industrial processes have certainly brought great benefits to humanity, notably in the advances in health care and communications. But they have also enabled us to fill our living spaces with junk that further weighs us down. Witness the proliferation of television shows devoted to the problems of various types of hoarders!

Electronic media is also often too much of a good thing. We may spend hours a day reading status reports from friends near and far, new and old, known and unknown, while leaving little time to share coffee with a neighbor.

Lately, I've been wondering if battling the bulge in one area of life would be more powerful if accompanied by a simultaneous battle of bulges on all fronts. A full-scale war on excess weight, if you will!

I got a head start in early December on my waistline portion of the effort by joining Weight Watchers. (Yeah, I know, who does that just before the holidays? Really!) My goal is to lose the weight I gained with my last pregnancy. I think it's time, since the baby is now 16. As this has been somewhat of a foodie blog in the past, I disclose this to warn any remaining readers that future recipes and cooking tips posted here likely will have the "this is good for you" filter applied. But they will be delicious as always!

I also plan to share my efforts to lighten the weight of my home, and -- if I'm brave enough -- emotional and mental weight.

And, in this spirit of reducing excess, I'll end this post. See you next time!

Springing into Nutrition

Hey y'all, sorry for the prolonged absence. I've been distracted with another project and family demands,  but I plan to get back to this soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to recommend two far superior food blogs for your reading pleasure.

From northern Michigan, the Intentional Minimalist has been inspiring me lately with delicious recipes featuring the spring greens that are now popping up in farm-share boxes and markets. Her blog focuses on creative uses of local, organic ingredients. I'm in awe after the most recent post (March 21) picturing the IM's compact kitchen and refrigerator interior. Seriously, check it out.

While I'm not yet jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon, I've increasingly been finding recipes and great ideas for healthy meals on gluten-free sites and blogs. My favorite is The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen; the blogger is author of a gluten-free cookbook of the same title. The blog has numerous recipes organized by season and is a nice resource for those wondering what to do with all that kale in the farm-share or CSA box.

Happy reading and I'll be back soon!

Yule Log

Happy New Year!

I may be a little late reporting on the results of this season's holiday baking. Or I could be a little early. Start planning for December now!

As close friends and family know, Christmas is not my favorite holiday. Aside from being turned off by the excessive commercialism and consumer frenzy, I'm a perennial skeptic regarding the "Christmas Spirit": if we can be nice for a few weeks in December, why can't we do it all year? I believe generosity, peace and goodwill should be maximized every day. Plus, I have other nits to pick, such as the practice of killing a perfectly good tree to bring in the house and hang junk upon until it drops all of its needles on the floor.

But despite my well-deserved Scrooge reputation, I do manage every year to participate in some of the traditions, notably the ones involving food. One delicious treat I've been making for several years is Stollen, a sweet German bread stuffed with fruit and nuts and sprinkled with powdered sugar. I started with a recipe for a 100% whole wheat version from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book and modified it over the years until I was satisfied that I probably can't improve on it further. Here's how I make it:

Christmas Stollen

4 tsps active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups whole wheat bread flour
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
5-6 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsps salt
1 cup cottage cheese
2 cups hot water
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup rum
3 eggs
2/3 cup butter

fruit mixture of zest of 2 lemons and 2 oranges, 1.5 cups of chopped toasted almonds and about 3 cups of mixed dried fruit (chopped apricots, raisins, cranberries, currants, anything!)

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Mix the flours and salt (I use a Kitchenaid stand mixer with a dough hook). Mix the cottage cheese, hot water, honey and rum, then add the eggs. Add to flour mixture and knead until you get a nice bread dough. I usually have to add more flour unless I reduce the water. Work in the butter. Cover and let it rise until you can poke a hole in the center and it doesn't fill in. This takes a few hours at my house because my kitchen isn't very warm. Punch it down and re-cover it for a second rise.

Meanwhile, prepare the fruit and nuts. I like to chop everything up fairly small. A food processor helps for this. When the dough is ready (your poke doesn't fill in, at least not very fast), roll it out on a floured surface and let it rest of about 10 minutes. Then spread the fruit and nut mixture over it and start working all that stuff in. This will build your biceps! After you have it evenly incorporated, divide  it into the number of loaves you wish to make and round into balls. I made 8 small loaves because I intended most of them as gifts. Let the balls rest for about 15 minutes, then shape by pressing each into a longish oval and folding it almost in half the long way. Place on a greased or non-stick cookie sheet or baking tray and let rise again, until the poke is slow to fill in. Bake at 375F for about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the loaves. When cool, brush with melted butter, if you'd like, and dust with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

Bûche de Noël, before rolling

Bûche de Noël, completed

This year, I added a new baked item to my holiday repertoire, the Bûche de Noël, otherwise known as the Yule Log. My daughter received the recipe from her French teacher and was eager to try it. Although many recipes exist for this delicious confection, ours was chocolate throughout. Chocolate cake with a chocolate-cream cheese filling and chocolate icing. I added a thin layer of whipped cream before I rolled it up and more whipped cream as "snow" on the finished log. Due to having no skill in decorating, my log was undoubtedly the ugliest Bûche de Noël baked anywhere this holiday season, but it was tasty!

Shopping in the Paris of the North Woods

Tonight I'm hosting my book group meeting to discuss Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast," which is his memoir of his life in Paris in the 1920s. We wanted to read "The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain and we decided we should also read what he had to say about it.

I enjoy theme dinners when possible, and the only difficult part of creating a theme around Parisian food is deciding which of so many delicious things to serve. Fortunately, I was aided in this by my little book, "Found Meals of the Lost Generation," which provides menus and recipes inspired by meals described by the group of artists and writers that included Hemingway.

Here are most of the raw ingredients for our meal tonight:

A scholar of Hemingway may look at this and wonder what I could possibly be serving that was mentioned in "A Moveable Feast." Focus on the potatoes, sausages and beer. I've embellished after that because I know my friends will enjoy more and I also wanted to make something Hadley might have ordered if her husband had been thoughtful enough to invite her along.

I'll have photos tomorrow of the completed dishes.

When reading novels set in France, or watching French films, I've often been envious of the food shopping experiences. Those Parisians seem to always be popping down to the corner bakery, stopping by an outdoor produce market, and picking up marvelous meats and cheeses from shop keepers who know not only their customers' names, but their tastes. They also do their shopping on foot; I've never seen a Parisian in any film pull the SUV up to the loading area of a big grocery.

But I don't need to be so jealous! Although Traverse City is not as large as Paris, nor quite as walkable, I was able to accomplish all of my shopping for tonight's meal on foot. I walked over to Maxbauer's for the sausages and on my way home stopped in the very Parisian-like 9 Bean Rows Bakery for bread. From there, I walked across the street to my favorite wine, beer and liquor supplier, Jack's Market, for some French beer. The guys at Jack's told me they don't sell French beer because it's all so bad (haha! imagine -- the French are great at wine but lousy at beer), so instead I bought a Belgian beer with a French name. Hemingway probably didn't drink French beer either. Anyway, everyone in my book group will want to drink wine, so we'll have a taste of the beer and move on to our usual beverage.

The rest of the groceries came from Oryana, where I walked yesterday in the lovely sunshine. Today's weather is drab and drippy and reminds me of Paris in November and the aroma of street vendors roasting chestnuts in big metal pans over open fires. As it happens, I have some local chestnuts, so my friends will get to enjoy that scent tonight.

Now I'd better get cooking.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

I needed three full days of rest to sufficiently recover from the cooking, cleaning and eating marathon before I could write about the results.


Our Thanksgiving feast was the best yet, with more dishes than ever before and no cooking disasters, at least not on Thursday when guests were present. Last year I apparently stuck the meat thermometer in the wrong part of the turkey thigh; when John began carving into the turkey at the table, blood seeped out and the whole thing had to go back in the oven while we waited for another hour. This year, I poked that turkey in several places prior to removing it and all was perfect.

Cranberry Sauce

Green Salad

Turkey (after carving)

In addition to the dishes pictured here, we had pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake (more on that below), Madeira gravy, giblet gravy, and an appetizer tray of little cheese biscuits, spiced almonds, and olives.

I took John with me to the park to bring home the turkey from an Amish farmer who delivers each year. Of course, John decided to buy the biggest turkey he had, which was 22 pounds. After seeing that it barely fit in our oven and created a burdensome amount of leftovers, I think it's safe to say that John has learned his lesson about getting a turkeysaurus and that next year we'll stay under 17 pounds.

Wild Rice Dressing

I added one dish to the menu the day before Thanksgiving: this excellent wild rice dressing I made last year. As I almost doubled the recipe, we had a large amount of this left over. More on that below.

Cornbread Dressing

Squash with grapes, apples, chestnuts

John's Green Bean Casserole

My Green Bean Casserole

We also had dueling green bean casseroles. John insists on making his the "traditional" way, which is to open a bunch of cans and dump the contents in a casserole dish. I have been attempting to teach him that cooking from fresh ingredients is tastier, so once again, I offered one from scratch. It turned out even better this year than last, probably because I used baby portabellos for the mushrooms. I used a recipe from the Food Network, and my advice to anyone else who attempts this is to watch the onions very carefully in the oven; last year they burned before the timer went off. This year I checked regularly after 15 minutes and removed them after 25.

Corn Macque Choux

The table, ready for guests

Despite doubling the recipe, the corn macque choux was gone by the end of the day. This is a very popular dish for my family and one I should probably make more than once a year. Basically, it's a creamed corn with a cajun kick.



Now about all those leftovers.

I divided the carcass of the giant turkey into three stockpots and made about 8 quarts (maybe more) of rich turkey broth. Today some of that broth, combined with a fresh saute of celery, onion, carrot and garlic, because the base of a delicious soup. I added some of the leftover wild rice dressing, fresh thyme and parsley and about a cup of frozen corn. With a quick batch of onion biscuits, it was a pleasant Sunday night supper.

Now I must disclose the near disaster. I wasn't pleased with the texture of the pumpkin cheesecake. It was a bit too soft in the center; I think I should've cooked it for another 15 minutes. On Friday morning, still sleepy and not thinking clearly, I wondered what would happen if I baked it a little longer. This was after the cheesecake had been removed from its springform pan and cut. The cheesecake was still sitting on the bottom part of the pan, so I slid it into the oven and checked back 15 minutes letter. The whole thing had melted all over the oven! I removed the part that clung to the pan bottom and cleaned up the rest. What to do? It was too good to waste. So I thought, why can't it just be pudding, or cheesecake trifle? I spooned it all into a large bowl and chilled it again. Sprinkled with some sugared pecans, it's almost as good as it was when it was just cheesecake!

Thanksgiving Planning

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. Not only is it among the least commercialized festivities, the small amount of consumer activity prompted by Thanksgiving can easily be directed towards businesses I cherish, such as organic family farms. And the centerpiece of the holiday -- a meal of traditional dishes shared with loved ones in a spirit of gratitude -- is balm to the soul.

Of course, not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving by gathering three generations of the family around the table while Grandpa carves the large turkey in the center. Due to varied economic circumstances, as well as families being increasingly scattered, not to mention a large proportion of adults with cooking skills limited to the microwave, the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving scene is something to which many can no longer relate.

For those in need, volunteers in my town serve a free community Thanksgiving meal at a local church; this is a popular annual event for those who serve and those who are served and volunteer spots often are filled weeks in advance. Volunteers also deliver Thanksgiving meals to shut-ins.

People in comfortable financial situations may also find themselves unable to enjoy a meal at home. Some restaurants are open on Thanksgiving Day to serve traditional meals, usually at a fixed price. Twice in my life I've enjoyed Thanksgiving in a restaurant and both were among my most memorable holidays. When I was 13, my father was on a temporary assignment in Florida and the rest of us flew down for Thanksgiving week. It was my first time riding an airplane, and dining out was a rare treat on any day; I didn't miss being at Grandma's farm with my cousins at all!

My second restaurant Thanksgiving was in Half Moon Bay, California, during the year my husband had a fellowship at the University of Colorado. We drove to California for Thanksgiving break and stopped at a restaurant enroute from San Francisco to Monterey. John and the kids ordered the traditional turkey dinner; I opted for the fish. Afterwards, we waded in the Pacific Ocean near Monterey. I loved spending Thanksgiving in short sleeves.

This year, as with most of our Thanksgivings for the 19 years we've lived in northern Michigan, I'll be cooking a feast at our home to share with close friends. We'll have 5 guests, for a total of 9 diners, and I'll cook more than can be eaten in 2 days. By the end of the weekend, we should be finished with leftovers, at which time I'll never want to see turkey again, or at least for a year.

The key to serving a large feast to guests is advance planning and preparation. Just this morning I realized that Thanksgiving is next Thursday! For some reason, I thought I had two more weeks. Fortunately, I had already been drafting a menu, so I'm not behind. I usually divide the cooking into two days -- Wednesday for everything that can be made in advance, and Thursday morning for the turkey and the day-of dishes. This year I've decided to be more organized and add Tuesday as a cooking day, which will make Monday my big Oryana shopping spree day.

In planning a Thanksgiving menu, or any large meal for guests, it is crucial to consider the time and equipment demands of each dish. For example, if you have a stove with four burners, you don't want to have a menu of 6 dishes that all need to be prepared on stovetop and served immediately. If you have a standard-sized oven, like mine, the turkey will take up most or all of the space. My strategy is to put the turkey in the oven first thing on Thanksgiving morning; I bake casseroles when the turkey is out and resting. Also, don't be troubled if you have casserole recipes with various cooking temperatures; if the recipe says bake at 325F or 375F, a 350F oven can easily handle it, so all casseroles can go in at 350F and bake together. Just peek in to check for doneness.

Anything that is served cold or chilled should be made in advance. For Thanksgiving, this may include your cranberry sauce or relish, salads, and probably your dessert.

Here's my menu and strategy:

Appetizer tray of cheese puffs, spiced nuts and salted radishes, all made ahead (Tuesday).
Cranberry sauce (Tuesday)
Pumpkin Pie, (Wednesday)
Pumpkin Cheesecake with caramel sauce, candied pecans and whipped cream (Wednesday)
Mashed potato casserole (Wednesday)
Green salad with blue cheese, walnuts, apples, dried figs and pumpkin seeds (Wednesday)
Onion biscuits (start Wednesday, finish Thursday)
Cornbread dressing (start Wednesday, finish Thursday)
Green bean casserole (start Wednesday, finish Thursday)
Turkey with Madeira gravy (early Thursday)
Squash with chestnuts and apples (Thursday)
Corn Maque Choux (Thursday)

Finally, I'd like to share the turkey recipe I've been using for the past 20 years. It's from the November 1991 issue of Southern Living and I've never found a better one. It requires only a roasting pan and a baster -- no plastic bags or deep fryers. Last year I did brine the turkey for two days prior and probably will again this year as I pick it up from my Amish farmer on Tuesday afternoon, but I can't say the brining made a huge difference.

Madeira Roast Turkey

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup Madeira wine
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 lemon, cut in half
1 12-15 lb turkey
cooking spray or oil
1 to 3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water

Combine first 4 ingredients and juice of one lemon; set aside.

Remove giblets and neck from turkey; reserve for other uses [my husband makes another gravy from them]. Pat turkey dry if removing from brine. Tie ends of legs to tail with cord; lift wingtips up and over back and tuck under bird.

Place turkey on rack of a roasting pan, breast side up; rub with other lemon half, squeezing juice over turkey. Spray with cooking spray or brush with oil. Insert meat thermometer into meaty part of thigh, making sure it does not touch bone. Bake at 325F for 3 hours or until meat thermometer reaches 185F, basting every 30 minutes after the first hour with Madeira mixture. If turkey starts to brown too much, cover with foil.

When the turkey is two-thirds done, cut the cord or band of skin holding drumsticks to tail. This will ensure that thighs are cooked internally. The turkey is done when drumsticks are easy to move up and down. Let stand at least 15 minutes before carving [this is when you bake all those casseroles].

Measure remaining basting mixture and pan juices from turkey. Using 1 tablespoon cornstarch to each cup of drippings, combine cornstarch and 1/4 cup water, stirring until smooth; stir into pan drippings. Bring to a boil for 1 minute [or until desired thickness], stirring constantly. Serve with turkey.