cook: spring harvest + fridge clean out

Before leaving for spring break, I traded my fancy nonstick pans from Food 52 for a friend's wok, which no longer worked on a new stove. I also came away from the food pantry at school with a whole head of cauliflower and lots of heads of broccoli. I cut up the cauliflower and used my "new" wok by cleaning out my fridge and frying rice. I diced cauliflower, onions, carrots, celery and minced garlic. I also sliced medallions of Japanese spicy sausage and Chinese sweet sausage as well as added frozen corn and peas.

 

For the stir fry sauce, I broke out my bottles of oyster and soy and Maggi seasoning. I guess I don't care much for a dry rice or for it sticking to the bottom of the wok because I added chicken broth and then water to de-glaze the pan and steam the rice.

Not bad.

Healthy. From the broccoli as well as leeks and spring onions from a harvest, I made a quiche AND a soup. I deviated from Gordon Ramsay's recipe with the alliums and by not adding goat cheese and walnuts and drizzling with olive oil before serving though I did use heavy whipping cream and a bit of chicken Better than Bouillon.

My quiche seemed overcooked to me though gorgeous and not as high and fluffy as I wanted, BUT the soup was the hit for the neighbor gathering and potluck called a spring fling.

A few neighbors asked for my leftover jars of broccoli soup, but I do have one left for me and Patrick in the fridge. From the public library, I checked out this promising book about how Banksy has saved art history. The book has so far been a good read.

My spring break had a promising start. A great outrigger canoe practice UNTIL I hyperextended (my erector spinae) on a stroke which HURT. When I should've rested, I instead swam a mile instead of the recommended rest, ice, and compression. And break is now Friday or almost over, and so I think I can now lengthen and strengthen that muscle with double knees to chest stretch and some side bends where I stand with my feet shoulder-width apart and gently bend to the side, holding for a few seconds plus some cat cow stretches on my hands and knees. I canceled going to paddling practice this Saturday and will do plank and wall squats when the pain completely disappears. I should not have swam that mile Tuesday night, but afterward, I did go to Gourmet Haus Staudt with my friend Cybil and drank a lovely winterberry cider and ate pork schnitzel with fries and salad. 

We were gonna stay, so she could do calligraphy and I stitch, but I forgot my reading glasses AND my side was stiff and hurting. My side still hurt yesterday when I and Cybil and her friend, Lyra went to the new Korean market and emporium called Jagalchi. My side still was pained like the dickens when I swam a half mile later. I was more comfortable just crouched at the end of the pool like Spider-Man. My side still hurts, but I'm going to the ceramics studio this morning and tomorrow. Maybe I'll cook a couple more dishes like a gumbo and a Bolognese after I get back from Costco tonight. Maybe I'll even do some laundry and some linoleum carving too.

cook: broccoli soup

There was so much food at my high school workplace: a chocolate chip coffee cake from our principal; a choose-your-own-cookies box from our parent-teacher organization; a Polynesian club pizza party; and my working day started with a Chinese egg custard from a colleague.

I was not hungry at all when I got home, but wanted to cook some kind of vegetable-forward dish for dinner. I had posted some days ago a picture of a huge head of broccoli from a late harvest, and in the meantime, Patrick kept asking me if he should give that broccoli away or in other words, when was I finally going to cook it? Last night! I thought of asking Cecilia if I could borrow her stick blender, but nah, I just tossed the cooked ingredients into the Vitamix blender. I was going to use a recipe from one of my favorite cooking blogs, Recipe Tin Eats, but decided to add a potato to the pot and because I actually had sodium citrate to emulsify cheddar cheese in my pantry drawer to use a food nerdier recipe from another favorite cooking blog, Serious Eats.  Per Lopez Alt, I chopped a yellow onion and broccoli stalks into small pieces and separated them from the florets. I later peeled and chopped a potato, celery, carrots, and thinly sliced garlic.

Per the recipe, I charred the florets and removed them to a bowl. And started a pot of chicken broth by mixing tablespoons of Better than Bouillon into hot water. I love the vibrant green of the charred florets and decided to reserve them for the very end of the soup.

I then sautéed the onions and then the broccoli stalk bits for 10 minutes and then added the garlic and the rest of the vegetables and knobs of butter for another 10 minutes. I started to add chicken broth and water as the bottom of the pot started looking dry and brown.

   

Once all the vegetables and aromatics were softened after 20 or so minutes of simmering in a bit of broth, I removed them from the pot and put them into the blender. Back into the Dutch oven along with the rest of the chicken broth to simmer and amalgamate flavors.

 

I added the charred broccoli heads, but was starving. I wasn't going to wait to add the milk, cream, and cheddar cheese and cook again and just decided to dig in

The soup was fucking delicious as is. Though the broccoli florets had a bit of a chew, I didn't care and ate my fill. I decanted the rest of the soup into a quart and 2 pint jars. I'll toss rustic cut cheddar with dried mustard and a tiny bit of sodium citrate as well as a mixture of low-fat milk and heavy whipping cream (what I got in the fridge) and some hot sauce when reheating the soup for tonight's dinner if I don't prepare brisket and mac 'n cheese instead in which case broccoli cheddar soup will be Sunday night supper. 

Today will be my last day of ceramics with my city's parks and recreation department. As much as I love the community, it annoys me to pay for 2 ceramic memberships and more galling to also have to search and then pay for parking at the city garage and stress when I get too lost in clay and forget to insert more money into the parking meter. I will honestly miss Jim Bob Blue glaze as well as Warm Green AND OF COURSE THE PEOPLE, but oh well.