Soup and Soda Bread

We had a lovely spring day yesterday. It wasn't chilly but by lunch time I wanted soup, so I made a nice veggie soup. This isn't a vegetarian or vegan soup because I used chicken broth as the liquid part, but the rest is plant based. If you substituted vegetable broth or water it's vegan.

Since I was having soup I decided that a nice small loaf of soda bread would be a great thing to go with it. I made a loaf with half the usual amount in my favorite recipe, plus I added both dried cranberries and chopped walnuts. Because I had just over 1/4 cup of the flour and seed mix I used in THIS bread, it was just a touch seedy. I won't have any of that available next time, so for the recipe below I'll just list all-purpose flour for all of it. This is totally not vegan, but it is delicious. Had some more this morning, with mixed fruit and coffee, for breakfast. Warmed it up in the toaster oven...still moist and yum.

Neither of these recipes are difficult, but the techniques are good ones. For the soup I started by 'sweating' the chopped onions in the olive oil. This means that I stirred the onions to coat them with the hot oil, then turned the heat to low and covered the pot. After a couple of minutes I stirred the onions and put the lid back on, still on low heat. I repeated that twice more, then added the garlic and did the same thing another two minutes. By the end I had translucent onions but none were browned and the garlic wasn't in the least burnt.

Another technique was cooking the zucchini. I steamed them for two minutes in the microwave before adding to the soup. That allowed them to release some liquid, which allowed them to soften a bit. Once added to the soup that softened squash was better able to soak up the flavors in the soup than raw squash would have been, so the soup was ready to enjoy sooner, but with full flavor.

For the soda bread a technique you may want to try is rubbing the butter into the flour. I did use a pastry blender to begin the process and to break most of the butter into roughly pea sized pieces. Rubbing those small pieces into the flour mixture meant that the batter absorbed the buttermilk mixture more easily, but there were still large enough pieces of butter for a good texture and crust, and a bit of crumble. I also stirred the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture with spread fingers of a clean hand because that's a technique used in an Irish cooking school and also because you can quickly mix the dough without overbeating it. 

Because there is a lot of butter in the dough, you don't really need to butter the finished bread, but it's also OK to 'gild the lily' and delicious, too!

Veggie Soup
Serves 4

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 onion, diced

2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes in juice 

32 oz canned chicken broth...or use homemade chicken broth

freshly ground black pepper...about 1/4 teaspoon, to taste

1/8 teaspoon dried rosemary

1/4 teaspoon  dried thyme
1 can cannelini or other white beans, drained but not rinsed

1 cup frozen mixed vegetables

1 small zucchini, quartered and sliced

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium high heat, then stir the onions in the olive oil, then cover and turn to low and cook about two minutes. Repeat the stirring, covering, and 'sweating' over low heat for two minutes another two times, then add the garlic, stir well and sweat, covered, over low heat another two minutes.  Add the tomatoes and stir to loosen any veggies sticking to the pan. Add the chicken broth, white beans, including any sludge at the bottom of the can, and the seasonings. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the frozen vegetables, cover and heat on low while cooking the zucchini. Put the zucchini in a microwavable steamer, cover, and steam two minutes. Add to the soup, heat for another minute. Serve.

Maple Walnut Cranberry Soda Bread
Makes one small-ish loaf

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 oz. (1 stick) cold butter, cut in thin slices
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup moist dried cranberries (Craisins)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup buttermilk

Sift the dry ingredients over the butter and cut in well with a fork or pastry blender. Add nuts and cranberries; mix in gently but well. Add the maple syrup to the buttermilk and make a well in the dry ingredients. Pour in the buttermilk mixture, then mix just until moist - don’t over handle.

Some dry stuff is OK but the dough should be sticky.

Pat into a round on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Cut a cross on top. Bake 30 minutes at 350 F. until crust has deep golden brown parts. Cool a bit before slicing.

Spring Is In The Air

You can tell that spring has come because I'm not posting as often. As usual the garden calls, with lots of weeds to pull and pots to get ready for planting. The snails this year are very active and invasive but there are too many to pull off leaves or pick up under plants and give 'flying lessons' to, so I may have to resort to chemicals, at least for the ornamentals. Watering in the morning has also been important since we just finished a week of record heat...into the low 90s!...and this week is only slightly cooler. We're getting apple blossoms now, which is nuts since they usually bloom in mid-April. The lilacs are only about a week early, but they sure are pretty!

Another call on my time is P.E.O, the womens' scholarships group that I've written about in the past. I've been a member for 22 years and this month I begin a year as chapter President again...I do it about once a decade; the first time 20 years ago, then 10 years ago. I enjoy it, mostly, but it takes a lot of time to do it right. This year our chapter alone is awarding over $26,000 in local scholarships, with hundreds of thousands being awarded at the state and international levels, so it's worth the time spent. Because a big part of the enjoyment is due to the friendships and fun I've found with the local members, there is that element of community and sisterhood that's worthwhile, too. Last, but not least, I learn a lot each time I take on this job. I enjoy learning new things, plus it helps keep the brain sharp, so that, too, is worth it.

I hope to post some new recipes soon, so don't give up on me, OK?

Happy Spring! 

Over Three Million and Bon Appetit and Lemon Sugar Cookies

Life is full of surprises. Didn't visit my blog yesterday, but it seems that sometime yesterday over 3 million views had happened during Feeding My Enthusiasms history. I knew it was getting close, but thought it would take a little longer.

Another surprise happened today when I typed my blog name into Google. It gave me a pictorial view of various links to the blog, including one from 2013 that I had no idea had occurred.  Bon Appetit online, I guess their blog (URL was bonappetit.com) in December of 2013 did a piece on bloggers who were inspired by their December magazine cover to decorate cookies in a similar way. That year my daughter had, for some reason, bought ninja cookie cutters and also metallic food safe powder (luster dust), so my cookies that year were different. They had flow icing and metallic decorations...and ninjas! 

Anyway I never knew that Feeding My Enthusiasms was featured, along with half a dozen other blogs. 

Speaking of cookies, I made another kind to go with the oatmeal chocolate chip ones. Old fashioned sugar cookies, where you dip the bottom of a glass in sugar and smoosh the dough flat so that it gets a sugar coating on the top of the cookie, are so retro, but delicious, especially if you add some lemon oil (or a larger amount of extract as shown in the recipe) to the dough. I also added the zest from a lemon and put some golden sanding sugar in with the regular granulated kind, so they were a bit more fun than plain old sugar cookies.

Smooshed Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine at room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 eggs at room temperature
2 tablespoons milk at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour

Beat together the butter or margarine and the sugar. Beat in the eggs, milk and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add to first mixture. Mix well. Drop cookies from a teaspoon or tablespoons (depending on what size cookie you like), 1-inch apart on a lightly buttered cookies sheet. For smooshed cookies, flour or grease and sugar (may use cinnamon-sugar or colored sugar) bottom of a water glass and use bottom to smoosh the dough to about 1/4 inch thick discs of cookie dough. 

Bake in a preheated 375 degree F. oven for about 8 minutes. Makes 8-10 dozen small cookies or about half that large cookies.

Variation: Lemon cookies (what I made): Omit the vanilla, add 1 teaspoon lemon extract and 4 teaspoons grated lemon zest from the rind of a lemon. Once baked and cooled, you can also coat half of each cookie with melted chocolate for a two toned cookie, but just the lemon is delicious (I just did the lemon, no chocolate).

Party Cookie Baked Smaller

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know about the party cookie...one of my favorite recipes if you like chocolate chip cookies and need something for a party or gift. In the past I always baked them up as large cookies...1/4 cup, 1/2 cup or 1 cup of batter at a time. You can see some of those HERE.

This time I decided to bake them up in fairly standard single cookie size, partly so that I could give them away next door to the construction workers who could easily pick one (or two!) up that way to snack on, and partly because I wanted to try something different with nuts.

I scooped out cookie dough with a disher and they were about 2 tablespoons worth for each cookie. I flattened them a bit and baked six at a time on a 12-inch pizza pan. Half of them got my treatment of being dipped on the bottom in chopped pecans. It worked well because as the cookie baked the nuts were browned, along with the cookie bottom. Delicious if you like pecans!

So, you can see how versatile this recipe is. Making some yourself soon?

XO, Elle 

Party Cookies

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar, light or dark, packed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
½ cup quick rolled oats
2 cups (12-oz. package) semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)
½ cup dried fruit (I used dark cherries)

For circle or heart shaped cookie:
1 cup M & M candies in appropriate colors (optional but fun)
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons hot milk
Assorted cake decorations such as dragees, colored sugar, colored small shapes, chopped nuts

Combine flour, salt and baking soda in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl and beat until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape bowl and beaters. Gradually beat in flour and beat until mixed. Beat in oatmeal. Mixture will be stiff. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Line a 12” pizza pan  or baking sheet with foil. Spray with cooking spray. For a big circle cookie if using the pizza pan, put 2 cups of the dough on the foil. Using floured fingers, shape dough into desired shape, either circle or heart. Smaller hearts on baking sheets use 1 cup dough each. Exaggerate the shape since cookie will spread. You can fit two smaller hearts per pan. Sprinkle M&Ms over dough shape and pat lightly into dough, if using.

Bake one sheet at a time in middle of oven for 10 - 18 minutes (depending on the size of the cookie) until golden brown. Let sit on sheet for 10 minutes, then slide shape on foil onto a cooling rack. Continue to bake the rest of the dough. You can make regular drop cookies instead, as I did today. I put the chopped pecans on a tray and dipped the smaller (2 tablespoons of batter) drop cookies in them on the bottom. Place bottom side down on the baking sheet. If you leave the decorations off and the dried fruit out, as I did, they look like simple chocolate chip cookies.

Once the cookie has cooled, if you like you can decorate for a party! Mix the confectioners sugar and milk and drizzle over the cookie in a random pattern. If you like you can color the icing. While it is still wet, sprinkle cake decorations over as desired. To edge with colored icing as Raine did, add a bit more confectioners sugar. The cookies are pretty with just the M& Ms, too.

Put decorated cookies on party platter and serve. Pieces can be broken off or you can cut it into portions. If it is for a birthday party, candles will stand up for a brief time; long enough to light them and sing Happy Birthday! For Mother's day, wrap carefully in clear plastic wrap and add a bow. If you are good with icing, you can put Mom or her name in the middle of the heart.

Quiche Again

I never grow tired of making quiche. There is something about the soft savory custard, tang of cheese, combined with a flaky crust and a mixture of veggies and sometimes meat or poultry that is comfort food for me...plus a chance to use up leftovers. 

This time I made a chicken, mushroom and broccoli one. The chicken had been grilled...yay for using up leftovers. The mushrooms and broccoli were fresh and went well with the chicken and the tangy cheese I used, a semi-hard Spanish one, but I've forgotten the name.

The recipe is a typical one where I par-baked the crust, put the cheese and chicken on the bottom, then the broccoli florets (each cut in half first), then the custard using three eggs and 1 1/2 cups milk, salt, pepper and a touch of poultry seasoning and paprika. I pushed down on the broccoli to coat the florets with the custard, then put the mushrooms on top, evenly scattered. I did have to bake it about 40 minutes until the middle was just firming up. 

If you want an actual recipe, it's close to THIS one, although I didn't use any onion or celery. Now that we are getting spring veggies, this is also good with asparagus pieces or spears instead of the broccoli.

Have fun with quiche making...as long as the proportions are the same you can truly play around and have a delicious quiche.

Chuck Williams Museum in Napa

If you love looking at the tools for cooking and baking and kitchen tasks, you are going to love this post!

Along with a delightful visit with family from the East Coast and some from near Sacramento and Vallejo CA, the third week in February, we visited Napa and had lunch at Grace's Table, which I highly recommend. 

After lunch we went the fairly short distance to CIA at Coppia, a combination culinary school and museum. The whole building was fragrant with the smell of pizza baking, thanks to some of the students at the Culinary Institute of America class being held that afternoon. Upstairs, too, is the Chuck Williams Museum, which houses over 4,000 culinary items. Chuck Williams is one of the founders of Williams-Sonoma, a long time purveyor of all kinds of culinary tools and machines and some ingredients. My Kitchen Aide mixer was a purchase from them at a time when I really didn't have money for such an extravagant purchase, but I really needed that mixer to allow me to grow in my baking skills. It's been over 40 years and it still works and I still bake!

All of those 4,000 items seemed to be displayed either in the body of the museum space or in additional display cases in the hallways near the culinary academy and downstairs near the restaurant and wine bar.  It was a bit overwhelming! 

There were dozens of rolling pins, 

lower ones are embossed, for cookies

Hung one the wall are many dozens of tools to crimp dough and cut wavy lines of dough, even a double-wheeled one.

 Some had wooden handles, some metal and the shapes of the handles differed, too.  I wonder if the tops of some of the handles were used to shape pie dough. Looks like there are leaves and stars and maybe a fish.

Egg beaters were another set hung on the walls. There were also stand mixers, but I don't remember seeing one like mine...these were older ones.

One of the things that first catches your eye when you enter the museum is a wall hung with dozens and dozens of copper molds, many of them very intricate. I'm not sure how some of them would release the elaborate configurations on top. Many of them were probably used for gelatin and cold mousses, but even these would have been difficult to unmold. Bet there were tricks for removing the contents.

In cabinets around the room there were so many other items of interest, from toasters

and waffle irons

to casseroles and soufflé dishes

Sets were a big thing, from mezzalunas to pie plates

One of the things that I most enjoyed looking at were the various molds used for cake, or perhaps candy. They were so intricate and graphic and I could just imagine them making a statement at Easter, or Thanksgiving or Christmas or another special occasion.

Space was given to the items that would have been used on the hearth

and to show kitchen furniture and equipment like this Hoosier cabinet and tiled stove

as well as work horses like copper pots (including that monster one on the tiles stove)

and copper double boilers

Specialty items were plentiful, including an espresso machine, flour bin (that included a sifter!), dough crock, and large flour sifter, and a fascinating knife grinder that looked like it sharpened multiple knives at a time. The apple press could, of course, be used to press juice from other fruits, plus there are some lovely citrus juicers near by in another case.

                                        

I enjoyed seeing that some things, like cookie cutters and icing implements are very similar to ones that I used as a child and still use sometimes.

The ceramic tart pans stacked up here are also fairly modern looking even though they are fairly old.

When I was talking about sets of things I neglected to show you the mashers and grinders and churns and beaters, but they are sure an interesting group of tools.

As you might imagine, it became a bit overwhelming, all of these culinary tools and implements. A few that I took close ups of because I liked the way they looked as much as their use were some more molds. This collection has a large proportion of molds!

The first couple have a recipe right on the outside...pretty handy.

I love fish designs and really like this one

And as a baker I find this one charming

Last, but not least, is my favorite poster from the museum

After we left the museum and headed downstairs, I discovered another couple of cases outside the wine bar. One had this beautiful drinks cabinet and the second had the stunning cordial server.

This ends my virtual 'tour' of this wonderful museum of culinary delights. If you are in Napa, CA near the downtown, consider a visit yourself!

A Day Out

Still having fun with my youngest nephew, we decided to take in both the redwoods and the beach on his last day here. Sweetie drove as we headed west to Freestone and the Wildflour Bakery. This place is always busy when it's open, with a line up to the doorway where, post-pandemic, you order what you want and they bring it to the door and hand it through after you pay. To help you decide what to order, there is a six foot tall chalkboard that lists the day's offerings...all kinds of bread baked in the wood-fired oven, plenty of varieties of scones, amazing sticky buns and more. 

When it's our turn I mention that my nephew is a professional baker and ask if he can come into the oven area...which he does through the back door. He really enjoyed chatting with the bakers and seeing the production area and that oven. He said that there is a space at least five time larger than what can be seen from the door and that there were something like 80 bannetons for shaping bread all stacked up on benches in that area. It was the final bakery of the trip and a good way to end the bakery visits.

We headed down the Bohemian Highway to the Russian River and then to Armstrong Redwoods, not far outside of Guerneville. We'd been there before with him when he visited as a teen, but it never gets old.

 

It was still a bit foggy and damp but the sun was starting to come through and a brisk walk through the woods warmed us up. Here's a wood orchid we saw on a bank near the Forest Theater.

Once back in Guerneville, we headed west toward the ocean and eventually turned south near Goat Rock.

 We stopped there and a few other places along the coast as we headed to Bodega Bay. 

At Doran Beach we hit the sand and enjoyed the sea air. The tide was out and it was pretty windy but the day had brightened and warmed a bit.

Our last stop was at Blue Water Bistro just south of Doran 

where we had a fantastic lunch and a view of the bay, with plenty of local crab, which is great because it's crab season. I can't have crab...allergies...but enjoyed a wonderful salad.

It was a great day out!