Mar 08 2011

Lemon Chicken and Orzo Soup

A friend of ours does not think soup can be a meal. Soup is to be had before a meal – the only exception and this is a recent one – if a sandwich is paired with soup, it then can be eaten as a meal. What are your thoughts?

I honestly could eat soup for dinner almost every night. Soup toppings can really change it up, not to mention a huge hunk of bread, now we’re talkin’.

I found a recipe I had cut out of a grocery advertisement for Lemon Chicken and Orzo Soup. I adapted it to fit the ingredients I had on hand.

The Ingredients:
4 Teaspoons Olive Oil
8 Ounces Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts – I used organic – free range
1 Medium to Large White Onion
1 Clove Garlic
1 Large Carrot – diced
2 Celery Stalks – started with one, decided to add one more -diced
1 Heaping Tablespoon Fresh Thyme – chopped
8 Cups Chicken Broth – I used organic – free range.
1 Cup Orzo Pasta
2 Large Eggs
3 Tablespoons Fresh Lemon Juice
Sea Salt and Pepper to Taste

Directions:
Dice and chop your thyme, onion, garlic, celery and carrots. (I used my Dorat cheater garlic)

Heat 2 Teaspoons of your olive oil in a dutch oven or soup pot over medium to high heat. Add the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Stir occasionally until just cooked through – about 5 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a dish and set aside.

Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil to the pot. Add your onions, garlic, celery, carrots and thyme. Cook and stir over medium to high heat for about 5 minutes – just until the veggies are tender.

Add in 6 cups of broth and bring to a boil.

Add in orzo and let simmer for about 8-10 minutes. Decrease soup temperature to low to keep the soup hot, but not boiling.

Warm the remaining 2 cups of broth in a small pan until it is hot, but not boiling.

Extract the juice from your lemon. I used my new Pampered Chef Citrus Press. When my friend Paul visited last May, I didn’t have a reamer or anything for our Chicken Piccata Recipe – Now I have the citrus press, a reamer, and a juicer. Check me out – juicin’ it up all over my kitchen!

In a bowl, beat your 2 eggs…

Gradually whisk in your lemon juice…

Then gradually add the hot broth to the lemon and egg mixture, whisking the entire time.

I ran into a little problem trying to take photos during this process – guessing it will be fine for people that don’t photograph every step of their cooking, ha!

Add the mixture to the soup pot – stirring well until the soup is thickened.

The soup smelled delicious! I could not wait to dive right in.

Bright and cheery – perfect for an overcast day. I will definitely be making this soup recipe again and again.

In other news…
We have been super busy working on what was once our guest room. We got rid of the bed and bedroom furniture a while back because my clothing business was taking over the space. I then let a friend borrow some leather chairs and a small table desk and was left with a lot of open space. The treadmill and TV took up one wall, but the rest of the room was empty. We recently decided to set up a second office – his and hers. We painted over the weekend and the new office furniture was delivered last night. I’m so excited to finish the project. It will be cool to have my own space for blogging, photography equipment, books, etc. It’s also forcing me to really pair down. I mean, how many pens and pencils does one really need?

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=3823

Mar 01 2011

Simple Country French Cooking Class – Part II

I promised you Coq Au Vin and Simple Lemon Soufflés and then I disappeared for 5 days. I’m not going to lie… Dan being on a diet has really messed with my routine. I like to do most of my cooking on the weekends, with plenty of portion controlled options for mid week, and that hasn’t been happening. It seems like I’m at the store every couple of days buying more meat and veggies, but I’m not making anything new. We are eating dinner around 6:30, fitting in double workouts and I’m exhausted by the time my head hits the pillow. We have another 5 weeks of this schedule and then my junk food junkie husband will be back to 7:30 p.m. “fend for yourself” dinners of cereal or frozen pizzas.

Enough of that, back to the cooking class and coq au vin. Borrowed from my class handout, (which pretty much copied Wikipedia’s definition)  “Coq au vin is a French braise of chicken cooked with wine and mushrooms. While the wine is typically Burgundy wine, many regions of France have variants of coq au vin using local wines. Various legends trace coq au vin to ancient Gaul and Julius Caesar, but the recipe was not documented until the early 20th century;  it is generally accepted that it existed as a rustic dish long before that. A somewhat similar recipe, poulet au vin blanc, appeared in an 1864 cookbook.

Not the most appealing coq au vin photo… but I promise you, it tasted really good!

The Ingredients:
2 lbs. boneless, skinless, chicken thighs – trim off excess fat and connective tissue. We used Mary’s Organic
1/2 Cup Flour – for dredging
4 Tablespoons Canola Oil – for browning
2 Tablespoons Butter
1/4 Cup Shallots – minced
2 Cups Sliced Mushrooms
1 Tablespoon Thyme – fresh
2 Cups Dry White Wine
2 Cups Pearl Onions – fresh
1/2 Cup Cream
Dash of Freshly Ground Nutmeg
Sea Salt and Pepper to Taste
Buttered Egg Noodles – for serving

Directions:
Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in flour. Place the oil in a preheated sauté pan, and add chicken thighs. Brown nicely on both sides. Remove and set aside.

Add the butter to the pan and sauté the shallots for 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and thyme and sauté an additional minute. Add in the wine and deglaze the pan. Return the chicken back to the pan along with the pearl onions. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, or until very tender.

When tender, add in cream and nutmeg and stir to combine and heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve over buttered noodles.

We then moved on to the Simple Lemon Soufflés –the entire soufflé process stressed Chef Terese out to the max. Probably the reason I have never attempted to make soufflés at home. That my friends is going to change – these lemon soufflés were screamin’ good!

The Ingredients:
3/4 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon Whole Milk
3/4 Cup Sugar
3 1/2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
3 Large Egg Yolks
5 Tablespoons Fresh Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Lemon Zest
5 Large Egg Whites

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Coat six 3/4-cup soufflé dishes with butter and sugar. Bring milk to a simmer in medium saucepan over medium heat.

Whisk 1/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, and yolks in bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in hot milk.

Return mixture to saucepan; bring to simmer, whisking constantly. Remove from heat. Whisk in lemon juice and zest. Cool.

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually beat in remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Continue beating until stiff, but not dry.

Fold 1/4 of egg whites into lemon mixture. Fold in remaining whites. (A GIANT folding spatula is key)

Spoon mixture into prepared dishes, dividing equally. Bake until puffed and brown on top, about 18 minutes. Serve immediately with a dusting of powdered sugar.

Chef Terese skipped the powdered sugar dusting – I think she was just so happy they all turned out after one of the assistants took them out of the oven during the baking process to ask her if she thought they were done yet. I thought she was going to scream, it was pretty funny. I absolutely love lemon anything and these did not disapoint. I was bummed that we had mini portions, I would have loved to eat more.

Have you ever tried baking a soufflé?

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=3796

Feb 24 2011

Simple Country French Cooking Class – Part I

I’m halfway through my next round of classes at my local food co-op. I decided to take the Simple Country French Cooking Class with Chef Terese because I’ve been wanting to find a simplified Beef Bourguignon recipe and I also wanted to learn how to make mini Lemon Soufflés.

We started class with a small appetizer plate.

We had a French Morbier cheese – Morbier is a semi-soft cow’s milk cheese from France – named after the small village of Morbier in France-Comté. The cheese is recognizable by the thin layer of black ash (made from vegetable matter) that separates the morning milk from the evening milk. Times have changed and nowadays the cheese is usually made from a single milking with the ash added to honor past traditions.

We also had Niçoise Olives (Small brownish/purple olives that are grown in Southern France) and Acme Bread Co. baguette.

First up for the evening was Beef Bourguignon.

Ingredients:
3 lbs. Top Sirloin – trim off all excess fat
2 Tablespoons Flour
2 Cups Red Wine – we used a Merlot
Water as Needed
1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
1 Small Bay Leaf
4 Small Shallots – peeled and cut into thin slices
2 Cloves Garlic – minced
2 Teaspoons Fresh Thyme – chopped – can sub. with 1/2 teaspoon dried
2 Tablespoons Butter or Olive Oil – we used olive oil
8 oz. Sliced Mushrooms – We used brown organic cremini mushrooms
1 Cup Pearl Onions – Fresh, not frozen or jarred – Can also use fresh chipolini onions
2 Tablespoons Flat Leaf Parsley – finely chopped
1/4 Cup Brandy – optional – we used it
Additional Sea Salt and Ground Pepper to taste

Directions:
Cut sirloin into 2-inch pieces that are a good 1/2 inch thick. Sprinkle with flour and mix well. Place into the bottom of a stewing pot or dutch oven. Brown the meat in a little oil (has a much nicer flavor than without) – the key to browning, don’t move the meat around – wait until a nice crust forms before flipping the meat pieces.

Pour in red wine and enough water to cover meat by 1 inch. Bring to a simmer and add in the salt, pepper, bay leaf, shallots, garlic and thyme. A student asked what Chef Terese would recommend as a wine substitute (crazy, I know 😉 ) and she suggested vegetable broth. Cover and simmer for 1.5 hours or until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened. You can also bake this dish in the oven at 325 degrees for 2 hours or you could use your crock pot.

While the meat is cooking, saute the mushrooms in butter until fully cooked and nicely browned. Add in the pearl onions to warm. When the bourguignon is done, stir in your mushrooms and onions, add in the brandy and bring to a good boil.

If sauce is appears to be too thin, remove the meat with a slotted spoon and let boil until the sauce reduces.

Garnish with chopped parsley and serve with buttered egg noodles, crusty French bread or mashed potatoes. This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated. Serves 6-8 people.

I loved the simple approach to an otherwise complicated dish. The flavor was incredible and seriously, it’s not often that I have a spare 5-6 hours to bust out Julia Child’s masterpiece Beef Bourguignon recipe.

Next up was Bouillabaisse (Seafood Stew/Soup with Saffron)

I’m not going to post the recipe because I wasn’t really fond of the dish – but I do have a childhood story to tell instead. My Mom loves Bouillabaisse and Cioppino. She used to order it at some of her favorite seafood restaurants. The big excitement for me as a little kid (doesn’t take much) – would be her bringing me home the clam and mussel shells from her soup. She would wrap them in a napkin and place them into her purse. The things Moms do for their children. We had a big shell display on a wooden chest in the family room and I would add them to the display as if I picked them off some exotic beach. Good memories for sure – Love ya Mom.

Chef Terese used sea scallops, shrimp and black cod in the bouillabaisse. I think the reason I didn’t like the dish was because she used Pernod. Pernod is actually a successor of absinthe, the potent liquor that contained a toxic oil from wormwood that was outlawed in 1915 in France. One of absinthe’s leading manufacturers, Henri Pernod, then focused its efforts on the lower-alcohol, wormwoodless, anise-flavored Pernod.

I am NOT a licorice fan and I think it killed the entire flavor profile for me. However, there were other students at my table that liked licorice and didn’t care for the flavor either. It needed salt or something.

I will save the Coq Au Vin and the Simple Lemon Soufflés (Soufflés Chauds au Citron) receipes for my next post.

Bon Appetit,

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=3644