Jan 10 2011

Nordic Winter Vegetable Soup

I finally had time to look through my January 2011 Food & Wine magazine over the weekend. It was CA cold outside (Not compared to the weather for you east coast peeps) but cold for me.

I knew I wanted to make some soup and Food & Wine magazine and Trina Hahnemann – author of  The Nordic Diet – provided me with the perfect solution. In the article, Trina calls the root vegetables in her Nordic Winter Vegetable Soup the “gold of Nordic soil”  – They’re high in nutrients and grow well in cold climates. 

The soup recipe sounded delicious. I wanted healthy lunch options for the week, so I headed to the store to gather the ingredients.

Link to the Ingredients and Recipe on the Food & Wine website.

My only substitutions to the recipe were to use one box of low sodium chicken stock and one box of regular – I already had the full sodium version on hand. I also used some Garlic Gold Nuggets to top off my finished soup. So this made the original recipe non-vegetarian, next time I will use veggie stock to make it authentic.

I started with prep – I chopped up one large white onion, then I got my leeks washed and ready for slicing.

I started on the celery root next.  I’m familiar with celery root, I tackled it over the summer with Williams-Sonoma’s Cheese Toast w/Celery Root and Carrot Salad recipe.

I’ve discovered that I waste a lot less by using a peeler instead of trying to remove the skin with a knife.

I got the celery root cut into 1/2 inch pieces – they were supposed to be cubes, but that didn’t work out so well.

The next star of the recipe was 1 lb. of parsnips. I’ve eaten parsnips before, but I’ve never purchased and prepared them. I keep seeing parsnip fries on lots of healthy living blogs – just have never tried them on my own.

I got my parsnips peeled and ready for chopping.

Not much different than the celery root in photos.

I heated up 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in my dutch oven and then added the onion, leeks and garlic and cooked over medium/high heat – stirring occasionally until tender. I ended up adding several more splashes of olive oil – it seemed to dry out pretty fast. Probably could have just sautéed over medium heat. It took about 10 minutes to get the ingredients tender.

I added my cup of pearl barley and then stirred the mixture together. Pearl barley excites me – there, I said it. My Mom has used pearl barley in soups since I was a kid. I think that is why I love it so much, it reminds me of kitchen counter time with my Mom.

I then added the two boxes of chicken stock – one low sodium, one regular.

4 cups of water was next on the list.

I added fresh thyme and bay leaves and then brought the soup to a boil.

Once I achieved a good “boil” – in went the celery root and parsnips.

I then added salt and pepper to taste. It seemed like it needed a lot of seasoning – but I later realized the flavors developed more as the soup simmered. I’m glad I didn’t over season early on. I let the soup simmer on low heat for more than the recommended 40 minutes. It took 50-60 minutes before the root vegetables and barley became tender.

I then added the spinach and freshly ground nutmeg.

I continued to stir. I let the soup simmer for another 5 minutes before serving. My kitchen smelled wonderful. I could not wait to grab a spoon.

I topped my soup with some Garlic Gold Nuggets before eating.

This soup easily makes my top 5 in taste and texture. I couldn’t be more excited that I have a freezer full of the stuff. I love that I have another (almost) vegetarian option for lunch and even a main course. I’m so excited about this soup – I will definitely be purchasing The Nordic Diet cookbook so I can get my hands on more of  Chef Trina Hahnemann’s amazing recipes.

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Jan 09 2011

May the Pancake Force be with you…

A long time ago (last weekend)  in a galaxy far, far away (Sacramento, CA) – Deede and Josh gave Dan some Star Wars™ – Heroes & Villains pancake molds for Kwanzaa. (don’t ask).

Yoda, Darth Vader and a stormtrooper. Williams-Sonoma sells them. We decided that we would give them a try this morning. I did not happen to have buttermilk on hand (shocking, I know) – so we cheated and used Bisquick instead of the recipe on the back of the pancake molds. I did add a little vanilla extract, but that was the only substitution from the classic Bisquick recipe on the box.

Dan wanted to eat breakfast in this century, so the Bisquick definitely helped speed the process along.

I mixed the ingredients and then read the instructions on the pancake mold box.

Easy to use: place on a preheated griddle and pour in your batter; once the first side has set, remove the molds and flip the pancakes.

I’m going to have to disagree with the “Easy” part – Pain in the ass would have been a better description. To be fair, it did get much easier with the second and third batches.

I coated my molds with cooking spray before setting them on the griddle to heat up. I set my griddle at 350 degrees.

I ended up cutting the tip of a squeeze bottle I already had (to make it larger) to help with the “ease” of getting the batter into the molds. Williams-Sonoma also sells a Pancake Pen that probably does a better job at delivering batter. Mixing the batter into the bottle is key and the the Williams-Sonoma one has instructions to do that. My batter transfer was a mess. I had pancake mix dripping down my arm, on the counter and one lower kitchen cabinet… again, don’t ask.

The instructions said to use 1/3 cup batter on each pancake –  it seemed like a lot, but I did it anyway.

By the time I finished placing the batter into the Darth Vader mold, the stormtrooper started to bubble. I took the mold off and apparently someone had thrown acid on my stormtrooper because his face looked like a big blob.

In the meantime, Yoda lost an ear…

I decided to get more serious… less batter, more patience. Do or do not… there is no try.

I loaded up Darth Vader with less batter and waited… and waited…

Much better! I gave it some more time before flipping.

Victory – all holes were intact. 😉

It felt kind of weird to spread butter and pour hot syrup onto my new little buddies – but eating them didn’t seem to be a problem. They were light and fluffy.

I would suggest trying these out prior to planning a “birthday pancake breakfast” for a room full of screaming kids. The pressure was pretty intense with just the two of us –  Ha!

For sure a fun way to start off a Sunday. Thank you Josh and Deede. We also updated the blog to WordPress 3.0.4 and I updated to a newer version of my theme. Exciting stuff! No really,  it is.

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=3146

Jan 05 2011

Rio City Cafe – Dream Sandwich

I’ve been to Rio City Cafe in Old Sacramento on several occasions – usually when people come to visit from out of town. The restaurant is located right by the river and it’s a nice way to showcase what our city has to offer. Window seating or outdoor seating has a perfect view of the Tower Bridge and boaters. It was freezing the day I went with friends – so our table was an interior table.

Hilary, Stephanie and I sat down and gazed over our menus for a bit.

Steph decided on a Raspberry Lemon Drop…

Hil and I opted for water. I was in the mood for a sandwich and the Turkey Sandwich with Alfafa Sprouts, Brie Cheese, Bacon and Cranberry Aioli on Twelve Grain Bread with Sweet Potato Fries sounded fabulous – so that’s what I ordered.

Hilary ordered the Rio City Burger – a Grilled Angus Patty, Sauteed Mushrooms, Swiss Cheese, Grain Mustard Aioli, Bacon and Rosemary Fries.

Steph ordered theChicken Club Sandwich with Bacon, Tomato, Lettuce, Monterey Jack Cheese and Avocado Aioli on a Sourdough Roll with Rosemary Fries.

Both the sweet potato and rosemary fries were amazing – Hilary and I traded some :). My sandwich was one of the best turkey sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. I loved the Brie/cranberry combo… and the added bacon took it over the top.

We decided to cruise around the river walkway after lunch. It felt great to walk out in the cold air, we could have done without the wind.

The golden paint color of Tower Bridge looked awesome against the bright blue sky…

For those of you that watch the television show “The Mentalist” – you might recognize the bridge – it’s been highlighted in some of their “Sacramento” story-lines and exterior shots.

We had a little photo shoot and my crazy wind blown hair got really big…

After the short photography walk – Hilary drove us by the State Capitol building – I hung out the window of her car, praying that I wouldn’t drop my camera.

Hilary stopped and parked real quick and I was able to get a few more photos.

My late husband Ace and I had professional engagement photos taken on the grounds and steps of the Capitol building… so it brought back some great memories… and sad ones too…

We later drove around Midtown and some of the Fab 40’s streets to show Steph that Sacramento has some pretty cool housing options.

I knew that I wanted to re-create the turkey sandwich in my own kitchen. Even though it was kind of basic, I went shopping  to make sure I had all of the ingredients on hand.

Note the cool iPad stand… A Christmas present from Dan – he hooked me up this year. Fun shaped bowls and dishes for food photography, a UV lens filter for my macro,  a card reader, 2 flash drives and I’m sure I’m forgetting something… it was a blog themed Christmas for sure. I will get to my Mom and Dad’s blog themed gifts in another post.

O.k., back to the ingredients…First up was the cranberry aioli. I found an aioli recipe on the food network website. The ingredients called for pure olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, egg yolk, coarse kosher salt and ground pepper. Garlic was also an ingredient, so I figured I could sub the cranberry sauce for that – since it’s pretty chunky.

I started with the coarse salt…

I separated my egg and then added the egg yolk and the lemon juice and gave it several pulses in the food processor.

I gradually pulsed in the first batch of pure olive oil and then added the second smaller amount of extra virgin olive oil. There is a reason I’m not giving you the measurements…

I added a heaping spoonful of the cranberry sauce and pulsed it some more.

The consistency was great. I tasted it and wow, something just did not taste right. It tasted like oil. Bad oil… I knew my oil wasn’t bad, but ugh, it was just too much. I went with emergency option #2 –  light mayo and cranberry sauce.

This was a lot easier and it tasted perfect!

I mixed it by hand and was ready to go. I put it into the fridge while I got the rest of the sandwich items prepped.

I cheated and used the Alexia Spicy Sweet Potato Fries with Chipotle Seasoning– because why mess with a good thing? Especially after my aioli fiasco. I used peppered turkey from my local deli – the only kind of turkey I really like – Brie from Trader Joe’s, bacon, organic alfafa sprouts and Nature’s Pride Multi-Grain Bread.

I cooked up the bacon, I only ended up needing 3 of the slices.

I sliced the Brie…

and then started building the sandwich – cranberry mayo, turkey, Brie, bacon…

More cranberry mayo and sprouts…

3 different lighting and photo placement options… and then in my belly. This definitely gave Rio City Cafe’s version some competition. I loved the sweet and savory combination.

There is something really satisfying about finding a fairly simple menu item at a restaurant, and then perfecting it in your kitchen at home. I can’t wait to try doing more of this.

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=3060