Grammie's Tomato and Rice Soup

Seeing as the holiday break is approaching when I'll be leaving our lovely Quinn Street Attic for a whole month or so, I've refrained from buying any more food so that it may not go to waste while I am gone. It's been a bit of a challenge to come up with sustainent meals with an almost empty fridge and cupboard. Fortunately for me, I rather enjoy a good challenge.

Although far from being gourmet, these meals are low budget, easy to make, and relatively fast, which is why I've decided to share them with the blogging community at large.

Current ingredients left in the kitchen:

onions
garlic
a cup of rice
couscous
a carrot and 1/2
small white potatoes
a tomato
1/4 left of a jar of pasta sauce
pumpkin puree
all purpose flour
white bread flour
sugar
yeast
2 eggs
vanilla extract
tahini paste
plus condiments... lots of condiments...
Almost everything from honey dijon mustard and worcestershire sauce to sambal oelek and fish sauce.

Tonight I brought out an old nostalgic recipe that my French Canadian grandmother used to make for me as a child. It's far from being French or Canadian but it's a no nonsense meal that fills your tummy with warmth.

It's Grammie's Tomatoe and Rice Soup!

I toasted the rice with onion and two cloves of garlic in oil on medium heat in the cooking pot. I then added about a cup of water and slowly added some beef broth accordingly, reducing the heat so the soup could simmer. I used bovril, which is a liquid concentration that acts almost like a bouillon cube, that is to be added to boiled water. I accidentally spilled a huge amount everywhere and ended up with a very salty, almost soy sauce like broth. So I reduced the amount of broth from a cup and replaced it with boiling water. I basically used the broth as the seasoning. Unfortunately out of habit, I forgot to omit the table salt. I chopped the tomato and added it with the leftover pasta sauce to the pot. By this point the rice had begun to soften and was starting to absorb the liquid. I added in cayenne for an extra kick, a dash of dried basil, and a bit of generic hot curry powder. I continued to add boiling water to the pot as the rice kept absorbing the liquid.

Overall, a simple sucess!

I had some leftover stale seasoned croutons that I threw in there for texture and flavor. I believe my grandmother used to make hers with instant rice, water, salt and canned tomatoes to make this soup and she would serve it with saltines. Eating mine, however, still conjured up memories of watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune doing a giant jigsaw puzzle, or playing yahtzee in her living room. The only thing that was missing to complete the nostalgic meal was oreos and milk or pecan icecream for dessert.

To be honest, I didn't think my photo of the soup I made would do it justice...
But here's a fancier type of tomato soup that I gave me the thought of making my humble Grammie's kind.

Pomidora Soup with Tortellini

And might I add, had I added sausage or tortellini, it would have made the soup exceptionally heart warming.

The pomidora soup with tortellini recipe is availabe here: http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/royal-pomodori-and-tortellini-soup
from a lovely Dutch woman living in Gouda.

Perhaps Sophia will turn to her in the future for nostalgic recipes...

What on earth will I end up making with the leftover ingredients in my kitchen, you say? And will I ever find a way to use up all that pumpkin puree?? Stay tuned and all shall be revealed.

Posh Squash

I've been wanting to make a butternut squash soup this season thus when I finally spotted a decent squash at the farmer's market, I grabbed it. After the pumpkin soup incident however I was inclined to try something different.

Originally I was going to make a thyme, feta squash bake as Sophia suggested and has made in the past. Absolutely delicious! Here's the recipe that uses pumpkin instead of squash courtesy of Nessie, another fellow blogger of Auckland, New Zealand:
http://bakingequalslove.blogspot.com/2010/08/creamy-pumpkin-thyme-and-feta-bake-cure.html

Although I could have used pumpkin seeing as I have so much puree leftover, I still wanted to stay away from making any savory recipe with pumpkin. After roasting my squash I realized I didn't have any white wine (though water could have been substituted) nor enough cream for the recipe. I did have a whole block of feta and some leftover mint. Then I stumbled upon this beautiful recipe that came to my rescue. https://secure.tesco.com/todayattesco/realfood/recipes/archive/mains/recipe_roasted_squash_feta_mint_chilli.shtml





It did just the trick! I love the spice of the chili, mixed with the salty feta and the sweet squash. I added cayenne pepper as well to make it even spicier. An easy and yummy way to make squash a little bit more fancy. I didn't go so far as to serving it in the squash itself because I was the only one who would be seeing it and eating it. But it would make a nice way to entertain guests, I suppose.

Clove Coffee

Katherine's been using the coffee grinder to grind cloves again. Now I'm drinking a lovely mug of side-effects.

Also, I had been planning to make eggnog again this year, but I wanted it too much to risk it curdling. So I just bought some. It's SO much better than the soynog I consoled myself with last year. Back when I instated the law that no real eggnog shall pass our lips unless it is homemade.

What a stupid rule. Cheers!

--Sophia

Punkin the Pumpkin

Now it's my turn to puree the pumpkin that I picked out for myself at Lunenberg. I found that cooking the pumpkin in the oven for a bit longer than Sophie made it easier to mash afterward. I knifed my pumpkin several times to let out steam and threw it in a baking dish with about an inch of water and let it sit for about 1.5 hours. I then cut out the top and let the insides cool before scooping out the pulp and seeds. The skin was easy to peel off and by cooking the pumpking with the skin on made it so the actual pumpkin flesh was protected from burning. I didn't need to microwave the pumpkin flesh at all afterward since it was relatively soft. I chopped it up into small chunks and processed it in the food processor before mashing it with a fork.

The end result?
Homemade pure pumpkin cookies :) I had a friend growing up that used to make these all the time. They're delicious and go well with a nice mug of egg nog if i do say so myself, topped off with a little bit o' brandy, of course. I found the recipe on this blog: How to Eat A Cupcake. http://www.howtoeatacupcake.net/2007/11/soft-pumpkin-cookies-w-craisins-and.html
I prefer to add chocolate chips to the cookies instead of dried fruit or nuts. Its all up to personal preference.I also substituted allspice with cloves.

Now I've got several cups of ready to use pumpkin puree. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! I've decided to stick with sweet rather than savory pumpkin recipes after my last episode with the pumpkin soup.

Next up... pumpkin bread! mmm mmm good.

Scooter Pie

So I made my first pumpkin pie. I was quite worried about it for several reasons. The first is that I've not only never made pumpkin pie, I've never seen it made, and I haven't even tasted it in years. The second is that, to be honest, I don't even LIKE pumpkin pie. So no matter what I thought I was in for a disaster.

As I started making it, from the Joy of Cooking recipe, I ran into a new problem. It's a single crust pie, yes? Yes. And in a lot of single crust pies one must bake the crust while empty, yes? Yes. And, in order to keep the empty crust from bubbling and buckling, one must weight it with beans or something, yes? Yes. Fair enough. But then the recipe, by which I was already getting a little put out (I don't have beans), tells me to glaze the crust with egg yoke before putting it in the oven. So wait. First of all, I never glazed with YOKE. That's weird. Also, how are you supposed to weight the crust if it's glazed with ANYTHING? But ask as I might, the recipe never answered. So, armed with common sense, I weighted the pie crust, unglazed, with lentils. This may make for some sort of unpleasant surprise next time I go to cook my lentils for real, but the crust was okay.

I took the crust out after about ten minutes or so, removed the weights, and glazed it with the yoke. It looked weird. And I was completely on my own timewise, the recipe having given conflicting specifications.

So I put the crust back for five minutes or so, just until the "glaze" cooked. It was bright yellow and, since our oven is crap, burnt around the edges. It looked weird.

Only slightly daunted, I continued the pie without further incident, only being unsure as to what texture the pie should be once it was done.

The next weird thing about the pie was that, even though I remember pumpkin pie ranging from a rich brown to bright orange, this was yellow. Not yellow orange. Yellow. Like curry yellow.

I was reluctant to try it, but cooks must be brave. And: IT IS AMAZING. Best pumpkin pie I've ever had.

Only don't microwave it. Just eat it cold. Microwaves are a bad, bad invention unless you make a habit of sacrificing flavour for convenience.

In retrospect I figure the yellow colour was from adding an extra egg, which makes the pie much more custardy. Also, I will give my one and only complaint about the Joy of Cooking, and that is that I think it's been revised a few too many times, especially in the pie section. Too many times it gives conflicting instructions for one thing, and absolutely none for another. I was told many things related to cooking time, such as when to turn the crust, when to remove the weights, when to add the glaze, and yet... no cooking time at all... I had to infer from both "three quarters into the baking time" and "three or four minutes before cooking time ends" that it should be about fifteen minutes.

Maybe that book needs a real editor: not just a recipe tester.

Pumpkin Plumpkin

Well we got a bit ambitious and to be fair, our cameras crapped out on us thus we were left with an imageless blog. My own laptop also crashed and has been replaced by brand spankin new one with an amazing webcam inside! Two months later indeed we decide to dust off the cooking books, and rev up the laptops for a new blogging season! And what not a better time than during the holidays? Today marks the first day that it snowed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We decided to celebrate and bring in the holiday season with a warm, busy kitchen!

Two weeks ago we made a little trip to Lunenberg, a quaint town of Nova Scotia, home of the Blue Nose ship. On our visit we came across free small pumpkins along the sidewalk, labeled: Free Pumpkins for Pie Making! This friendly gesture inspired us to share our cooking adventures with the rest of you once again.

Here's a shot of Lovely Lunenberg






Sophia began pureeing the pumpkin the other day. It took her all day and it was a fruitful effort that yielded a whole lotta pumpkin. That was from her little pumpkin alone... we still have mine to puree as well! Needless to say, our following entries will undoubtedly be featuring pumpkin as the main ingredient.

This evening Sophia has outdone herself by making a home made pumpkin pie from scratch. The pie was a huge success and in fact, it was so damn delicious that we almost ate it all before getting a photo of it.





My contribution to the pie included making this little alligator from the pie crust scraps.

I plan on putting a spin on the traditional pumpkin recipe by making a Thai coconut soup. My soup didn't turn out as planned as I found out in the middle of making it that I did not have red curry paste... thus I improvised by adding a bit of lime and lemon juice, as suggested by Sophia and a bit of sour cream. I also took a risk and added a few shakes of fish sauce for good measure, based on a couple of other thai recipes that I'd previously looked up. To be quite honest, I downright dislike my soup, no matter how much lime or cayenne or pepper I had, I can't shake the sweet sweet taste of pumpkin in a soup. All in all, I've made the executive decision to avoid using pumpkin in anything remotely savory. Maybe it's an acquired taste. All I know is that as long as I've known pumpkin, he's been with his lovely fragrant wife, Mrs. Pumpkin Spice, all made up with her nutmeg, ginger, a hefty dose of sweet sweet cinnamon, and she likes to change it up with allspice or cloves. Although I hate to back away from culinary adventure, that's the way the pumpkin, for me, is going to stay.

As I watch Anthony Bourdain eat rabbit three way in Prague... I comfort myself with this minty beet carrot salad with tarragon. Who am I kidding though?

The vinegar really does temper the sweet taste of roasted beets and the tarragon balances out the bitterness. It's quite palatable, in fact.

We're Back!

Now that we're back in Halifax, our poor neglected blog can get a little more regular again, particularly with a new regular contributor! Well... I may be volunteering for her a bit, but let's hope it's regular.

I will miss the camera, the garden, the space, and the random equipment of the old kitchen, but it's good to be here. But I have to to tell you, the thing I really missed this whole summer away was my chef's knife. My Waterloo kitchen hasn't got one, although it has every other kind of knife known to mankind. Unfortunately, it looks like my knife was happy to see me too, and in all the rush of saying hello, it accidentally lodged itself in my finger. The good news is that it's my pinky finger, so in not using it I can practice looking refined when I have a cup of tea.

Oh, and I guess I'll post about the squash I was peeling when it happened. Minor detail.