Rosemary White Bean Soup

 

Ina Garten.  Her food looks so good.  The first time I saw her show Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network, she was preparing (if I remember correctly), a roasted chicken for her husband Jeffrey.  I don’t even really enjoy chicken (at least when I cook it), but seeing hers made my mouth water.  You’re a lucky man, Jeff.

It looked so simple, and so tasty.  I was excited to learn, upon browsing the Internet, that she is a purveyor of one of my favorite kinds of food: comfortable classics—think pot roast, simple roasted asparagus, eggs Benedict—done really well, with good ingredients, and maybe modernized a little. 

I perused the sample recipes on her website, and tucked one away in my bookmarks folder for a chilly day.

The Recipe

Rosemary White Bean Soup, Ina Garten, a.k.a. Barefoot Contessa

Apprehension Meter

After reading the ingredient list and even the instructions to this recipe, you’d think that the meter would read at a low to very low for this recipe.  On the other hand, if you’re me and you failed miserably at your first attempt at bean soup not even two weeks ago, the meter spikes a little, and settles at a medium. 

Perhaps the only thing that helped me actually go forth with this recipe was that there was an alternative method to soaking the beans.  This method seemed easier (and quicker), and more or less promised that I wouldn’t end up with a bowl full of stinky, sprouted, uncooked beans.  

Bean soup, take two.

Here’s How It Really Went

Aside from ending up with a fairly messy kitchen and a bleeding thumb, I’d say it went pretty smoothly. 

Before taking a nearly six hour bath in the fridge
 

While the beans drained and rested, I began slicing and sautéing the onions and olive oil.  Since the soup would be making a trip to the food processor later, I didn’t bother slicing the onions very small, or uniform for that matter.  That’s one thing I love about blended soups—you don’t really have to worry about chopping and dicing as much.

As I was making a conscious effort to follow the recipe, I sautéed them on low to medium heat for about 15 minutes.  The way the onions slowly softened and became slightly translucent made me aware that I usually use way too high of heat when sautéing onions.  This, apparently, is the secret to nice, soft, sautéed onions. 

These may have been my best sauteed onions ever.  It was as simple as following the directions...

Next came the chicken broth, the beans, rosemary, and bay leaf.  And that was it.  So easy.  I brought everything up to a boil, then set the alarm on my cell phone (I need to just suck it up and buy a kitchen timer) for 40 minutes. 

Warmth, in a stock pot 

The rosemary and chicken broth, as it simmered on my stove, almost instantly made my apartment smell so homey and comforting.  There’s something about the combination of the two that make you want to snuggle up in a blanket with wool socks on and smile.  I thought to myself, in 40 minutes I’ll be enjoying a delicious, healthy, simple, Ina Garten soup.  Yum.

Try making that almost an hour and a half .  I checked the beans and I checked them again, and not until almost 90 minutes had elapsed was I satisfied with their consistency.  I’m not sure what Ina does differently, perhaps she soaks them overnight, or at least for the full six hours instead of five hours and fifty minutes?  I’ll never know for sure. 

One (sort of) laughable but frustrating moment was when it was time to remove the rosemary sprig before transferring the soup to the food processor.  I fished out the sprig with a slotted spoon, only to find out that all of its little rosemary “leaves” had fallen off into the soup.  Now what, Ina? 

I spent a considerable amount of time grabbing them out one by one with a pair of tongs.  In retrospect, I probably should have just left them in; the soup was prettier with a little green in it. 

Just a few pulses creates a creamy but chunky texture.

After two messy trips from the soup pot to the food processor and back, the soup was nearly complete, just getting its final sprinkle of salt and pepper.

If only the final product—the reward—would have been a little better.

The Verdict

It smelled good.  It even looked pretty good.  But it tasted… alright.  I liked the texture (only pulsing the soup a few times so that you have somewhat whole beans and a thicker broth), and it certainly felt thick and hearty enough for a chilly November night.  But it was lacking in flavor.  Maybe this was because I used low sodium chicken broth.  Or maybe because 90% of the ingredients are white beans.  

Anyhow, this recipe might be good as the first course of a winter dinner party (if you’re chic enough to do that kind of thing), but it’s not something I’d recommend making just for yourself, because by day four, you’re pretty sick of it, no matter how inexpensive it was or how good it made your apartment smell.

Bean Soup

I’ve been in a sustainable mood lately, not wanting to waste anything- and that would include food and money.  I’ve also had a little free time on my hands the past few days, so I thought I would finally tackle that big, old, ugly bag of assorted dried beans that have been in the back of my cupboard for two apartments now.  Hey, I thought, I can save a little money on my groceries by using things I already have, and I can try out a new recipe!

If only I had known…

 Beans- full of FIBER, according to the packaging

The Recipe

16 Bean Soup, from…me (I was going for creative, you see)

Apprehension Meter

Even though bean soup, to most cooks, is probably child’s play, I was pretty apprehensive about this one.  I never liked those beans from the start, sitting there, getting all dusty in the back of my cupboard.  They took up precious space, but I couldn’t bare to throw them away because there wasn’t anything wrong with them.

One thing in particular that I was a little wary of was having to soak the beans overnight before cooking them.  Having never cooked with dried beans before, I trusted the instructions on the bag, but was still a little dubious.

On top of using these strange dried beans, I was going to have to figure out how to make this soup taste good, all on my own.  Talk about pressure.

Here’s How It Really Went

You’d better sit down for this one.

It all started innocently enough.  I filled a bowl with 8 cups of cold water, and poured the beans into the bowl.  They instantly became more appealing once out of the old, dusty plastic bag that housed them for the past two years.  They looked like little beads at the bottom of a fish bowl, most sinking to the bottom but some floating on the top.

Goodnight, little guys

Satisfied with my progress thus far, I put them aside and went to bed.

I awoke the next morning later than planned, so they had soaked for about 9 ½ hours, instead of the recommended 6-8.  I examined them, and they looked fine.  They had almost doubled in size, which I was expecting.  I drained the beans, and put them back into the bowl, covered them with tin foil, and headed to the gym. 

Well, the gym led to a trip to Caribou Coffee, which led to a trip to The Gap, whereupon I received a phone call from a friend who was in the neighborhood, whom I met for another coffee at Caribou, where we heard about a Halloween parade that was taking place up the street in approximately one hour, which we had to attend, which, in short, turned out to be mostly men dressed as various versions of Lady Gaga, strutting down Halsted (unfortunately I didn’t see anyone wearing my favorite most ridiculous Lady Gaga outfit).

Anyway.  By the time I got home, it was nearly 7:30pm.  I had been planning on making chili for dinner (the bean soup was going to be an afternoon project), and I had a pound of hamburger thawed and ready to go that I couldn’t let wait another day.  So, I set the beans aside again, with the intention of making my delicious soup the next evening.

Well. 

I learned something new.

When you cover damp beans and let them sit out for about 30 hours, guess what happens.

They begin to sprout. 

I didn’t bother to do any research on this phenomenon, and assumed that it’s not wise (or tasty) to eat sprouted beans.  I could be wrong, maybe they were fine, but there’s something creepy about the way the little white sprout twisted crookedly out of the bean, like some kind of antennae.

I discovered this after work the following day, when I eagerly checked on them, ready to dump them into a pot of vegetable stock to begin the cooking process. 

Disgusted but determined to succeed, I began going through the beans and picking out the sprouted ones by hand.  Not all of them had sprouted, you see, just certain varieties.  And they didn’t smell good.  I'd pick out the bad ones, toss them on the foil, and toss the good ones into the soup pot.  The work was tedious and unrewarding, and upon the discovery of a slimey substance at the bottom of the bowl, I called it quits.

6 cups of vegetable stock and a bag of beans down the drain (figuratively speaking).  Two cans of diced tomatoes and an onion with nowhere to go.  Three potential meals, gone.  Tragic.

So, I ate one of these, instead.  

Kale Chips

Is your garden simply overflowing with kale? Do you have so much kale that you don’t know what to do with it all?? No? Me neither. But, that was the case for my friend Caitlyn, who recently (and generously) gave me three large, thick stalks of the dark green leafy vegetable.

Having never eaten kale before, let alone cooked with it, I didn’t know what to do with all of it. Luckily, Caitlyn also supplied me with a great idea.

The Recipe

Kale Chips, by Peasants’ Plot Sustainable Farm in Manteno, Illinois

Apprehension Meter

The recipe? Couldn’t look easier. The main ingredient? That’s another story. This was my first ever encounter with kale. I wasn’t sure what it would look like exactly, how it would taste, what the texture would be like… but again, the recipe was so simple that it kept the meter reading pretty low for this one.

Here’s How It Really Went

First of all, the recipe tells you to “de-vein” the kale. I didn’t know you could de-vein something that wasn’t shrimp (although I’ve never done that either), so I took a guess, and I think I got it right.

Starting with three large leaves, I cut the main stem in the center of each leaf out leaving several halves of kale on my cutting board. I then cut, and sometimes tore, those halves into about 1” pieces. Although, I did find out that the leaves cook down quite a bit when they’re in the oven, so if you want bigger chips in the end, don’t hold back!

I added my leaf chips to a bowl, and combined them with a minced garlic clove (even though the recipe says crushed; I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly), olive oil, and salt. I didn’t really consult the recipe very closely when adding the salt and olive oil, thinking that with a vegetable this dark green and this thick, it could probably use a little extra help.

But what I learned was that these hearty leaves wilt and crisp down to a fraction of their size, and using lots of olive oil can really weigh them down. Sticking with what the recipe says, about 1 tablespoon per pound, sounds more like the right amount. Lightly coat them.

I was also surprised to find that I overdid it a little with the salt. The recipe doesn’t say how much to sprinkle on (not that I would have listened anyway), so I went with a few very generous pinches. The final product tasted good, of course, but the taste of the baked kale was so delicious and flavorful on its own that you really don’t need much salt at all. For three large leaves, two medium pinches would have probably sufficed.

I laid the leaves out on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, and popped them in the oven for about 8 minutes. I could smell them almost immediately, and they smelled fantastic.

I took them out of the oven once they were crispy-looking and a little brown on the edges. After letting them cool for a few minutes (it doesn’t take long because they become so thin) I popped one in my mouth.

And it practically melted. The chips were almost as light as tissue paper, and had a rich, earthy, just-barely-burnt taste, which was complemented well by the garlic and olive oil.

The Verdict

I have to admit, after these turned out so well, I became a little smug. Who else, besides Caitlyn and I, made kale chips? It was something I could name-drop in a conversation with a foodie friend and be the expert. “Oh, you’ve never tried kale chips before? You simply must!”

Well, not that bad, but you get the idea. My swelling ego, however, was deflated this weekend (probably for the better) when I saw Giada De Laurentiis making a fancier version on the Food Network, and did a Google search and saw that SmittenKitchen took on kale chips a good six months before me.

Oh well. What can I say? They’re good. They’re healthy, quick and easy to make, and believe it or not, you really could snack on a bowl of these during a Sunday afternoon football game in place of your Ruffles and French onion dip.

Best Blueberry Muffins

Ever in the mood for a good muffin? I know I am, especially when we have guests in from out of town, and I want to be hospitable (and pretend like I know how to bake).

This is actually an extension of a little dream I have. I imagine myself someday having the whole family over for the holidays (not in this little apartment, of course), waking up earlier than everyone else on Christmas morning, and whipping up a big, special holiday breakfast.

The savory aromas would slowly wake the family, one by one, and we’d all sit around my big kitchen table, sipping coffee and enjoying eggs benedict and bacon, fresh fruit and muffins, and watching the snow fall quietly outside. Or wait, was that a Folger’s commercial?

Anyway, since it’s only September (how is it that I already have holiday fever?), and we had only one guest in town, I thought I’d live out at least a fraction of my fantasy by attempting to make “the best” blueberry muffins.

The Recipe

Best Blueberry Muffins, americastestkitchen.com

Apprehension Meter

I was feeling pretty smug about this one, I’ll admit it. Even though I’d never made homemade muffins before, my apprehension was very low. Barely even on the scale. I’ve baked things before, and really, how badly can you screw up a muffin?

In addition, recipes from America’s Test Kitchen practically come with some kind of guarantee, a cooking insurance policy of sorts. Or, at least, that’s how they make you feel, saying that their recipes “work every time.” Or something along those lines.

Here’s How It Really Went

To begin, I skipped the first steps regarding the lemon-sugar topping. I love lemons in water, on fish, in vegetable dishes and so on, but there’s just something about lemon, or even lemon flavor, in breakfast and dessert items that I just can’t stomach. So, I didn’t bother.

I skipped right along to the most fun step—simmering the sugar and blueberries to make a sort of jam to go in the muffins.

Can you imagine how good this smelled?

I’ve never cooked any kind of fruit before, but I just followed the instructions and before I knew it, I had a delicious looking and smelling concoction bubbling away on the stove (and a stained spoon).

Oops.

I moved on to sifting and whisking, mixing and folding, and soon enough I had my batter, all ready to go. The only hiccup was that I had forgotten, mid-way through the recipe, that I didn’t have any buttermilk. Lucky for me, the recipe provided a substitute for buttermilk: ¾ cup plain whole-milk or low-fat yogurt thinned with ¼ cup milk. I opted for ¾ cup of 2% milk, because that was what I had.

The batter seemed pretty thick, resembling a dough more than a batter, really. But, I thought, maybe this is just what “real” muffin batter was supposed to look and feel like. Maybe I was just too used to the Pillsbury just-add-milk variety, which always came out a little thinner.

When it came time to transfer the batter into the muffin tin, there were two things that I was hesitant about. 1. No liners? Well, okay, but how are you supposed to get the muffins out in one piece? The answer turned out to be Pam (or any kind of spray-cooking oil), and lots of it. 2. Fill the cups to the top? Really? I’m pretty sure that Pillsbury might have a thing or two to say about that (if memory serves, they usually preach the 2/3 rule), but okay, I thought, that’s what the recipe says.

So far, so good

Then here came the curveball. I had been coasting through this recipe, so self-satisfied, possibly even arrogantly, that I didn’t realize until it was too late that it’s really hard to try to insert a jam/jelly-like substance into the middle of thick muffin “dough” that’s already filled to the top of the cup.

To do this, I took a small spoonful of the blueberry mixture, and tried to press it down into the center of the muffin. Well, you can tell by the end product that my method wasn’t very successful.

This is one of those things that really irks me—following the given directions and then coming out with a different product. How did they get all of the jam into the middle of the muffin without any of the goop oozing out on top? Really, America’s Test Kitchen, I’d love to know.

Alas, let’s just say that these muffins weren’t going to win any kind of beauty contest. The boyfriend was brutally honest, but right, when, after he took his first bite, said that they really didn’t taste that great either.

They had smelled delicious when they were in the oven, so I had had high hopes, but I tried one myself, and unfortunately agreed. The muffin itself, I’m sorry to report, was incredibly dry, and severely lacked flavor. Looking back, I think that substituting regular milk for buttermilk probably wasn’t a great swap. The muffins definitely could have used a little tang, a little bite, which can usually be attributed to buttermilk.

And let’s be honest, they were just plain ugly. A little gruesome looking, if you ask me.

The Verdict

In the end, our guest insisted that the muffins were good, and after a while, I even got used to them. They were fun enough to make, and I didn’t feel buyers’ remorse on any of the ingredients; all were things I already had. Needless to say, they didn’t go to waste; we eventually finished them off. But if this experience was any indication of how my little Christmas-morning-breakfast-fantasy will one day play out, I may just quit while I’m ahead.

Skillet-Poached Huevos Rancheros

Last Friday, the city of Chicago was placed under an “excessive heat warning,” which, I read somewhere online, was the first one issued to Chicago since 2006. It’s been such a hot summer that I’ve been positively giddy riding the El to work, knowing that I get to spend eight hours in air conditioning.

Using the oven is an absolute no, and the stove can be on for less than 10 minutes at a time. House rules.

I was taking those rules into consideration during my search for interesting, challenging, and delicious-looking/sounding recipes, when I stumbled across this beauty, which excited me for three reasons. 1. Poached eggs. 2. Huevos Rancheros. 3. The stove only needed to be on for about 10 minutes—which meant that my apartment, which is already usually about 10 degrees warmer than outside, stays only 10 degrees warmer than outside.

And finally, practically the first thing I thought of trying to make when I first started this blog was a poached egg. It seemed like the perfect challenge.

The Recipe

Skillet-Poached Huevos Rancheros, RealSimple.com

Apprehension Meter

When I read the words “poached” and “huevos rancheros,” I almost skipped past the recipe, not quite believing I was ready to take on two of the items on my “to try to cook” list (in this heat I barely have the energy to pierce the plastic film of a frozen dinner before putting it in the microwave). But upon second glance, I realized that maybe this was just the recipe to help me ease into the world of poaching eggs, as the eggs were being poached not in water (they’re normally poached in water, right?), but in a mixture of salsa and beans. I liked the possibility of room for error.

Also, I’ve never been sure what exactly makes huevos rancheros huevos rancheros, but this seemed like a simpler version than what I’ve ordered off the menu of the diner down the street. Another easy introduction. All of this put my apprehension meter at fairly low reading, spiking occasionally when I thought of how poorly this could turn out, and in turn, how hungry I could end up.

Here’s How It Really Went

Making this recipe was similar to what I imagine tightrope walking to be like. Quick and kind of tense, with furrowed brow and the potential for a runny mess. Just kidding. Sort of.

The beginning steps of the recipe couldn’t have been simpler- emptying a jar of salsa and a can of drained and rinsed beans into a skillet is about as easy as it gets. I used a garlic chipotle salsa from Trader Joe’s, which gave it a really nice garlicky, sort of spicy flavor. My new* kitchen quickly filled with a sweet, spicy, Mexican aroma, which, in my mind, goes hand in hand with a hot summer evening.

While the salsa and beans were simmering, I chopped this fresh cilantro. Careful, the stuff is potent.

When it came time to make the “wells,” I was a little confused. This was the first time I’d ever heard “well” used in a recipe as a noun. Following my best guess as to what this could mean, I used a wooden spoon and tried to create four small, separate openings in the salsa/bean mixture.

When I tried to make the first well, I thought for about two seconds that I had succeeded, but then the small open space quickly filled back up with salsa. At first I thought the salsa I was using was too liquidy, that I should have been using a chunkier version. But, then again, don’t eggs have to poach in some kind of liquid? Wasn’t this the liquid they needed in order to poach themselves?

One little egg in a small bowl, pre-poach

I don’t have the answer to that, but overall I don’t think the viscosity of the salsa I used had much of an effect on the final product. It turns out that the wells didn’t have to be perfectly formed to host the eggs that I delicately poured into them from a small measuring cup. The eggs seemed to make do with the little gaps I had created for them.

Wasn't so sure at this point that I'd really want to eat this...

That was the tense part, the part where I was holding my breath and not realizing it. But once those little oeufs had nestled into their wells, all I had to do was place the cover (aka a cookie sheet) on the skillet and let the heat work its magic.

Cookin' away... also, not only does my new kitchen have a window, it even has a door! Hello natural light, breeze, and make-shift vent for when I burn things.

Upon removing the cookie sheet approximately five minutes later, I was greeted by four beautiful white blobs, my first poached eggs. I felt a kind of pride at that moment. I sprinkled on the scallions and cilantro (I’d leave this out next time, due to my newly-realized disgust for fresh cilantro), scooped the mixture onto a warmed tortilla (courtesy of the microwave) and tucked into a delicious, summery, easy one-skillet meal.

I ate mine with the egg/salsa/bean mixture atop a tortilla, open faced, while the boyfriend rolled his up like a burrito.

Yum!

In the end, the eggs may or may not have really been poached. I’ll have to try a real poached egg sometime to know for sure. But until then, this recipe has officially been added as a regular to my summer repertoire. And maybe even my winter one.

*Since my last post, I’ve moved into a new apartment. The kitchen is bigger, a little brighter, and has a little more character—thanks mostly to this "rustic" beauty.

My "new" oven. You'll hear a little more about this guy once the mercury in my thermometer drops below 90 degrees.