Cooking For Beginners: Shopping For A Recipe

Before you head off to the store to shop for a recipe you need to pick an appropriate one.  If you are truly a beginner in the kitchen you may not know what to look for.  I am going to assume that you have got your hands on one of the books I recommended that every beginner should have on hand.  Decide first what type of recipe you’re interested in making: a vegetable dish, a meat dish, dinner recipe, dessert?  Once you know what you have in mind look at the index of your all-purpose cookbook.  Most cookbooks are arranged by type of dish: meat, sides, mains, vegetable, grains…you will be able to see how it is arranged by reading through the index.  Open to the section most likely to have the type of dish you’re interested in.

A few pointers on picking a recipe:

• Look for a recipe with fewer ingredients. Fewer ingredients usually means a simpler recipe.  Try to find one with 6 or fewer ingredients for the first one you try.

• Skim the instructions.  If the instructions have 25 steps to them, it is probably not a good recipe for a beginner to start off with.  Look for simple instructions.  Simple instructions are only a few paragraphs long.

• Pick a dish that you are already familiar with eating and love.  This is important for two reasons: if you learn to cook all your favorite foods first you will have a much more rewarding cooking experience and will want to learn more and if you start off making dishes you are very familiar with you will be able to tell if you have made them well.  You will know what it should look and taste like.

• Choose a dish with easily found ingredients.  As you become more experienced some of the excitement of cooking (for me) is to locate interesting sometimes exotic ingredients.  Trying new things is great- but when you’re at the very beginning of this adventure you should first stick with ingredient lists that can easily be found at your grocery store.

Once you’ve picked the recipe you want to try you need to take a quick inventory of what you have in your cupboards before dashing off to the store.  When I was a very beginner cook I didn’t have many staples in my cupboard because I mostly ate things like toast and boxed pasta and I also ate out at cheap diners quite a lot.  So I found myself having to buy a lot of basics for my “pantry” (which was nothing more than a couple of cupboard shelves).  Acquiring pantry items as you go along is the only way to do it.  I will (at the end of this lesson) list what I consider to be the bare bones basics of any pantry but every person who cooks has individual preferences and tastes that will directly affect what herbs and spices you will need to have on hand and what kinds of oils, condiments, and vinegars you might need.

My co-headmistress here at The Farmhouse Finishing School (Mrs. C) loves to cook Indian and Mexican inspired dishes and so she keeps more curry and exotic seasonings like tamarind paste on hand than I do.  You are more likely to find things like corn husks and masa harina on her pantry shelves than on mine where you will find more dried thyme than in anyone else’s pantry because I can’t get enough of thyme as a seasoning.  My preferred style of cooking is Mediterranean so I keep a lot of polenta, Kalamata olive,  and pasta on hand.  So don’t buy a lot of things for your pantry ahead of time.  Build it slowly based on what you find you like to cook as you learn to make what you love eating.

Here are some tips on shopping for recipes:

• Always make a list of what you need before you head out to the grocery store.  This is especially true for beginner cooks.  I remember when I first started shopping for recipes I was going to try and when you’re not buying crappy boxed food anymore a whole crazy world of choices opens up.  It was so exciting and fun to me but also sometimes overwhelming.  I remember standing in front of the salt choices feeling stunned that there were so many kinds.  Having a list with you will help you focus on what you actually need and prevent you from forgetting essential items or overspending on things you don’t actually need.

• Buy herbs and spices in small quantities until you find yourself using them frequently enough to run out of them.  Buy them from the bulk section of the grocery store.  If the store you shop at doesn’t have a bulk herb section, change where you shop!  Only buy enough for the recipe you’re planning to make plus a little extra in case you need to remake the recipe or if you find your personal tastes demand a little more.

• Even if it’s much cheaper to buy an ingredient in a larger quantity, don’t do this unless you know for sure it’s something you’ll be wanting to use a lot of.  It is easy to get excited about saving some money but if you don’t use what you buy then you’ve actually wasted money.

• When choosing produce: be choosy!!  Wait, let me say that again: be very choosy!!  How can you tell if the produce you’re looking at is at its freshest and highest quality?  It can differ from item to item but there are some universal guidelines to follow.  If an item of produce has any of these: soft spots in an otherwise non-soft produce item, discoloration such as browning, sunken spots on the surface, limp to the touch, dry appearance, mold, insects hanging out on the surface, or a withered appearance- don’t buy it.    If all the produce in the store you shop at looks like I have just described- find a new place to shop.

• Choose organic everything whenever you can afford the option.  I (like so many I know) cannot afford to buy everything organic.  It is my opinion that everything should be organic in the first place but since it’s not and since organic can be very costly, start with  your produce.  I am terribly fortunate to have a very reasonably priced organic CSA that is generous with their weekly portions.  If there is a farmer’s market where you live- shop there.  You can usually find organic producers and sometimes you can find producers who don’t have an organic certification but don’t spray.  Ask farmers about their practices.  Farmer’s markets are one of the very best places to shop for produce because what you will find at them is ALWAYS seasonal and fresh.

• Read ingredient labels.  If you’re going to bother cooking food for yourself you should choose the best quality ingredients you can afford.  Quality means the least amount of processing necessary for any given food item.  The following is a list of ingredients you should avoid bringing home to your kitchen:

1.  Artificial flavorings

2.  High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Dextrose, etc.  (stick to plain sugar).

3.  MSG  I’m not allergic to it myself, though many people are, but I still avoid it because good     quality food doesn’t need this flavor “enhancer”.

4.  Preservatives.  There are a few preservatives that aren’t harmful but most of them are.

5.  Unnatural coloring.  (no real food is bright blue, not even blueberries)

6.  Any “ingredient” that could only be replicated in a factory setting.

• Be careful with sale items.  If you are on a budget and need to try to save pennies wherever you can, just be sure to check expiration dates on packaged foods, avoid old “clearance” produce (not usually worth the savings), and be sure that nothing has compromised the item such as a hole in the packaging or a banged up appearance, or dents in canned items.

If it would be helpful for you to have the above pointers with you while you’re shopping, print this article out and bring it with you.  These are the kinds of things I would be telling you if I could go with you to shop for your first few home cooking adventures.

As I mentioned earlier, a pantry is a highly personal thing.  Building it up should be gradual and reflect how you like to cook, however there are a few items that nearly everyone should have on hand.  I will list them below, but keep in mind that this is my opinion only and every experienced cook will have different items they consider essential.  As always, if you have a really experienced cook helping to teach you then you should listen to them rather than me.  Having someone experienced at your elbow is the best possible way to learn to cook.

Pantry Staples (the bare necessities list):

Olive Oil

Vegetable Oil

Wine Vinegar (or rice vinegar if you prefer)

Salt (I prefer a grey salt or a kosher style salt with no additives but plain table salt is fine)

Pepper (it’s best if you have a grinder and can grind it fresh, but preground is fine)

Baking Soda

Baking Powder (non aluminum kind is best)

Tomato Paste

Soup Broth (home-made is best but canned/boxed or bouillon is fine)

All Purpose Unbleached Flour (a couple of pounds of it to begin with is adequate)

Cane Sugar (a pound is enough to begin with)

Honey (8 oz jar is enough to begin with, make sure it’s raw)

Mrs. C’s particular pantry recommendations:

Thyme

Italian Seasoning

 

If you missed the first lesson in the series “Cooking For Beginners” here it is:

Cooking For Beginners: Cookbooks and Equipment

Ratatouille: Lisa E’s Version

These are the vegetables on the grill.  You can broil the eggplant separately in the oven at 450 degrees if you are doing a huge batch and need more room on the grill for the summer squash, peppers, and onions.

The vegetables are done when they are cooked all the way through but aren’t mushy.

Cook the tomatoes while the vegetables are all grilling and/or broiling.

You can use other seasonings for ratatouille such as thyme, bay leaves, or herbes de Provence, but Lisa and I both prefer to simply use a truck load of fresh basil added right as you remove the ratatouille from the heat.

There are as many recipes for ratatouille as there are passionate cooks.  A traditional ratatouille is made by cooking the various ingredients separately first and then layer them in a casserole and then baked.  The main (important components) of ratatouille are: eggplant, tomatoes, summer squash, sweet peppers, fresh basil, and garlic.   There are hundreds of variations of this dish possible- you can use mushrooms, omit the peppers (I don’t digest sweet peppers well and never cook with them), make it chunkier or saucier.  What you must never leave out (if you want it to still be a ratatouille) is the eggplant, summer squash, tomatoes, garlic, and onions.

It should always be made in summer or early fall when all of these ingredients can be had fresh from the garden or from the farmer’s market.

The following version is from Lisa E and involves roasting and grilling most of the different ingredients and then adding them to the pot of cooking tomatoes.   She doesn’t give specific amounts for the ingredients because she never measures them.   My suggestion is to use roughly equal quantities of tomatoes and eggplant, slightly fewer summer squash in proportion, and even fewer sweet peppers, and for one big pot of ratatouille I would use two to three onions.  You can’t use too much fresh basil and the garlic should be to your personal taste.  My preference for a giant pot would be about 10 cloves minced.

Lisa’s Ratatouille

Ingredients:

tomatoes- peeled, cored, seeds squeezed out then coarsely chopped
eggplant, zucchini, red peppers- cut lengthwise into slabs, brush with olive oil, salt  & pepper
onions- quartered, brush with olive oil, salt & pepper
garlic- loads of it finely chopped
basil: chiffonade

In a large heavy bottomed pot heat olive oil (about a quarter cup), add tomatoes and cook at medium high; continue to cook while preparing other ingredients and until tomatoes get nice and broken down and saucy.

I usually roast the eggplant in the oven at 450 while the rest of the veg is on the grill.  Usually timing works out perfect: when veg is all cooked allow to cool enough to handle then coarsely chop it all and add it to the tomatoes along with the garlic.  Simmer until the flavors develop and it gets to the consistency you like, adjust salt & pepper to taste.  Stir in the basil when you turn off the heat.

When it has cooled I usually keep enough out for dinner and the rest goes (in either 2 cup or 4 cup increments) in quart size freezer bags (squeezing out all the air) or in food saver bags to freeze and then vacuum seal when it is frozen.  It isn’t high enough acid to can safely.

When I said it is a big batch technique I mean a full stockpot or if I am really ambitious I have my two biggest pots going at the same time.  That way I do it once during the season and have it stowed away in the deep freeze for meals throughout the year.

Serving Notes: I like it by itself with Parmesan, feta or goat cheese, with polenta, grilled or soft, any kind of pasta.  I have used it to make lasagna too.

Hot Spot Remedy: DIY Pet Apothecary

My dog got her first hot spot recently and I couldn’t afford to take her to the vet.  She was licking the base of her tail obsessively and after a couple of days of this a completely bald round spot developed on her tail.  I noticed that it started getting slightly infected looking and so I looked up what the cause might be.  It became clear very quickly that she had a “hot spot” which is a section of skin on a dog that becomes infected with bacteria (known to vets as pyotraumatic dermatitis) and itches, so the dog licks it until it becomes worse and eventually the most infected spot loses its fur and the sore may even ooze with pus.

In my dog’s case I am almost certain the cause was fleas because we had neglected to give her flea medication for several months.  Other causes of hot spots may be irritated anal sacs, allergies, thick coats, or grooming issues such as tangles and mats.

A friend of mine who works in a feed store looked up the ingredients in their most highly recommended hot spot treatment and suggested I might be able to make one of my own.  (Thank you Blaize!!)  The three ingredients she mentioned were the chamomile, aloe vera, and the tea tree oil.  It seemed that my dog’s hot spot was very itchy and I had harvested some plantain from my yard because I’d read about its anti-itch properties and I decided that this would make a good addition to the hot spot treatment.

Once I made up the remedy I sprayed my dog liberally with it directly on her hot spot and then I did my best to lift the fur of her heavy coat to spray the skin surrounding the hot spot.  Before this she had been very agitated about her sore area and when I tried to examine the area she growled and warned me to keep my hands off.  She had been chewing and licking the area obsessively so it was easy to notice that after the first spray application she must have felt some immediate relief.  She stopped bugging the spot almost immediately and only tried licking it again after an hour or two at which point I applied another round of spritzing her hot spot.

Within 24 hours she stopped touching her hot spot entirely and it was able to scab up and heal.  She still has a little bald spot on her tail but there’s no sore left at all.

What You’ll Need:

Non reactive sauce pan (either stainless steel or enamel coated)

Wooden spoon

Strainer

3/4 cups dried chamomile

3/4 cups dried plantain

1 Tbsp aloe vera juice

6 drops tea tree oil

2 cups water

8 ounce spray bottle

Method:

In a nonreactive small saucepan add the chamomile, plantain, and water and bring to a boil.  Turn down the heat and simmer herbs for a half an hour or until the water has reduced by about half.

Strain out the herbs and then pour the liquid into the spray bottle.  Add the aloe vera juice and the tea tree oil drops.  Shake well every time before use.

Store in the refrigerator.

To use: Shake up the remedy and then spray it on the affected area liberally.  Rough the fur up around the hot spot to expose the skin and spray as you do it.

You should notice an improvement within the first few hours.  Be very careful to notice if the exposed skin of the hot spot reacts to the spray.  If it shows any signs of getting worse stop using the spray immediately.  Though all the ingredients in this remedy are mild and in normal circumstances shouldn’t cause your dog’s skin to react, there is always the possibility that your dog may be allergic to one of the ingredients so use common sense.

Apply the spray to the hot spot every couple of hours until your dog stops worrying the sore and lets it begin to dry out.  Stop using the spray when the hot spot scabs up and your dog is no longer paying any attention to it.

Soup Philosophy

Every year, just when I’m in the middle of mourning the end of summer tomatoes, wearing my black band and draping my windows with the evidence of my sinking tomatoless spirits, a brisk shiver of cool air brushes across my skin and I drop the banners the flags and the weeds of loss as a single word crosses my mind in a kind of breathless joy:

SOUP!

Suddenly I have forgotten all about the tangy sweet tomatoes I’ve been in love with for weeks and I am happy again.  Soup!  Soup is absolutely one of the very best dishes on earth.  It is everything humble, simple, nourishing, inexpensive, hearty, healthy, uplifting, and homey.  I am aware that a soup can be made of $100 a pound lobsters and mushrooms that people have been shot for.  This doesn’t change its humble nature.  Its simple entreaty to nourish yourself and heal your spirit when the winds are howling and the wolves are baying outside your door.

Soup is a chameleon, changing into whatever you need it to be: you  can devise a torturous 20 step soup that calls for 17 hard to find ingredients and takes 24 hours to make; you can make a soup with 5 ingredients in just a half an hour; you can use up all manner of old-ish vegetables from the cellar and feel like a king.  It’s what you want it to be.  It’s whatever you need it to be.

I’m not sure how old I was when I learned about the magical powers of soup but I do know that it was the first thing I learned to make completely on my own.  Split pea soup is one of my favorites and I have been known to make it when I feel low simply because making it uplifts my spirits, infuses me with renewed hope and calm.  The scent of the garlic and fresh dill is intoxicating and improves my health before it ever reaches my mouth.  Making soup is like  saying a prayer in the kitchen.  It is the only kind of prayer I know.

Soup is not only the first food I learned to make completely on my own, it is the first dish I learned to make by instinct and the first dish that my reputation for being an excellent cook was built on.

I have heard many a novice cook express the opinion that soups are difficult or a mystery to master.  I disagree in spite of the fact that someone once asked me for my recipe for vegetarian split pea soup and reported back to me that it didn’t turn out.  When this curious person described what had happened I realized that there are many things about soup making that I take for granted and therefore don’t think I need to explain.  I learned a lot from that exchange.

I am going to break down some of the components of successful soup making here for anyone who needs a little courage and knowledge.  These are merely my soup making rules and truths.  If you are learning to make soup and you have an excellent soup maker offering to teach you their own magic- trust them and let them teach you!  I am only putting my own soup philosophy here in case someone out there doesn’t have a best friend or a grandmother to help them out.  I will be your guide if you need me.

In the beginning…

There is no soup in my kitchen that doesn’t begin with a tablespoon or two of olive oil and an onion.  I saute the onion until it is slightly browned and transparent.  I often saute it with celery.  The reason I do this is because I often don’t use a stock and browning an onion and celery at the start adds a little depth to whatever soup I’m making.

That’s how all my soups begin.  If you don’t like onions you can do exactly the same thing with leeks, scallions, or skip the alliums all together if you don’t like them or are allergic to them.  If you’re making a soup with many vegetables you can saute them all together at the beginning to get the same effect of deeper broth flavor.  Only do this if you aren’t going to add beans or meat that needs a long cooking time.

The order of all things…

One thing to understand about soup is that most of them take between an hour and two hours to cook so it pays to be mindful of what vegetables should be added and when.  Some vegetable hold their shape longer than others.

Once you’ve sauted your onion and celery you add some water or broth.  If you’re going to add beans to a soup that aren’t pre-cooked then you will want to add the amount you need to the broth and cook them until tender.  You wait to add the other vegetables until they are tender so that you don’t over cook anything.  Onions and celery can take the long cooking times.

Here’s the order of things as they get added to my soup:

1.  Onions, celery, bay leaf, garlic.

2.  Carrots, potatoes, celery root, dried herbs, turnips, yams, rutabagas, parsnips, winter squash.

3.  Broccoli, Cauliflower, green beans, pasta.

4.  Summer squash, leafy greens.

Those lists may not be complete but they illustrate the hierarchy of ingredients and what order they should be added based on how quickly they cook and risk turning to mush.  Some things can be added at any time like fresh herbs.  The only fresh herb that should never be added until the very end is cilantro which tends to lose its flavor when cooked too long.

Liquid Assets: broth or water?

I have been making excellent soup for 20 years and it was only recently that I learned to make my own vegetable broth to use in soups.  You will read absolutely everywhere that using a broth of some kind is so essential to making soup successfully that if you use plain old water you will suffer such a deep disappointment that you will go into an immediate decline.  This is patently untrue.

I promise you: if you don’t have any broth of any kind or any bouillon cubes to add to your soup you can still make soup that everyone will remember for a long time to come.

Don’t be afraid.  Broth is generally made up of many of the same ingredients your soup will have in it anyway.  sauteing vegetables or meat and then deglazing with water will help deepen the flavor.  Use excellent quality herbs because these will also add a lot to the overall flavor.  Using the right amount of each different herb is something you develop an instinct for with experience.  Fresh is often the best.  Garlic is an excellent flavor enhancer in soup (be sure not to use so much of it that it overpowers everything else).

Having said that, I will say that it’s absolutely true that using stock is ideal.  If you have a choice of using broth or using water: always use the broth!  I made two versions of the same soup in one week last year, one using no broth, the other using my homemade stock.  Everything was exactly the same except for that one detail.  Without knowing of my experiment my husband liked the batch made with the stock best.  So it does make soup better.  But he loved the other batch too- just not as much.

If you don’t have broth a close second is to use a bouillon cube or two.  You can get them in beef, chicken, and vegetable flavors.

Then there’s the question of how much to add.  Soup i so flexible that if you add too much liquid to it at first you can cook it a little longer until it steams off and thickens.  If your soup is too thick- add more liquid.  You get a feel for how much to add as you get more experienced but when you’re still a new soup maker it’s wise to add water in 1 or 2 cup quantities.  It is amazingly difficult to translate a soup recipe so that it tells you exactly the right amount of liquid you’ll need to add.  Never assume that the amount the recipe calls for is correct just because it’s printed on paper.  So many factors can influence this such as how hot you’re stove is, how large your vegetables/meat are, and how long you cook it for.

Always add more liquid when you feel the soup has gotten thicker than you want it or let it cook down when it’s too brothy for your taste.  You are in control of this.  Get comfortable winging it.

Size always matters…

The larger you chop your ingredients the longer it will take to cook them.

The smaller they are the faster they cook.

The issue with size is that if you are making a soup that’s going to cook for a long time and you chop all your vegetables really small they will eventually break down into specks.  So if you want them to hold some shape and have a presence…cut them chunky.

For quick vegetable soups it is appropriate to dice your vegetables very small.  This is true of any soup you plan to puree.  No need for chunks then cut them small.

Cream in the pot…

Always add cream to soup as a last step.  If you simmer cream it will curdle.  Curdled soup has little charm.  When you make cream of potato leek soup you cook everything first then you puree it using your blender (not recommended) or an immersion blender (totally recommended) and then you add the amount of cream you want.  To warm it up later be careful not to bring it to a boil.  Heat it up gently stirring frequently.

What substitutions fail?

I’m not sure how many times in this article I have already mentioned the flexibility of soup but it needs saying again.  If you see a soup recipe that sounds great except for one particular spice or one ingredient it is almost always possible to leave it out or substitute it for something you like a lot more.  I would say that this is more true of soups whose whole character doesn’t depend on one particular ingredient.  If you don’t like potatoes you should probably not try to make cream of potato soup…then again…you can substitute the potatoes with celery root and get the same type of soup…so never mind.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.  Experimenting is the very best way to develop your soup skills.  Herbs and spices are like color- develop your personal palette!

A very long time ago I thought lentil soup was always curried or cumined up to its neck and since I am only an occasional curry fan I almost never made lentil soup.  Then one day I was reading a French vegetarian cookbook (yeah, I know!  Crazy!) and it had a recipe for a lentil soup that used thyme instead of curry and it sounded so good.  I made it and it was a revelation!  I loved it so much I have never made a curried lentil soup since because I am in love with thyme as a soup seasoning.

To get a good idea of what kinds of vegetables-meats-and seasonings go well together read a lot of recipes.  I read cookbooks for the joy of it.  It’s where I get a lot of my food inspiration.  Though I rarely follow recipes in them explicitly any more I turn to them to give me ideas of things to pair together and new flavors to try.  There are a gazillion great food blogs online that you can read for free and if you like the old-fashioned feel of paper and enjoy the sound of turning pages- go to your local library and see what they have.  I have collected many cookbooks over the years but I can rarely afford to buy them now and I depend a great deal on my library which has a great cooking section.  Explore yours!

When the love grinds to a halt…

This is my last bit of soup philosophy to offer for the day:  if you make a soup that fails to please on every level, do not let this ruin the magic of soup for you.  Soup is a lot more flexible than gratins, souffles, or bread.  You will have more successes while learning to make soup than you will with any other food but there will still come a soup that stumps you.  I’ve had a few of my own colossal let-downs over the years but I think the most depressing one was a curried cauliflower soup I made that unbelievably ended up having NO flavor.  It’s almost impossible to achieve a flavorless soup- yet I did it.  How is it possible to put curry in a dish and then not at least taste curry?  I don’t know.  I will probably never know how that happened.  You just have to toss it to the pigs or lump it and eat it (this one was really inedible) or pour it down the drain.  I am poor enough now that I would probably eat it anyway.  Or make Mr. Williamson eat it.

The point is- for any failed soup experiment there are hundreds of successes to be had.  Everyone is capable of making a great pot of soup.

When everything else in life feels poor and hopeless, as long as you have a bowl of soup you can be sure you’re going to pull through!

Yam and Kale Soup with Coconut Milk and Curry Recipe Try this great warming soup!

Yam and Kale Soup with Coconut Milk and Curry

Sometimes the very best way to stay healthy in the flu season is to eat food that can repel the plague.  Spicy stews and soups are invigorating, warming, and healthy.  This particular soup is a variation on one I made years ago from either Moosewood’s Low Fat cook book, or from Vegetarian Times.  I have forgotten because it’s been so long now.  The original had some fresh Serrano chilis in it and I’m not sure what else since I couldn’t find the original.  I was feeling low this week and wanted to make a soup that could help me bounce back and not get sick.  This soup did the trick!  It is always satisfying that what I want to eat is actually in season, most of the vegetables in this soup came from my organic CSA!

Yam and Kale Soup

Ingredients:

3 onions sliced in thin rounds and then in quarters

2 lbs yams* (sweet potatoes), cut in 1″ pieces

1 large bunch of kale chopped smallish

2 quarts stock or water

1 can coconut milk

2 Tbsp olive oil

1″ piece of fresh ginger peeled and minced

3 garlic cloves minced

1 red dried hot chili such as cayenne

2 tsp curry powder

1 tsp salt

Method:

In a soup pot on medium heat: saute the onions in the olive oil until they caramelize.  This should take about 20 minutes.   When the onions are soft and browned and slightly sticky add the minced garlic and ginger.  Cook for a couple of minutes with the onions, stirring frequently, then add the 2 quarts of water to the pot and turn the heat up until it comes to a boil, then turn down to medium/high.  Add the yams and cover the pot.  Let the yams cook until tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

When the yams are tender add the curry, salt, chili pepper, and the kale.  Stir well and then cover and let cook until the kale is well-cooked, about five minutes.  Now add the coconut milk and when it is completely blended into the soup it is ready.

This recipe makes approximately 8 servings.

Recipe Notes: If you are short on time you can simply saute the onions until they are transparent rather than caramelize them.  That will save almost 15 minutes off the cooking time.  I like the onions caramelized here because it compliments the spiciness and deepens the flavor of the broth.  If you want to shave even more time off of the cooking time you could cut the yams in smaller cubes which will cook faster (try doing 1/2″ cubes).  This is an easy and versatile soup to make and you can make many substitutions to please your own palate:  chard instead of kale, winter squash instead of yams, and of course if you don’t have coconut milk it is excellent without it.

*When I was growing up my mom cooked with yams a lot.  Our favorite was the “Garnet” variety.  I have always known them as yams…however, what I grew up eating weren’t true yams.  True yams are an African tuber that is very rarely available in the United States.  What I grew up eating are actually orange varieties of sweet potatoes.  This knowledge is becoming more common and now there is almost always someone who feels the need to correct me when I say “yam” instead of “sweet potato”.  So why do I still call them yams?  Because that is what most Americans (particularly in the West) know them as and it’s what I’ve called them my whole life.  I choose to continue to call them yams but if you choose to do as I do, just be prepared to have people pipe up with this information!

 

Soup Philosophy An article about soup making basics.

Oeuf Cocotte: Eggs Baked In Marinara

Oeuf Cocotte* is a dish consisting of an egg baked with other ingredients in a ramekin.  Chocolate and Zucchini has a recipe on her site for this dish and explains that it is usually made with ham and creme fraiche, however I first heard of this dish from a French vegetarian cookbook in which the egg was cooked in a mushroom saute.  The recipe I’m giving you here is my current favorite in which an egg is baked in a marinara sauce and topped with parmesean and served with toast fingers.  I will list the ingredients you will need per one 8 ounce ramekin, so if you’re making more than one you need to multiply all ingredients by the number of servings you wish to make.

This recipe doesn’t include the marinara recipe.  You can use any that you have on hand.  This is a simple and satisfying meal.  I especially like to eat it for breakfast.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup marinara sauce (my favorite is a mushroom marinara)

1 egg

1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese

the veriest smear of oil or butter to grease the ramekin

2 slices buttered wheat toast cut into fingers

Method:

Preheat your oven to 400°

Grease your ramekin.

Set it in a larger deeper dish (see picture above) and fill halfway with water (this will help heat the dish evenly).  Ladle about a half a cup of the marinara into the ramekin.

Crack your egg into it then cover the egg with the remaining 1/4 cup marinara.

Sprinkle the Parmesan on the top and put in the oven to bake.

Baking times vary depending on your oven and how you like your eggs.  The times I give here are approximate according to how my oven heats:

20 minutes: if you like your egg whites almost runny like Parisians do, this is probably long enough.  They will just barely be set up at this point and the yolk will be very runny.

25 minutes:  the whites should be completely cooked but the yolk will still be runny.

30 minutes:  the yolks will be thick but not completely hard cooked.  This is my favorite way.  I like the yolks to be tender and soft but not runny.

35 minutes:  the yolk should, at this point, be thoroughly hard cooked.

When the dish is almost ready to come out of the oven make the toast.

*I have also seen this spelled “oeufs en cocotte”.

Concord Grape Juice: How To Make Grape Juice

Making grape juice isn’t difficult but if you’re doing it without a press (as I must) then it does take some time because the straining process is slow.  You can use any grape varieties you like but if you want the classic grape flavor (like Welch’s makes) the concord variety is the only grape to use.  They are a deep bluish purple color when they’re ripe and the flesh slips out of the skin easily and has two sizable seeds in each one.

This is how you make grape juice but it isn’t a recipe with specific amounts.  Use whatever quantity of grapes you have on hand and if you want to know exactly how many jars you’ll need to heat in your canner you can measure the amount of juice you have before you reheat it to process it in the jars.  You won’t know exactly how much you’ll end up with until you’ve finished straining the pulp out of the liquid.

First step:

Put your grapes in a big enough pot that it won’t boil over.  If you have more than will fit in one pot you can use as many as you need that will fit on your stove.  Don’t add any water.  Before turning the heat on, crush some grapes with a potato masher or the back of a spoon.  This will keep the grapes from burning at the bottom before the juice is boiled out of the grapes.

Second Step:

Bring your pot of grapes to a boil.  Boil the grapes for as long as it takes for the grape flesh to reduce to juice leaving mostly grape skins as pulp.  Look at the first picture in this post to see how they start out looking and then look at the picture below to see how your pot of grapes should look when they’re ready to strain:

Observe how the slotted spoon brings up only skin and seeds.  There are no more globes of grapes left.  Also notice how the skins look more red than purple now as the pigmentation has been cooked out of them into the juice.

Third Step:

You need a large bowl or pot to strain your juice into, a strainer, and either double layer cheese cloth or butter muslin.  Place your strainer over the top of the bowl or pot and place your straining cloth over it, be sure to push it into the bowl of the strainer before ladling your juice into it.  Now you can fill the strainer to the top with juice and pulp you just cooked.  Let it drip until most of the juice has drained out.

Fourth Step:

Now gather up your cloth and squeeze all the extra juice you can out of the pulp.  You will be surprised how much you can get out of it- so don’t skip this step for the best yield.  When you’ve gotten all you can out of the pulp, put it in your compost bin, rinse the cloth out well, and set it back into the strainer.  Rinsing the cloth each time is important because if you don’t do it the fine sediment will make the next batch you ladle into the cloth drain even more slowly because it clogs up the cloth.

This is the part that can take a long time.  Just keep straining until all of it is done.  At this point you may wish to restrain it, this time through one extra layer of cloth to strain out even more fine sediment before canning it.  This is up to you.  Once you can your juice and let it sit for a week on a shelf you will see all the sediment sink in a layer at the bottom of your jars.  You can carefully pour your juice out of the jars, when you’re ready to use it, leaving the sediment in the jar, or you can restrain it at that point.  One think I can tell you for sure is that the sediment is not pleasant to drink and kids especially don’t appreciate it.

To Process the Juice:

1.  Heat up the strained juice to boiling point and then turn off the heat.

2.  Ladle the juice into hot pint or quart jars leaving 1/4″ head space.  Adjust the two piece caps.

3.  Process pints or quarts for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath canner making sure to cover        the tops of the jars with at least an inch and a half of water.

Special notes: Depending on the sweetness of the grapes and according to personal taste, you may need to add sugar to your juice.  Some years the grapes are sweeter than others.  There is no specific amount for me to recommend.  Taste the juice and add sugar a half a cup at a time to your entire batch, tasting after the sugar has completely dissolved into the juice.  I prefer my juice to be tart but my son has a sweet tooth so I add sugar to mine until it’s sweet enough for him to enjoy, but only just.

You can also freeze juice.  If you freeze it in jars you need to leave a lot more head space for the expansion of the freezing of the juice- leave about two inches room.  You can also freeze in plastic containers.  Juice freezes exceptionally well so this is a good option for people who have room in their freezers.

Winterizing Your Home and Garden: Autumn around the urban homestead

What Autumn means to you is probably influenced by your climate.  Some people are already getting snow while others are still fanning the sun off their faces.  Here in Oregon it’s turning cold and rainy.  While Autumn is not my favorite season (winter is) I do love this time of year.  The past several years I spent most of my autumn canning apples, pears, and the last of the summer tomatoes.

I love the change in seasonal produce, seeing the winter squash get piled in my local produce sections and in the farmer’s market stalls for the last couple weeks of market.  I love cooking with potatoes, celery root, and cauliflower.  Soon my local market will have giant stalks of locally grown brussels sprouts and I’ll want to buy more than I can cook.  My CSA will have them too.  Soup is my favorite food and there are endless varieties of soups to make with the produce on hand.

In your garden you are probably harvesting the last of your tomatoes, squash, and beans.  What now?  Here are some things you might do in your garden:

• Spread compost on your vegetable beds to overwinter.  The fall is the best time to amend your soil because then it is ready for you to use in the spring.  If you have chickens and some beds you won’t be planting in until spring, cover the beds with the hay you clean out from your chicken run.  Chicken manure is excellent for the garden but needs a few months (preferably six) to mellow because it ’s a “hot” manure and spreading it on a bed with plants could cause the plant roots to burn.  Overwintering your chicken waste gives it plenty of time to mellow and will be safe to plant in by spring.

• Rip out all the dead vegetable plants from the garden.  I never do this because I’m too lazy but fall is a great time to tidy up your garden and tuck it in for the winter.  Just be sure not to prune anything unless you have extremely mild winters.  Prune in the spring when most of the winter frost damage is done already and you can prune to the undamaged parts.  If you prune now you could lose more of your plants.

• Winterize your more tender perennials if you live in a climate with a hard winter such as wrapping your roses or your potted fruit trees in insulation or with burlap stuffed with mulch to keep them warm.  In my climate the winter damage is usually pretty mild and fruit trees don’t need to be wrapped.

• Bring in any tools or garden furniture that might get ruined by the weather.

I don’t do a lot with my garden during the fall but I live in an old house and one of my concerns right now is winterizing my house so that it will retain heat longer and use less energy to keep comfortable.  Last winter we had our kitchen door constantly opening and closing for our dog and cats and often it was simply left open for hours at a time.  We don’t mind a fairly cold house but every late afternoon the temperatures would drop and we’d put the heat on.  This summer my husband installed a dog door and we’ve been training our cats and dog to use it.  It’s harder for the cats to use it because it had to be installed fairly high off the floor level, yet they learned to use it faster than the dog.  Chick was really frightened of it for the last two months.  At last, just this week, all the animals are using it without coaxing and we’re practicing keeping the kitchen door shut.  Just in time too because this morning was so cold I had to put the heat on for the first time in months!

One of the things people with old houses often do is replace old windows with new ones.  Unfortunately the old wood windows are almost always replaced with vinyl or aluminum windows and though these supposedly come with a warranty far exceeding wood windows I have known fewer old wood windows to leak than vinyl or aluminum.  If you have to replace your windows, consider replacing them with new wood windows.  They cost a lot more but look a million times better and with just a little care I promise they will last longer than your other choices.  I believe in maintaining the integrity of the old homes in our country so I’m passionate about this.

There are other things you can do to reduce the energy use in your house during winter:

• Curtains.  A lot of people have thin curtains if they have curtains at all.   Consider making or buying lined heavyweight curtains to put up during the winter months.  Even a sturdy cotton will keep out a surprising amount of cold.  Just be sure the curtains completely cover the window when they’re closed.  You can open them during the warmer hours during the day and close them near evening as the temperatures outside drop.

• Storm windows.  Around my town many old homes have storm windows as an alternative to replacing antique windows.  If installed correctly they serve to make your old single paned windows double paned.  It creates an extra barrier between the wet weather and your windows as well.

• Weather stripping.  Check all the outside doors for gaps near the floor.  Weather stripping is inexpensive to buy and easy to install.  Our kitchen door which leads outside has gaps so big at the floor that light can be seen to flood through the openings in the morning.  I bought some weather-stripping  for it.  The door is fairly narrow so I’ll either need to cut it down to size or see if my hardware store carries the correct size.

• Put insulation around any exposed water or sewage pipes if your area gets cold enough to freeze water.  It doesn’t always get that cold here but last winter it got cold enough to freeze one of our pipes and we were without kitchen or bath water for two days.  (This won’t actually reduce your energy usage but is simply a good thing to do before it’s too late.)

If you have the time, now is also a good season to clean your house and get it really well organized.  During the wet and cold months all the little things that irritated you all summer will become more irritating when you’re also having to worry about mud, coats and scarves everywhere, the holidays looming up, and when so much more of your time is centered around indoor activities.  This week end my husband and son agreed to clean up our living room and put everything away.  It was such a huge relief!  We have so far to go getting things around here running smoothly but that is what I’m thinking about now.  Putting things away, making more counter space, cleaning off high piled surfaces, solving little house problems that aren’t a huge deal but add a little constant irritation to my life.

What I am going to do today,  right now,  the second I get done posting:  Our under the sink cupboard, where we keep our kitchen garbage can, doesn’t latch shut.  For months now our dog has been rooting around in it daily for any tasty little crumbs she might find.  She drags empty cracker bags to the already ratty looking lawn and shreds them up and comes back for whatever else she can find.  I’ve been in such a flurry of work and scrambling to get other bigger things taken care of that I have continually put off taking care of this problem.

The funny thing is that it’s a simple fix.  I bought the magnetic hardware already.  It is ridiculous that it’s taken me this long to get around to it.  So I will do that today and not have to get angry when I see this week’s trash spread out across our yard.

What are you doing to winterize your home and garden?

Cooking For Beginners: Cookbooks and Equipment

If you are a real beginner cook you may not know yet what cookbooks are appropriate for you and what equipment is essential.    When I first started learning to cook on my own I had very little kitchen equipment, and in truth you don’t need a ton, but I found that my equipment grew as I read my two cookbooks and decided on things I wanted to make.  People who love to cook tend to collect kitchen gadgets that they really don’t need and I’d like to present here two lists of what I consider the first tier of necessary equipment and then if you become a proficient and passionate cook the second tier of essential equipment.  You should always buy the best quality equipment that you can afford.  Don’t be afraid to look for things you need in thrift stores and in used restaurant supply stores.   Good cookware will last a long time.   Look for 5 ply stainless steel or cast iron (enamel coated or not) for the very best quality pots and pans.

The most necessary items:

1 saute pan: if you only have one make it a 12″ size.

1 medium size sauce pan: a 3 quart size is good.

1 soup/stock pot: 8 quart is perfect.

1 cookie sheet: if you can get one from a restaurant supply place, those are the best.

1 casserole dish: I suggest a glass or ceramic one (Corning makes really good ones).

2-3 wooden spoons: these should not be expensive.  Have one short-handled one and a long-handled one.

1 spatula: I prefer metal ones but either metal or plastic will be fine.

1 colander: any  metal style, don’t buy a plastic one because one of the main uses is for draining hot pasta.  I have one I bought 20 years ago from Cost Plus.  It’s dinged up and still working hard.

1 set mixing bowls: no need to get fancy if you’re on a budget, plain glass ones aren’t hard to find in thrift stores.  Stainless steel mixing bowls are also excellent.  Don’t buy aluminum bowls because some food reacts with aluminum.  It’s very useful to have three bowls in different sizes.

1 set measuring spoons: any kind will do.

1 (2 cup) measuring cup: I suggest glass Pyrex if you only have one.

1 folding steamer basket for sauce pan: these fit into the bottom of your sauce pan allowing you to steam vegetables.  They’re cheap and very handy.

1 pie pan: I suggest you get a glass one.

1 loaf pan: if you can get one from a restaurant supply place that would be best but if not, just get any kind you find, average loaf size.

1 decent knife: don’t worry about fancy.  My favorite knife is one I bought 14 years ago from a health food store.  I sharpen it regularly and it still works perfectly.  You want your main knife to be a chef’s knife.  Shop around and hold the different styles to figure out which kind is comfortable for your hand.

1 paring knife: any kind will do.  I use cheap ones because I lost my nice one.  I have to sharpen them more often but they work fine.

Sharpening steel: whether your knife is cheap or expensive you need to sharpen it regularly.  I didn’t know how to do this for years and chopping with a dull knife is not only more dangerous but much harder.

1 good quality food processor: 11 cup capacity is best for a family but smaller is fine for an individual.  I bought the best Cuisinart processor I could afford almost 12 years ago and it is still working wonderfully well, though I could stand to sharpen or replace the blades.  At the time it really stretched our budget but it has been essential to me in my cooking.

Less necessary appliances that you may want to get eventually:

Stand Mixer: I bought a Kitchenaide (professional series) and I have used it so much over the years that it was worth the expense.  I bought the pasta attachment which I love and use often.

Immersion Blender: Mrs. C had to convince me to get one of these and I resisted for a long time but I can’t imagine making salad dressings without one now.  Though seriously- don’t worry about having one of these if you are just beginning.  I made great dressing before, the thing this does that I love is allow me to make a creamy vinaigrette.    It’s also very handy for pureeing soups and sauces.

With all of the equipment I’ve listed above you should be able to make anything you find in a cookbook.  There are plenty of other things you can add to your kitchen like graters and peelers, for example, but if you have the food processor it will come with a grater function and a paring knife works perfectly well for peeling fruits and vegetables.  I have merely listed the essentials here.  What you need to start off with.

Cookbooks

I love cookbooks.  I have over 40 of them on my bookshelves and that is only half of what I would probably have if I didn’t edit and choose carefully.  I can’t afford to buy them often but I have been collecting them since I bought my very first two cookbooks when I first learned to cook.  Now I rarely use cookbooks for actual recipes but for inspiration.  If I’m in the mood for something Mediterranean I look in my Greek, Italian, and French cookbooks for ideas.  For baking, however, I do follow recipes exactly.  Anyone can learn to cook using just one cookbook provided that cookbook is an excellent all-purpose one.  I am going to recommend the two cookbooks I have used the most, learned the most from, and found to have infallible recipes.  As a beginner you can’t judge whether recipes are infallible or not because you’re own initial lack of skill can make a mess of recipes that are quite good.  As you become more experienced you’ll be able to tell if the reason why your meal didn’t turn out well was because of you or a poorly written recipe.

The Joy Of Cooking, by Irma Rombauer: this is, by far, the most reliable, useful, informative, and complete cookbook in print for cooking everything.  My copy is from 1948 which I love because it has a lot of old fashioned recipes in it, but there are many recent editions that reflect our more modern sophisticated palate.  Ultimately it doesn’t matter which edition you choose, they all have the basics in them such as how to cut meat, how to saute food, and include basics such as pie crusts, measurement conversion charts, and all the essential kitchen methods you might need to reference.  If you only get one cook book, get this one.

Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone, by Deborah Madison: I am a vegetarian and if you can have two cookbooks, this is the other one you should have.  Like Joy Of Cooking, she covers so much basic information for the beginner cook (but her recipes don’t include meat, obviously)- you will have access to information on how to cook all vegetables and grains exceptionally well with her book.  Her directions are clear, her recipes are solid.  If they don’t turn out well I guarantee that it’s something you did wrong, not something wrong with the recipe.  This isn’t just a good book for vegetarians, this is the best resource for everyone when it comes to cooking with produce- because even meat eaters need vegetable sides.  Many of her recipes are vegan or she explains how to make them vegan.

Those are the two best cookbooks I have ever used.  Everyone who cooks has their favorites but here at the Farmhouse Finishing School these would be my textbooks if the school was brick and mortar.

Don’t forget to make good use of your public library’s cook book section.  You can try a lot of cookbooks without having to buy them.  Or you can try cookbooks to see if they’re worth buying.  All of my recommendations below are for vegetarian books.  If you want to find some books that include meat, try out the following well respected cook book authors:  Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, and Mark Bittman.

Mrs. W recommends:

Great Breads, by Martha Rose Shulman: I learned to bake bread with this book.  I tried a number of other books before I found this one and though the others were prettier and full of pictures, this is the one that has proved the easiest and most reliable to learn from.  No one learns to bake breads without some failures but you will have fewer of them if you carefully read and follow Martha’s instructions.  Two of my closest friends also learned to bake bread using her instructions.

“The Vegetarian Table” series: This series is published by Chronicle Books.  They aren’t big books but each one really captures the foods from different countries, both traditional and more modern.  The instructions are clear, each book contains plenty of recipes appropriate for beginners, and they are full of pictures which I find inspiring.   I have The Vegetarian Table France, America, Italy, Mexico, and India.  There is also one for Japan.  Some of my long time meal staples come from these books.

The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook, by Jack Bishop: He has amazing basic Italian recipes such as fresh pasta, almond biscotti, and sauces.  I have used his book for years and his recipes always turn out well for me.

This Good Food, by Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette: He has written a few cookbooks and I recommend them all.  The dishes in this book are simple, flavorful, and healthy.  They are arranged by season because that’s how monks in monasteries usually eat and it’s really how most of us should be eating too.  This is not fancy French cooking but simple French cooking (many Americans don’t know there is such a thing) and that means that the ingredients are usually easy to come by and not especially costly.

 

Jump to the second lesson in the “Cooking For Beginners” series:

Cooking For Beginners: Shopping For A Recipe

Muffins: Mrs. C’s Master Recipe

Muffins are not difficult to make once you understand a couple of basic principles:

1.  Always mix the wet and dry ingredients separately until the very end.

2.  Do not beat the batter to death.  Mix as quickly and gently as you can or the muffins will come out tough.

Behind every excellent muffin baker there is a master batter recipe to be found.  Mrs. C, the other headmistress of the Farmhouse Finishing School, is a superb baker and she has a sense for it that goes beyond precise measurements.  It was therefore a challenge to translate her master recipe- but I managed to do it and practiced using it and I confidently present it here for you.

I have made these muffins with little substitutions and alterations and had great success with them.  I have also made them exactly as written here.  I will share with you the master recipe and then I will tell you what alterations you can make without being disappointed in the results.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose unbleached flour

2/3 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 1/4 cup buttermilk (or regular milk)

1/3 cup oil

1 1/2 cup blueberries (or other small fruits or berries)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425°.   Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl.  In a slightly smaller bowl mix all the wet ingredients together.  If you are using berries or chocolate chips, stir them into the dry ingredients so that they are well covered in flour.  This is important.  Do not mix in after you’ve combined the wet and dry ingredients.  Coating them with the dry flour first will help keep them separate from each other in the batter.

Coat the inside of the muffin tins with butter or oil (I recommend using the butter).

Make a little well in the middle of your dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it.  Quickly and gently stir the wet and dry together just until they are mixed- do not over stir.   Do not whip them together violently or you will end up with tough muffins.

Cook for about 17 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden.

Here I have added the blueberries to the dry ingredients and stirred them in well.

In this picture I didn’t make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients.  It isn’t necessary, but it’s recommended because it makes the incorporation of the wet and dry ingredients faster to bring together.

Every muffin recipe I’ve ever made says to only fill the muffin tins 2/3 full.  This irritates me.  My muffins never seem satisfyingly top lofty.  I fill them mostly full.  To me they are perfect this way.  The yield may vary depending on what you add to the batter- you may get only 12 muffins or you may get 15.

Recipe Notes: I almost never have buttermilk on hand.  When I do buy it I always have left overs that proceed to go bad.  Mrs. C doesn’t have this problem.  She nearly always has buttermilk on hand.  Instead I use 2% milk and I can say that this substitution does not make an inferior muffin.  There is that pleasant tang when you use the buttermilk but other than a slight flavor difference, the quality of the batter can handle the substitution.

I like a lot of berries in my muffins.  So I used 2 cups of berries.  You can do this too if you like.  I think 1 1/2 might be the most ideal ratio of berries to batter but I always like going over the top.  Using frozen blueberries works exceptionally well, just be sure not to let them defrost before adding them to the batter.  You can also use blackberries, diced peaches, raspberries, or even chocolate chips.  If you use chocolate chips I recommend you only use 1 cup of them.

One last note- you may need to add a little bit more milk/buttermilk to your batter if it’s too stiff when mixed.  Things that can affect your batter are the humidity in the air and the size of your eggs.  If your batter seems too stiff, add 1/4 cup of buttermilk or milk and as gently and quickly as you can,  mix it in.