Creamy Cauliflower Soup

One of my favorite stores in Berkeley is Monterey Market. Its on Hopkins Street in the tidy little bundle of shops, butchers, fishmongers, bakers, and pizza at the corner of Monterey Avenue in North Berkeley. Monterey Market is basically a huge produce market, as well as grocery store, featuring some of the best local, seasonal fruits and veggies you can find outside of a farmer's market. It is not stylized, nor trendy, like Whole Foods or Trader Joes. It is simple, never insults your intellect or senses, and only begs of you to be adventurous and open minded when thinking about whats for dinner.
When I was pondering just this the other day, walking through the overflowing aisles, I was immediately drawn to the box boasting organic, fresh yellow "cheddar cauliflower" from Full Belly Farms. The color could be described as nothing short of cheddar, I agree. I love cauliflower, steam it, sautee it, add it to soup, its delicious and so good for you. Since I've discovered these crisp, yellow beauties a few years ago, I have been hooked. The yellow ones, especially if they are super fresh, are so much more tender, mild, and dare I say, almost cheesy?
So into the soup pot it went, and with the help of a little cream fraiche, onions, garlic, butter, chicken stock, and a hand held blender it became the most lovely and creamy cauliflower soup. There is no cheddar in it, and I swear you would never know.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

1 head of yellow cheddar cauliflower
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp butter
3 to 4 cups of chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 C cream fraiche or sour cream, more to taste/garnish
1 bay leaf
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cayenne (optional)
Salt and pepper


1. Chop onion, garlic, and cauliflower into medium sized pieces.
2. Heat olive oil and butter in a soup pot. Add onion, garlic, cauliflower, bay leaf, thyme, nutmeg, and cayenne, and about a tsp. of salt and pepper. Sautee on medium heat until tender and golden.
3. Stir in enough chicken stock to cover vegetables by an inch or so.
4. Simmer for 10 to 20 minutes until cauliflower breaks apart easily.
5. Add cream fraiche or sour cream, stirring until blended.
6. Remove from heat and with a blender, puree soup to desired consistency.
Note: If you don't have a hand held/immersion blender yet, I highly recommend getting one – they revolutionize soup making and are really easy to clean. And not too expensive either, worth every penny.
7. Season with more salt and pepper to taste, and always feel free to adjust seasonings as you like, I am pretty moderate with recommended amounts of spice in recipes, but will always be adding a pinch or two more of spices to taste as I go. You should too.

Beans, beans the magical fruit...

My Dad said something recently that made me think differently about how I cook. We were talking about beans, though the concept can be used kitchen-wide. It was simple really, what he said about when going to the trouble of cooking beans you may as well cook up a huge pot. The soaking time and cooking time can be daunting, and a put-off if you are looking for a quick dinner. Hence the old can or two of beans that sits in all of our pantries. In the last few years I have come to be quite a purist and frugal shopper, shunning as many canned and prepared products as possible. I would much rather make my own. In a pinch of course, I will grab a can of beans, or diced tomatoes. But if I can save money, packaging, processing, etc, by doing it myself I will. And let me tell you that there is nothing that compares to a hot pot of beans or fresh tomato sauce. Nothing.
So my Dad's philosophy was to minimize the time spent cooking beans overall by cooking a lot at once. What do you do with so many beans you ask, there is no way we could choke down that many in a week. I agree. One or two meals is enough for me too. So what I do is freeze them. Pack cooled beans into freezer safe containers of various sizes. Glass jars such as clean peanut butter, pickle, mayo jars work well or you can use plastic yogurt containers or ziploc bags. When I freeze beans I make sure there is no extra liquid in the container, and fill the container about 3/4 full. When you want some beans pull a jar out of the freezer and thaw. For a quick thaw, pour warm water over the beans to loosen and then dump into a pan to heat. Try to use them up within a month or two or they will lose freshness.
Beans are delicious in tacos, chili, hummus, soups, sprinkled on salads, or as a side.
Though different varieties of beans have different cooking times, I usually follow the same process for all of them. And lately have been making fun bean medleys such as black, pinto, and kidney beans, shown above.

Basic Beans

Rinse beans and pick through. Cover with lots of water in a pot. Soak for 6 to 24 hours. I read recently that you should cook beans in their soaking liquid so you don't lose flavor, but if you want you can dump the soaking water and cover again with fresh water. I like to add onion and a bay leaf to the pot. Adding a few pieces of seaweed is supposed to reduce gas. Up to you. Don't add salt until beans are cooked. Bring to a boil and then simmer until beans are soft, anywhere from half an hour to an hour and a half, depending on the bean and soaking time.
Once beans are done, salt to taste. Storing them in their cooking liquid in the fridge is good for keeping them moist, though I like to drain it off when freezing.

Shannon's Beef and Barley Stew

I am a soup master. There, I said it. But seriously, I have been pumping out some ridiculously delicious soups all winter long. Full-flavored, chunky (or not, depending), savory and all-around perfect soups. Brag, brag, brag. I know. So last night I made a bomb soup, (actually more like a stew) from a recipe Amy's sister, Shannon, gave me a couple of years ago. I thought I was going to make a traditional Irish-style beef stew, with potatoes and maybe peas, but I could not find my bag of potatoes from Trader Joes.  Did the kids sneak off with them for some god-forsaken purpose? Will I find them, sprouted and moldy, in a closet someday? Hmmm.

Anyhoo, I remembered this soup from Shannon, and low and behold it was filed away in my "Recipes" folder. (Feeling organized!).  I modified things, based on what I had.  The result: perfect winter stew. Yum. We served it with fresh sourdough bread smothered with butter.

You Will Need:

1-2 lbs Beef Stew Meat (Lamb would be excellent, too)
1.5 cups dry barley
3 carrots, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, or 1 tsp of minced garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
salt
pepper
garlic powder
olive oil
quart of stock (I used chicken)
Better than Beef Bouillon (kitchen necessity)


Put the stock in the crockpot on low. Heat a cast iron frypan on medium-high, add some olive oil. Sprinkle stew meat with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. When oil is nice and hot, add stew meat. Once brown (approx 5 minutes), add beef to warm broth in crockpot. In remaining juices in frypan, saute onion, garlic and celery. Add some salt, pepper, herbs of your choosing (oregano good, little sprinkle of red pepper flakes). After 7 or so minutes, add onion/celery to crockpot, as well as diced carrots. Add tomato paste. Add barley. Use less than 1.5 cups barley for a thinner soup.

Now let your slow cooker do the work! 6-10 hours later, your house has slowly filled with the mouth-watering aroma of onion and meat and garlic. You keep opening the lid to smell and sample, though you tell yourself you should keep it closed so everything cooks right. Add a tbsp of the Better than Beef Bouillon at the end.

If I had had kale on hand, I would have chopped it up real finely and added to the stew with the carrots, for nutritional benefit. Gotta sneak the green stuff into the kids anyway you can, ya know? Kale in soups is just one of my sneaky vegetable inserts. It would taste lovely, too. 

Serve with bread and butter.

(Alas, my picture quality is poor.  Bad lighting at night...)