Posts Tagged “winter”
I experimented a lot making this soup, tasting a lot of French onion soup along the way. I did it all on your behalf.
Here’s what I learned.
1) Like most soups, this one is best if you make it a day in advance. Two days is even better.
2) Use Gruyère cheese and plenty of it.
These bourbon-glazed short ribs are perfect for a winter dinner. They are rich, filling, sweet, tangy, savory, and just a little spicy all at once. You’ll want to serve it with something to mop up the sauce, like mashed potatoes or polenta. Good crunchy bread isn’t a bad idea either.
Winter veggies are my new BFF – or at least BF until spring. This recipe for Swiss chard utilizes Mediterranean flavors to brighten up a cold day with red or white chard or any of the other lovely colorful varieties. But it is also wonderful with other greens: kale, spinach, mustard, beets, and turnips.
You probably already know this, Fellow FoodBeest, but wild rice is not rice at all. It’s a grass that grows in shallow waters. There is evidence that it’s been a food source for humans, animals and fish for 12,000 years.
This dish was never intended to be served as a main course. It’s very rich and you probably want only a small portion. This recipe makes an enormous amount of risotto. It is perfect for fall and winter. It will easily serve eight people as a side dish. Feel free to halve the quantities in the recipe.
My Grandma Tillie (the same grandmother who used to feed me white raisins as a special treat when I was very little) used to prepare this dish and carry it across town on a bus to her three daughters and her grandchildren in an covered aluminum baking dish. I remind you, Fellow FoodBeest, that these were the days before Tupperware.
Jota is a hearty Italian peasant soup. You don’t get more peasant than this soup, Fellow FoodBeest. Northern Italian peasant perhaps, but totally peasant nonetheless. Beans. Ham hock. Sauerkraut. Potatoes. Jota originated in Trieste in the northeastern-most corner of Italy, a town practically nestled in Slovenia. The use of sauerkraut gives away that the soup, while Italian, was heavily influenced by the surrounding Austro-Hungarian world.
The FoodBeest loves the magic of soup. You some stuff in a pot with water, add heat, walk away. When you come back you will have something delicious, nourishing and satisfying. White Bean and Escarole is one of my favorite soups, especially this time of year.
As a general rule, the FoodBeest doesn’t bake. I prefer savory to sweet and I don’t like to fuss with the exact proportions necessary for baking. Still, even for me, these are easy and delicious.The two of us ate everything but four of them.
It’s a cold, snowy December (January/February, whatever) day. You just got in from walking the dog or shoveling the walk or walking home from wherever you were. Your fingers and toes and cheeks are cold. Maybe they even hurt from the cold. You’re hungry. The smell of this soup greets you when you open the door. And you begin to smile as you take off those boots and scarf and gloves and coat because now you have a future called: mushroom barley soup.
