CREAM OF CAULI SOUP

CREAM OF CAULI SOUP

by | Jul 5, 2010 | Appetizers & Snacks, Breakfast & Brunch, Main Dishes, Recipes, Sides, Soups & Stews, Vegetarian

Caulisoup (2)
 
We don’t usually think of June and soup in the same breath.  Especially in the Okanagan.  But this June, oh yeahhhhh, this is it.  Soup weather.  Unseasonably cool, soggy days beg me to make something that warms the belly.  And the soul.  Soup it is.

I got all retro yesterday and simmered up one of the favorites from the way-back-when days in Kelowna from our old restaurant, Chianti’s. I always knew when I made a big pot of this easy peasy, really hearty cauliflower soup that I would run out before the lunch rush was over.  And I did!  No matter how much I made.

So yesterday Girl Guide motto intact, Be Prepared, I made my soup ahead so the flavours could co-mingle and get happy, happy.  Then, as if on cue, by dinner time the weather was so cooperative, with dark grey, rainy skies and chilly breezes.  Soup time!  And contrary to what Mick might say, I can get some satisfaction.  With every hot spoonful of this creamy chowder, overloaded with cauliflower and laced with oozy, melty cheddar and lots of black pepper, satisfaction. Indeed!  Oh, and we had those addictive little, hot from the oven Garlic Knots to dip in our soup too.  Yum-O!  And hey, hey, hey that’s what I say.

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Here we go………….Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large pot over medium high heat.  Reduce heat, add chopped onions and saute 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until the onions are just barely starting to caramelize.

Caulisouponions 

Add flour, making a very thick roux.  Reduce heat and stir roux 3-4 minutes just until it starts to get toasty golden brown.  This gives the soup a hint of nutty goodness.

Caulisouproux 

Meanwhile toss prepared cauliflower into a medium pot with 4 cups of chicken broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer just until cauli is al dente.

Caulisoupbroth 

After the roux is browned and the cauli is cooked, but not quite……..whisk the reserved chicken broth from the cauliflower and the remaining broth into the roux until smooth.  Add the cauli and the seasonings to the pot, simmer, stir and finally the cream is added…..and voila!

Caulisoupbowl 

 

CREAM OF CAULI SOUP – Serves 6-8

 

¼ cup butter

2 tablespoons good quality olive oil

1 medium Vidalia, Walla Walla, Maui or other sweet onion, chopped

½ cup flour

About 6 cups cauliflower (medium head) broken and cut into small florets and bite-size pieces

7 cups homemade or good quality chicken broth

6 shakes of Worcestershire sauce

¾ teaspoon dried dillweed

Lots of freshly ground black pepper

½ teaspoon sea or Kosher salt

1 cup heavy cream


Sharp cheddar cheese, grated

 

Melt the butter with the olive oil over medium high heat.  Add chopped onion.  Reduce heat to medium and sauté onion about 5-6 minutes until it is just barely starting to caramelize, stirring now and then.

 

Reduce heat to medium low and stir in flour to make a very thick roux.  Stir and turn the roux over low heat 3-4 minutes until it starts to get a tiny bit of a happy, golden-toasty tinge to it.

 

In the meantime combine cauliflower with 4 cups chicken broth in pot over high heat.  Bring to a boil and simmer gently 5-8 minutes until cauliflower is just barely fork tender. 

 

Carefully drain the cauliflower reserving the broth.  Whisk reserved broth and remaining 2 cups of chicken broth into the roux over low heat.  Continue stirring until mixture is smooth. Increase heat to medium-high and whisk or stir just until bubbles break the surface.  Reduce heat, add cauliflower, Worcestershire sauce, dillweed, black pepper and salt, stirring to make sure the flavours simmer into one-ness.  Pour in heavy cream, stirring just long enough to heat through.  Ladle soup into bowls and top with some grated cheddar.  Satisfaction guaranteed.

ONION PAKORAS

ONION PAKORAS

by | Jul 2, 2010 | Appetizers & Snacks, Sides, Vegetarian, Veggies

 Pakorasbunch 

♪♫ ♪♫ Onions, onions la, la, la.  Onions, onions, ha, ha, ha…..But mmmmm, I love onions.  ♪♫ ♪♫

Remember that strange, but way fun, old song?  Damn catchy little ditty.  The perfect sing song accompaniment when you're making onion pakoras. These golden crispy, aromatic little tasties are one of the more recent cravings added to the must-make-more-often list at our house.  Once you try them, you'll see what I mean.

Onions rings, move over!  In fact, hmmmm…….you poor dears, alas, shoo, shoo. Pakoras have arrived and they're here to stay. 

A few months back, in those cold, dark winter months, whilst scooting about online one afternoon, onion pakoras popped out of the screen and hit me right in the kisser. Lucky me!  I was browsing and perusing the food blog, Seven Spoons and there they were in all their simplistic, yummy glory.

ONION PAKORAS…………………Continued here

Chicken Sate Potstickers

Chicken Sate Potstickers

by | Jun 27, 2010 | Appetizers & Snacks, Asian, Hawaiian, Main Dishes, Pasta & Noodles, Sauces, Dips & Condiments, Sides

MY HAWAIIAN KITCHEN
Delectable memoirs of living on the slopes of Mt. Hualalai high above the famed Kona Coast on the beguiling Big Island of Hawaii.

I LOVE these potstickers.  This is easily one of the BEST recipes in my entire repertoire.

Potstickersrice   
 

Dear Journal –  It’s just so Hawaiian.  So what you want to find when you’re in Hawaii.  So, well, just, so perfect.   Snuggled behind a storefront from a bygone era, in the picturesque little village of Hawi, is where you’ll find a treasure of a Big Island dining experience.  It overflows with smiling aunties, island style goodies, tropical spirits, relaxed comfort and oodles of aloha.  It’s Bamboo Restaurant and it’s yummy!  Bamboo is a true Hawaiian oasis brimming with delicious foods made using the freshest ingredients bought from local farmers and fishermen.  The creative menu toys with you, easily causing mouthwatering indecision.  I know one thing for sure, everything goes better with a lilikoi margarita.  Mmmm.  And now I’ve concocted my own version of Bamboo’s house specialty potstickers.  My way of paying tribute to this outstanding, unique backroads Hawaiian eatery where  I always leave the building smiling.

CHICKEN SATE POTSTICKERS
2 tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil
1 pound ground chicken (or turkey)
3 green onions, finely chopped
2 plump garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons fresh gingerroot, minced
½ cup chunky peanut butter
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
2 tablespoons Thai hot chili paste (sambal ooelek)
2 tablespoons shoyu
About 30 – 36 wonton wrappers
2 – 4 tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a medium saucepan and saute chicken, green onions, garlic and ginger until chicken is cooked through, about 8-10 minutes.  Transfer mixture to medium bowl.  Add peanut butter, brown sugar, cilantro, hot chili paste and shoyu.  Mix well.  Chill for at least ½ hour.

Place wonton wrapper on work surface.  Place about 2 teaspoons filling in the center of a wrapper.  Bring edges of the wrapper up around filling and encircle the potsticker ‘waist’ gently with your fingers and thumb.  Squeeze the waist gently, while also pressing the top and bottom of the dumpling with your other index finger and thumb, creating a little package with a very slightly open top.  Now you’ve got it!  Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornstarch and place the dumplings on the baking sheet until ready to cook.

Put about 3 tablespoons cooking oil a large heavy non-stick skillet over medium high heat.  Add potstickers and cook until bottoms are golden brown, about 1 minute.  Add about 1 cup of water and quickly cover with tight fitting lid.  Reduce heat to medium and steam the potstickers for 10-12 minutes, until the wrappers are tender and translucent, adding a bit more water if necessary.  Puddle lots of chili dunk on a platter, top with hot potstickers and serve with sticky or jasmine rice.  And lilikoi margs!

CHILI DUNK:
1 16-ounce bottle Thai sweet chili sauce
¼ cup rice vinegar or white vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
¼ cup chopped cilantro
¼ cup chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Toss all ingredients into blender container and buzz for about 30 seconds until completely combined.  Serve at room temperature with hot potstickers.

Espresso Custard Ice Cream Malteds

Espresso Custard Ice Cream Malteds

by | Jun 24, 2010 | Baking & Desserts, Drinks & Cocktails, Treats

Maltedspoon

It was just what we did when we were kids in Calgary.  We went for malts.  Downtown, at Eaton's or the Bay. 

I usually went to Eaton's because my Dad was the display manager there.  So in my mind I had as much clout as a kid can get in a big department store.  Smug with pride I hauled one friend or another, giggling in delight at our behind-the-scenes privilege, up those stairs to my Dad's office. 

Dad was always happy to see me, with eyes that sparkled just for me and a big kiss.  And quarters from his suit jacket pocket.  That pocket, in that immaculately pressed suit, was a bottomless pit of quarters.  Really!

From Dad's office, my friend and I would race back down those stairs and make a bee-line for the escalator to the lower level of Eaton's.  That's where we hit paydirt.  Kind of tucked under the escalators was a nook of an eatery that served up chocolate malts that were so delicious they made the spoons that they stuck in them stand straight up.  Man those were good.  Chocolatey, ice creamy, but better than both.  That texture, those eensy flecks of chocolate.  Not much beat an Eaton's chocolate malt in those days.

Espresso Custard Ice Cream Malteds……………Continued here

Pappardelle Alfredo

Pappardelle Alfredo

by | Jun 23, 2010 | Italian, Main Dishes, Pasta & Noodles, Sauces, Dips & Condiments, Sides, Vegetarian

I love noodles.  Most any kind.  ‘Noodles’ is my broad-ranging word for pasta.  Say it, ‘noodles’.  See!  It’s homey and comfortable.  Feels good.  It’s a friendlier, happier, word than ‘pasta’, which is fufu or just too detached, and mayhaps a tich blah.  We’ll have none of that around here! 

Alfredo (3)

NOODLES.  Yeahhh….now we’re talking.  Like you, I have my favorite noodle shapes too.  I love good old fashioned elbow macaroni, really skinny egg noodles and angel hair, sauce hugging lumache are way up high on my list, orechiette is so great in soup and I have a particular love affair (that’s amore!) with pappardelle.

Those gorgeous, very broad ribbons of fettucine are such a perfect choice for so many sauces and preparations, and they have just the right ‘bite’, the right mouthfeel, if you know what I mean.  The name ‘pappardelle’ is derived from the verb ‘pappare’ which means to gobble up.  So appropos.  

I had four beautiful, thick, centre-cut pork chops brining in a seasoned beer mixture in the fridge which to me was the perfect excuse to make some kind of pappardelle.  To go with the chops.  Alfredo beat everyone else to the finish.  And so it was.  Yum-O.

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Here we go…………………I always add roasted garlic to my Alfredo sauce.  It adds a soft, velvety, almost nutty garlic overtone. 

So first things first.  Cut the very tops off of two nice plump heads of garlic, sprinkle with good olive oil and sea salt.

Garlicun 

Cover with foil and roast for about 1 – 1 1/4 hours at 400F, until garlic cloves are toasty golden and deliciously soft and buttery.

Garliccooked 

Time to roast some grape or cherry tomatoes.  Plop 1 pint of fresh, clean grape tomatoes onto a baking pan and toss to coat with a little olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and sea or kosher salt.

Tomatoesun 

Roast tomatoes 15-20 minutes at 400F until they get all caramely sweet.  We LOVE these at our house.  They’re like veggies that turn into candy when you cook them.  We put them on toast, fresh baked focaccia, noodles or just pop them.

Tomatoescooked
Mmmmmm!

Once you have these two roasted goodies ready you can make your sauce anytime so it’s ready when you’re ready to toss with your al dente pappardelle.

Alfredoclose

PAPPARDELLE ALFREDO with Roasted Grape Tomatoes 

2 heads garlic, with the very top cut off to expose the cloves
1 pint fresh grape or cherry tomatoes, washed
Good quality olive oil, sea or kosher salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup butter
1 3/4 cup heavy cream
Very finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 cups of good quality Parmesan or Romano or Asigo or any combinations of these cheeses
1 pound pappardelle

**Sometimes I add a bit of fresh chopped basil to my sauce, or sprinkled on the noodles when ready to serve.

Preheat oven to 400F.  Clean excess skin off of garlic heads.  Place in small baking pan, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Cover with foil and bake 1 to 1 1/4 hours until garlic is deliciously aromatic and toasty golden.  Set aside. 

Plop grape or cherry tomatoes on baking pan.  Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper and toss to coat. Bake for 15-20 minutes until tomatoes are softly caramelized.  Set aside.

In medium pot, melt butter over medium low heat.  Add cream, grated lemon zest and lots of freshly ground black pepper.  Stir to combine. Pop or squish toasted garlic cloves out of their skin and into the cream. Squish the garlic a little more with your spoon to help the flavours do their thing. Add cheese and stir gently until cheese melts into the cream mixture. You can either use the sauce right away or set aside and rewarm when ready to serve.

Cook pappardelle in a large pot of boiling, salted water.  Drain when just al dente.  Toss noodles with creamy cheese mixture.  Place in serving bowl.  Top with roasted tomatoes and sprinkle with a little more grated cheese.  Let noodles rest in the serving bowl, for just a couple of minutes.  This helps the noodles and the sauce get their act together. Now, dig in and gobble them up.  That’s Amore!