Tasty Winter Vegetable Soup

Elise, you better start picking up the slack, here. Mac and cheese from a box can be beautiful, whatever. I want to see some posts from you, stat. Maybe on Friday when you're taking care of my dog? :-D

This soup is one of my favorites in the winter. Which is good, because I always wind up making WAY more than I mean to. Consider yourself warned. This is inspired by a recipe I found on some blog somewhere (sorry, blogger, I totally don't remember what blog you write) and then adapted to suit my liking and what I tend to keep in my kitchen. So for me, this soup is great because I probably only need to buy one or two things, tops.

To begin, take a cup or so of dry black eyes peas and throw them in some water. Bring them to a boil, then remove from heat (but not the hot water) while you chop veggies.

Chop:
3-5 cloves garlic
3 large-ish potatoes
1 large sweet potato (I used white sweet potatoes this time! Did you know that was a thing?)
2 cups frozen corn (okay, don't chop that..)
1-2 carrots
1 onion

Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a big ole soup pot, then throw in everything you just chopped (including the corn) and cook on medium heat, covered, for 10 min (stirring occasionally). After 10 minutes, add 6 or so cups of your favorite stock, a couple teaspoons of lemon juice, the black eyed peas, and the following spices:
thyme (3 t)
anise or fennel (3 t)
paprika (1/2 t), salt (1/2 t)
and 3-4 bay leaves.
This is all to taste, of course. Bring it to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile cut up a couple tomatoes (or open a can). Also cut up some kale (or your favorite dark leafy green). Kale was one of the few things I didn't have, so I put a backpack on Mr. Dog (sorry, no pictures) and we went to the store. The kale didn't fit so I put it through the handle on the top of his pack. It made me laugh, at least. Anyway, this kale I got is unlike any kale I've ever seen. Check it out:

It looks like an alien life form to me.

After the stuff has been simmering for 10 minutes, throw in the tomatoes and kale.

Simmer an additional 10-20 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.

Blueberry-raspberry-banana muffins

Raise your hand if you like muffins.

Okay, the rest of you can just leave my classroom. I can't relate to you at all. I mean, what's not to love about muffins? They're full of carbs and fruit, two of the best things in the world. I may have gone a little overboard with these muffins, but can you really blame me for wanting bananas, blueberries, and raspberries in the same package?

For these muffins I used Tato's Basic Muffin Recipe with a couple of alterations and additions (namely, way more fruit than can reasonably be expected in a batch of muffins). I'm just going to say it: they were delicious. I mean, otherwise they wouldn't be on a blog called "Beatiful/Delicious," now would they?

Even the kitty agrees!

Tato's Basic Muffin Recipe (Inez-style)

Preheat oven to to 400F. Seriously, do it now. It will take longer for the oven to heat than for you to put these muffins together.

• 2 c flour (all white or half white, half whole wheat -- for this batch I used about 1/3 whole wheat, 2/3 white)
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 c sugar (increase to 1/3 c for sweeter muffins)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 c canola oil
• 1 c milk
• a splash of lemon juice
• a whole bunch of blueberries, raspberries, and sliced bananas (berries can be frozen or fresh)

Combine dry (flour, bp, salt, sugar) and wet (egg, oil, milk, lemon juice) ingredients in separate bowls.

Grease one muffins pan that holds 12 muffins. Place in heated oven for 1-2 minutes.

Combine wets, dries, and fruit. Do not overmix! Some lumps are okay.

Put batter immediately in heated muffin pan and bake for about 25 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

Derek Shepherd Pie

So. After 11 years (has it really been that long??) Inez and I are finally roommates. We've moved in with some friends into a row house in Brookland, DC and are just loving it. Now we are cooking together all the time and so don't need to post to show each other what we've been doing. It has, however, come to our attention that people other than ourselves read this blog, fancy that!

Another thing we get to do together now is watch Grey's Anatomy. Yes. We admit... we love Grey's. So this Thursday we decided to brink it all together by making a Derek Shepherd's Pie.

Yes, that is "Derek"written out in cheddar cheese. Yes, we are big dorks.

Here is the Joy of Cooking's recipe for shepherd's pie (paraphrased):

• Make some hash.
• Make some mashed potatoes.
• Put the hash, then the mashed potatoes in a dish.
• Bake.

Here's what we did:

• Cook up 1 1/2 chicken breasts with onions, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, basil, cayenne, cumin, coriander (or whatever sounds good to you).
• Make some mashed potatoes.
• Chop and lightly steam some kale. (Can you tell wedidn't measure anything?)
• Chop and steam some carrots. 
• Grate some cheese (we used dill havarti and parmesan, just a little bit).
• Put a thin layer of potatoes on the bottom. Put everything but the rest of the potatoes in the dish. Put the potatoes on top.
• Write out "Derek" in cheddar cheese.
• Bake at 400 degrees for a while. 
• Watch Grey's Anatomy and enjoy.

[Inez] Beautiful baby

I had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of this beautiful little thing. The credit for that goes to my sister Ileana Mena Mora. Felicidades a ella por el nacimiento de su precioso gordito, Kaleb Arroyo Mena. (Congratulations to her for the birth of her precious fat baby, Kaleb Arroyo Mena.) Even his name is beautiful!

I'll try not to dwell on my completely impartial observations, but allow me this:
Look at those tiny fingers! That nose! That little chin! Look at that super rockstar pout!

[Inez] more garden, please

Hey Elise, how are your vegetables coming along?

My garden is doing pretty well, although I have to water it every single day because D.C. is SO HOT and doesn't seem to understand why rain is important.

[Inez & Elise] World Cup Brunch

With the second round of the world cup centered on last weekend, Inez and I decided to hold a small brunch. After the defeat of the U.S. by Ghana we needed a bit of a pick-me-up; Enter: Pancakes and Mimosas!

Okay, Inez here. Elise asked me to take the reins because I actually made the pancakes. How is it that we can both post about something we made and ate together? BECAUSE WE LIVE IN THE SAME CITY! Pretty cool, huh?

Anyway. Ricotta pancakes topped with orange-honey sauce and oranges and strawberries. Inspired by one of the best brunches out I've ever had, at Sweetie's Pie Diner in Philadelphia (which I just learned closed, how sad!). We also made (well, Elise and Colin made) a spinach salad with strawberries, inspired by the salad we had at Lounge of Three on U Street which is where Elise and I went to watch the first half of the USA-Ghana game because Nellie's was too full of Team USA fans and we were hungry.

These pancakes have no chemical leavening. No baking soda, baking powder, no yeast. Just egg whites. It's actually a really short ingredient list: flour, eggs, ricotta, sugar, zest, salt. it called for lemon zest but I used orange zest. I made a 1 1/2 batch of this recipe for 4 people with zero leftovers and full bellies. Here's how it goes: Mix the egg yolks, ricotta, sugar, and zest in a big ole bowl. Add the flour. Then, in a medium bowl, whip the egg whites with a couple pinches of salt until they hold stiff peaks and generally look like the most beautiful puffy clouds. Then you fold the clouds into other stuff and it all becomes cloud-like. Seriously, it's amazing. Elise can attest to the fact that I was groaning in awe at this point.

Oh yeah, while you're folding in the egg whites, heat a pan or two on medium or medium-low heat. When it's all mixed and beautiful, cook those little orange-ricotta clouds up. Tip: I used a 1/4 cup measure to keep the pancakes sort of the same size without ever having to double dip into the bowl (which would, if repeated enough times, make the clouds less cloud-like).

Oh my goodness, don't they look amazing? I recommend standing back slightly while cooking these babies so that you don't drool directly onto the pancakes.

I assure you, they are every bit as delicious as they look. For the orange honey sauce I just took the orange juice from an orange and a half or so and then I added some honey and threw it in a little saucepan and simmered it while I cooked the pancakes. Don't go overboard with the honey like I did -- let the orange really sing. Then top with fresh fruit and feel like you have a little bit of heaven in your mouth!

Oh yeah, and mimosas. Yum.

Strawberries and pink champagne sparkling wine waiting for orange juice.

[Elise] Guacamole and Sweet Potato Hash

The last few times I've been to the grocery store it's been sample day and they've been pushing this delicious (and expensive) guacamole. Every time I tell myself I'll look up how to make it and get ingredients next time I'm at the store... and then I forget to. Today I learned that you pretty much just throw delicious things together and enjoy. Yum.

 Guacamole (makes a bit more than a pint)

Two avocados
1/8 c sour cream
Juice of one lime
One pepper (sweet or hot, depending on taste)
1/4 vidalia onion
½ tsp cumin

There was also supposed to be one mango diced up, but the mango I has was rotten on the inside. It was sad. I also would have liked to add a bit of cilantro, which I really need to add to my herb garden because you can never just get a little bit at the store.

Next came the question of what to put under the guacamole. I decided to totally wing it and make a sweet potato hash. I diced one whole sweet potato, the other 1/4 onion (sticking the remaining half in the fridge for tomorrow) and some garlic, sautéed on med-low heat for about 10 minutes before adding one zucchini and sautéing another 10 minutes. A few minutes from the end I added cumin, oregano, lemon salt, and some fresh basil from my garden. I was pretty nervous how it would all taste together with so many different flavors. It was absolutely delicious: The lime came through the guacamole in a really nice way; The crunch of the fresh onion in the guacamole was great to have in contrast with the flavor of the sautéed onions; The lemon salt was coarse and didn't dissolve fully so would add little busts of lemon. It was all just smooth and wonderful with a nice variety of flavors and textures.

Yum!

[Inez] Beautiful: Cosmos!

Finally, I can put a pretty flower picture in here because I made this beautiful! Beautiful in this case is a noun not an adjective. Yeah, I just nouned an adjective. Ha! Ha! Hoo boy, at least I'm cracking someone up here.

I planted this seed. I almost forgot about it watered it diligently. I thinned and transplanted so that these babies wouldn't be too crowded. I weeded all the clover. I made this happen. Are you proud of me, mom?

[Inez] Strawberries and Cream, or, Yay, the Farmer's Market Is Open!

Today is the first day of the year that my neighborhood's farmer's market is open! My farmer's market is the best. It's pretty small, maybe 10-12 vendors, but it's got everything from produce to plants to bread to cheese and handmade filled pasta. And it's all local. I got some goat meat from a woman who had pictures of her goats grazing in a pasture. More and more I've been feeling squeamy about supporting the meat industry and putting its products in my body. Buying local, free-range (preferably organic, vegeterian-fed) meat is starting to feel like the only real option. So.. I bought some goat meat. I'll tell you how it is when I cook it.

The star of the farmer's market this week though was the strawberries. Beautiful little red shiny plump strawberries. Strawberries that look like they can hold their heads high and say, "I am a strawberry!" Not like the mutant steroidal strawberries you get in the grocery store.

I have some cream left over from I don't remember what, so I sliced the strawberries...

...and drowned them in cream.

Oh my goodness delicious.

[Inez] Lemon raspberry cake with lemon curd whipped cream (and colors)

You didn't think I was done with those sprinkles, did you?

I also wasn't done with lemon cake. I found this recipe and modified it a bit to my liking. It's a lemon-raspberry layer cake. I filled it with with raspberry sauce, lemon curd and lemon curd whipped cream (yum!) and frosted it with lemon curd whipped cream. Oh yeah, and I dyed it colors.


What's the occasion, you might ask. I'm not going to say I don't
believe in baking for occasions, because I definitely do believe in baking for occasions! Let's put it this way: I take a Quakerly view about baking fun stuff. Quakers traditionally believe that we shouldn't celebrate holidays because every day has the potential (and should be) a holy day. I believe that any day can be an occasion big enough to warrant a pink cake with yellow frosting and dinosaur sprinkles.

Let's talk about the cake. It's a sour cream cake, so it's moist and dense. It does not rise very high. If you want a sky-high cake you're going to need to make a lot of layers or use a different recipe. That said, I think this cake was a good vehicle for the flavors.

Lemon Raspberry Cake (makes two 8x8 layers)

• 1 1/2 c flour
• 2 1/4 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 c butter, softened
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1 1/2 T lemon zest (I just used the zest from 1 lemons)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c sour cream (I didn't have quite enough so I used about 1/3 c sour cream and topped it off with yogurt
• 1/2 c fresh lemon juice (juice from 2 fairly large lemons)
• 1 1/2 c raspberries, fresh or froz

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and wax paper your pans. Sift together the flour, bp and salt in a small bowl.

Cream butter and sugar. Add the zest... You should be pretty excited by this point. I certainly was.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well. Oh, take a look at your raspberries now. I ended up cutting mine up a bit, but you don't want anything to hold you up once you've got the wets and the dries mixed together -- you want to be able to put the batter straight in the oven. Raspberries look good? Great.

I'm not sure why, but the recipe wants you to fold in the lemon juice and sour cream. If you're adding food coloring, do it now. I just kept adding red until it looked pretty.

Now fold in the flour mixture. Then fold in the raspberries!

Divide it between the pans right away

and bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until it's just turning golden on the edges and the center springs back up when you touch it lightly. OMG, pretty.

Cool five minutes in the pan and then flip it out onto a rack to finish cooling. I put it bottom down with the wax paper still on so it doesn't stick to the rack. If you're not assembling right after they've cooled, cover them with plastic wrap so they don't dry out at all.

Now there's still the lemon curd, raspberry sauce, and whipped cream to go. No problem. Take a break, have a snack. Loosen up your wrists, because you're about to be stirring for a while...

Lemon Curd

I made so much extra (I have a jar of lemon curd in my fridge! Fancy, eh?), but this amount should do you just fine:

• 1/4 c lemon juice (juice from one good-size lemon)
• 1 egg 
• 1/4 c + 2 T (give or take a bit) sugar
• 2 T butter

That's it! You could add zest, too, but then you have to strain it when you're done. Pooh-pooh.

Whisk the egg well, and then mix the egg, sugar, and lemon juice in a heavy bottomed saucepan.

Yeah, the daylight went away. Sorry.

Okay, put that mixture on low heat and start stirring. First it will get thinner as the sugar dissolves, then it doesn't do anything for a while. A long while. Just keep stirring away. Then all of a sudden you'll feel it start to thicken! It's very cool. It gets a bit thicker, and then eventually starts to bubble. Big bibbles that struggle to make it to the surface. Awesome. Let it bubble for a minute or three and then you're pretty much done. Put it in the fridge (covered) to cool.

The raspberry sauce is no problem after that. I took about a cup of frozen raspberries, thawed them in the microwave, mashed them up pretty good, and then threw them in a saucepan with about 1/4 cup of sugar. Put it on low heat, and stir it until it's pretty hot and the sugar is definitely dissolved. Sprinkle on a bit of corn starch (I think I used about 1/2 teaspoon?), and whisk it in. Stir for another couple minutes or until it's as thick as you want. Put that in the fridge, too.

It looks like boring old raspberry jam but it smells like raspberry heaven.

When everything is chilled, make your whipped cream. The recipe called for 1 c whipped cream but frankly that wasn't enough. Do this:

• 1 1/2 c whipping cream
• 3 T confectioners sugar
• (food coloring)
• 5 T lemon curd

Beat the whipping cream and sugar (and food coloring, if you choose) until beautiful peaks form. Don't overdo it! I overdid it a little bit. I blame the lighting. If it starts looking the slightest bit rough in texture, stop immediately. It should be smooth and light, but hold good peaks. Fold in the lemon curd.

The lighting was terrible for pictures, so I'm just going to explain this next bit:

Spread a thin layer of raspberry sauce on top of the bottom cake. DO NOT SPREAD IT ALL THE WAY TO THE EDGES. Seriously. Leave yourself at least half an inch. 

Spread a layer of lemon curd on top of the raspberry sauce. Ohhhh man.

Take some whipped cream and line that outer edge of the cake, where you didn't put the raspberry sauce and  lemon curd. (This is a little intense, but it will help you understand what I mean.) Then plop some on top and gently, gently spread it around. Do your best to meet the edge layer of whipped cream and the top layer, so that it traps the sauce and curd. Don't put too much whipped cream or it will make the cake unstable.

Put your second cake on top and frost it with the rest of the whipped cream.

Note: I recommend eating as much as possible of it on the first day. The whipped cream doesn't hold up the greatest over time.

[Elise] Sunset Velvet Cake

For my last piece for the food coloring month of April, I decided to go out with a bang. I baked all afternoon to make what I have decided to call Sunset Velvet Cake. It's like Red Velvet Cake but a little bit different.

Basically, I took a pretty standard Red Velvet recipe and tweaked it a bit. Because all of my round pans are different sized, I split the recipe in half and baked each layer separately (making three half recipes total).

For each layer I accidentally used way too little food coloring... 1 tsp instead of 1 oz. BIG difference. You would think I would have noticed something was up when the first layer was pink and not red... oh well.

The way the recipe said to add obscene amounts of food coloring was by mixing it with the buttermilk. This is a third of the way through adding the buttermilk and flour mix alternately.

To be able to get the pan ready for the next layer as quickly as possible I lined the pan with parchement paper by clamping the springform over the square piece of paper and then trimming the edges off.

Here I just moved the orange cake to a cookie sheet to cool while I spread the yellow cake in the pan.

While the third cake was in the oven I made the frosting. I doubled my standard cream cheese frosting, then made it delightfully yellow.

One 10" Round Layer
bake 25 min at 350F

1 1/4 c. cake flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. cocoa powder
1/4 c. butter
3/4 c. white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. orange extract
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 Tbsp. food coloring*

*Food coloring: So, if you like what you see in this cake I actually used 1 tsp. red in the bottom layer, 1/2 tsp each of red and yellow in the middle layer, and 1 tsp yellow plus a few drops of red in the top layer. However, I had originally planed on having each layer being the intensity of red velvet cake, to do that the recipe called for one ounce of food coloring per layer. After seeing how intense these came out with 1/6 the food coloring the should have had, I think a compromise between the two amounts is best, hence 1 Tbsp. So:

Bottom layer: 1 Tbsp. red
Middle layer: 1 tsp. red + 2 tsp. yellow
Top layer: 1 Tbsp. yellow



Frosting the cake was really fun. The layers were stiff enough that the parchment peeled off nicely and they could be stacked quite easily (you could pick a whole layer up carefully and not have to do anything fancy to keep it from breaking). I had no problems with crumbs getting in the frosting, after having let each layer sit in the fridge until completely cool. Finally, I garnished the cake with some strawberries I had left from the strawberry-rhubarb cake (I honestly don't know why I hadn't finished them sooner!)

I was so worried about how the inside would look and how the orange would taste with the chocolate. Turns out I didn't have too much to worry about; It was beautiful and delicious.

While this cake was so scrumptious, I am so caked out. No more cakes until graduation. I don't even know if I'll bake anything before graduation. This was my last hurrah (for now) and now it's time to buckle down and get some work done. With that in mind I am declaring May 'fun Summer drinks month!'

Yum!