Watermelon Gazpacho

Photo by Kyra Socolof

I have been cooking and baking like crazy, but oddly enough it’s not been for happy occasions. From barbecued chicken, roasted potatoes and corn salad to brownies and biscotti, food has been sailing out of my kitchen and winding up at the homes of various friends, one whose husband just had open heart surgery, and not one, but two whose father-in-laws passed away. Last week, I finally had a chance to whip up something for a celebration. My friend Roberta was having a Father’s Day dinner cum party for her daughter Natasha’s high school graduation.

I decided to prepare watermelon gazpacho, which I hadn’t made since last summer. The first time I tried it out was after taking a hike with my neighbor Lauren and another friend, Jessica. Walking along the windy, wooded paths in Rockefeller Park, Jessica told us about this amazing watermelon gazpacho that she had tasted while on vacation with her husband and two sons. “I ordered it for an appetizer at dinner and it was so good that I insisted everyone try it. But when I got it back there was hardly anything left,” she lamented. “I really wish I had a good recipe for that gazpacho so I could make it at home.” Then she looked at me with a big smile and said, “Hey, since you’re the Inspired Chef, I was hoping maybe you could find one for me."

I remember thinking that it was so unusual to have watermelon as a base for gazpacho, a culinary term that usually refers to a chilled tomato-based, raw vegetable soup. In fact, I wasn’t so sure I would even like it with watermelon. I have a rule about fruit and that’s that it should be a stand alone. That means no stewed apricots or prunes with my chicken, no fruit jams or jellies in my cake, and certainly, until now, no fruit in my soup. In fact, only in the past few years have I included berry and apple pies in my repertoire (OK, I can also manage some fruit in my sangria).

Yet Jessica had posed a challenge, one that I felt I had to meet. There were a few hurdles that I had to overcome first, however. To begin with, my husband, Bob, only dislikes three foods in the entire world and they are liver, sole and – you guessed it – watermelon!

“I don’t understand, how could you possibly not like watermelon?” I once asked him. “Did your mom force feed it to you as a child?

“No,” he said

“Did you swallow a seed by mistake?”

“No, I just don’t like it.”

“Don’t worry. You probably won’t event taste the watermelon in this gazpacho.”

Bob shrugged his shoulders, which I took to mean “You’re going to make it anyway, so go ahead.”

The next setback happened when I searched the Internet and discovered a recipe on Epicurious.com for “Watermelon and Cucumber Gazpacho.” On the pro side, in addition to the watermelon, there were a lot of fresh vegetables on the list – cucumber, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, jalapeno chili, celery, and red onion – plus mint (which I had growing in a pot on my deck) and limes. The con side was that the veggies all had to be diced into small pieces, the mint needed to be finely chopped, and the limes had to be squeezed, none of it difficult but all very time consuming. I decided to halve the recipe, finally making it for Bob and me at the end of the summer. It turned out great (Bob even conceded so), but I didn’t blog about it at the time because it was too late in the season. You should definitely make this when there are bins of local watermelons for sale in the grocery store.

Roberta was expecting around 30 people at her house, so this time around I had to triple the recipe instead of cutting it in half. You can probably imagine the assorted produce taking over my refrigerator, not to mention the bowling ball-sized watermelon on my counter. Since this was going to be a relatively big task, I decided I would prepare the soup in stages over a three-day period. Coincidentally enough, I was taking another hike with Lauren and told her about my plan. She said to be careful because she had once made tomato-based gazpacho and put it in a glass jar. Driving to visit friends on Long Island, the sun beat down on the gazpacho, and the tomatoes, cucumber and garlic created a mini science experiment gone awry, causing enough expanding gas to break the bottle. “Well, hopefully nothing that exciting will happen here,” I said.

In preparation, I chopped up the vegetables and put them in a Ziploc bag in the fridge (I like to keep the onion and jalapeno in a separate bag so the other vegetables don’t absorb their strong bite). Then I took most of the watermelon and pureed it in the blender. I added in the squeezed lime juice, red wine vinegar and salt, thus making my so-called “broth,” a bright pink liquid bursting with watermelon pulp. Dipping in a spoon for a taste test, I was greeted by a cool sweetness tempered by the acidity of the lime juice and vinegar. I stored the “broth” in plastic containers in the fridge. Finally, I chopped the remaining few cups of watermelon that I hadn’t pureed and packaged that up as well.

The next morning, I pulled the assorted plastic bags and containers out of the refrigerator and poured them into a large pot, stirring well to make sure all the different ingredients were well integrated. The soup smelled so fresh, like it had come straight from the garden. It also looked appealing with its rainbow of colors – pink, red, purple, yellow and green – but would it taste as good as I remembered? I stuck a soup spoon into the pot to sample the goods. I bit into the crunchy veggies, enjoying my “salad in a soup” perfumed by sweet mint. It wasn’t spicy enough though, so I chopped up a little more onion and jalapeno and also decided to puree some more watermelon to increase the liquid to vegetable ratio.

When I arrived at Roberta’s, she poured the soup into a beautiful antique white china punch bowl. It came with about 20 little cups, which were the perfect size for serving the gazpacho. Natasha tried the soup first and said she loved it. It turned out to be a big hit with all the guests.

My oldest son, Sam, almost 20, was the last holdout.

“Just try it for me,” I said.

“Hmm, I’m not quite sure how to approach it,” he said. “Do I use a spoon or a fork? And why is it cold?”

He tentatively put a spoonful into his mouth. “Mmm, it’s good,” he said with a smile on his face. I do admit you have to be a little open-minded to try watermelon gazpacho, but once you do, I guarantee you’ll want more!


WATERMELON AND CUCUMBER GAZPACHO
Bon Appetit, August 2005
By Pat Cora

Ingredients:
1 3-pound seedless watermelon, diced (about 5 cups), divided
1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, diced (about 1 cup)
1 medium-size red bell pepper, seeded, diced (about 1 cup)
1 medium-size yellow bell pepper, seeded, diced (about 1 cup)
1 small jalapeno chili, seeded, minced
3 pale green inner celery stalks, diced (about ½ cup)
½ small red onion, diced (about 1 cup)
¼ cup finely chopped fresh mint
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
¼ teaspoon salt


Puree 4 cups watermelon in blender until smooth. Transfer puree to large bowl. Add remaining 1 cup diced watermelon and next 10 ingredients; stir to combine. Cover gazpacho and refrigerate until cold.

Carolina Pulled Pork Barbecue

I flew to Durham, NC a few weeks ago to attend my Duke 25th college reunion. Although I had been a little nervous about going to my first reunion in a quarter of a century, I ended up having a blast. Some of my closest friends and about 20 of my sorority sisters were there, and we reminisced about so many things I had tucked away in my memory for decades.

Alpha Delta Pi's, Duke, Class of 1984, 25th Reunion

Like my first date at college ... A friend of my aunt’s had a son who went to Duke and he invited me to go to his off-campus fraternity party. On the way home he asked his buddy to stop the car and then got out. We waited and waited, and after a while I started to wonder what had happened to my date. After half an hour, he returned. Apparently he had fallen down a steep hill while relieving himself. He had leaves in his hair. His pants were torn and his shoes were covered in mud. Needless to say, that was the last time we ever went out.

Another incident my friends reminded me about took place at the end of my sophomore year when we convinced the college quarterback to steal a six-foot-tall plastic pink flamingo from a putt-putt golf course down at Myrtle Beach. Unfortunately, the flamingo was cemented into the ground and my friends and I must have been a little raucous because the police showed up. We all ran away into the nearby bushes but the quarterback got caught by the cops (Thank God he didn’t get into trouble!).
























But all fun and mischief aside, one of the strongest memories that came back to me while at the reunion was that of Carolina Pulled Pork Barbecue. Down south it’s just called barbecue and it’s made with a distinctive vinegar-based sauce that is so lip-smacking flavorful! The reunion caterers served the pulled pork for lunch on the Saturday I was down there. Walking into the 1984 reunion tent with my old friends Cindy and Laura, I detected the unmistakable scent of barbecued pork – that rich and smoky meaty aroma that can only make you picture a whole hog slowly roasting on a spit all night long. To put it lightly, I was salivating. I was so busy the night before catching up with fellow classmates that I had only managed to eat two bites of chicken and then, when I got back to my hotel room, an assortment of about two dozen licorice, cherry and tutti-frutti jelly beans. I awoke the next morning starving, but too lazy to go down for breakfast, therefore having to resort to my vanilla Power Bar and an apple that I pilfered from the hotel gym.

Greedily eyeing the barbecue, I wondered to myself, “Could it ever meet my expectations? Would it be as good as I remembered it being 25 years ago? And, most importantly, would I be able to eat it in a lady-like fashion even though I was hungry enough to devour an entire pig at the moment?” The answer was yes on all three accounts. From the first bite, the barbecue delivered the hoped for punch – tender, hand-torn strips of pork packed with a heady taste of meat tinged with the greasy flavor from the marbled fat it was surrounded in, a brightness brought on by the tart acidity from the vinegar, and a rush of heat created by a hearty dose of hot red pepper flakes. Seeing no buns to tuck the barbecue into, I stood by the serving station and ate it slowly and appreciatively with a fork, trying to avoid conversation so I could fully enjoy my meal.

After I had consumed my fill, I deposited my empty plate in the garbage and started looking for my next course – chocolate chip cookies that were piled high on a table on the far side of the tent. It was there that I spotted my sorority sister Katie, who’s now living in Texas. “I forgot how much I love barbeque,” I said to her in between bites of my cookie. Katie, blond and blue-eyed with just as much energy as back in college, was one of my classmates in charge of organizing the reunion, and ever since reconnecting with her, we’ve been chatting on Facebook and I’ve been sending her my cooking blog.

“I’m going to make barbeque when I go back home,” I told her.

“Ooh, with vinegar?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Promise, you’ll send me the recipe?”

“Better yet, I’m going to blog about it,” I answered.

I quickly forgot about barbecue as I finished my cookie and looked around the tent, trying to remember what the men I knew there looked like as boys back in college, that is before they had gained weight and lost their hair. I was also busy sizing myself up with the other women – seeing who was still in shape, who looked like they’d had Restylane and Botox, and who had just let it all go.

I didn’t think about barbecue again until about a week ago. I was putting away some cereal boxes in my pantry when I came across my slow cooker. The lid was covered with dust, emphasizing the fact that it hadn't been used in a long, long time. Inside was a little paper booklet with recipes suggested by the manufacturer. Leafing through the pages, I found the recipe for “Carolina Barbecued Pork.” “OK, it’s time to fire up this old crockpot again,” I said to myself.


















The first thing I had to do was buy some pork butt, which, by the way, is not the pig’s rear end. According to the book, “The Barbecue! Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, by Steven Raichlen, “A true pork shoulder includes both the Boston Butt (the upper part of the leg with the shoulder blade) and the picnic ham (the actual foreleg), a cut of meat that weighs fourteen to eighteen pounds in its entirety and is used chiefly at professional barbecue competitions.” Thank God, his recipe called for “Boston butt alone (five to six pounds), which thanks to its generous marbling gives you superb barbecue.”

The pork butt that I purchased from my local butcher (and which I had to order in advance because he doesn’t usually have pork butt lying around), weighed in at 4.5 pounds and was about the size of half a loaf of bread. As mentioned in Raichlen’s book, the reddish brown pork was striped with white layers of fat, which I knew would generously add to the flavor of the meat.
















Early the next morning, I made the rub for the barbecue, combining brown sugar, paprika, salt and pepper, then massaging the mixture into the outer surface of the meat. I quartered a couple onions and placed them on the bottom of my crockpot, then sat the pork butt right on top. All that remained was to whip up the vinegar sauce and drizzle some of it over the meat. I decided to use Raichlen’s vinegar sauce because the crockpot recipe didn’t look tomato-ey enough. His recipe called for a healthy dose of ketchup, plus lots of brown sugar, which can never be bad.

The rest his ingredients were: vinegar, salt, red pepper flakes, and ground black and white pepper. As an FYI, I cut the amount of hot red pepper flakes that he called for in half, because four teaspoons sounded a little too hot for my taste! And I added some dry mustard and garlic salt.

As it turns out, Raichlen’s recipe has western Carolina roots. After doing a little online research, I discovered that down in North Carolina, they are quite divided on the issue of sauce. On the eastern side, vinegar is kept pure, and no tomatoes are added. However on the west side barbecue sauces are put together with a hint of tomato and sugar. Clearly, that was the direction I was going in.

After covering the meat with some of the vinegar sauce, I put on the top and set the crockpot to low and the timer to 10 hours. Now here’s the hard part – every time I walked into the house during the day, I had to smell the scent of the barbecued pork cooking, beckoning me, taunting me, making my stomach grumble and my head dizzy with desire, and I couldn’t even take one bite!

Around 5 p.m., I poured a little more vinegar sauce over the meat and let it finish cooking. Did I strip off a little piece of pork and taste it? Of course I did! It was so soft and tender from cooking all day long and it had that piquant, meaty, full-flavored taste that just knocks your socks off. I had to control myself from not eating any more, but it wasn’t easy. At this point, I do want to say that I added a few tablespoons of barbecue sauce (any market brand variety will do). It’s really your choice to doctor up as you choose.

I’m just warning you, the next part requires patience. After you put the meat and onions in a strainer to get rid of all the extra liquid and pick out any remaining big clumps of fat, you need to chop the onions and shred the meat. You could cut the pork up into bite-size bits, but I really recommend using your hands to pull it into small pieces (hence the name "pulled pork"). As Raichlen says, “A human touch is needed to achieve the perfect texture.” (Yes, your hands will be orange and greasy, but some warm soap and water will make you as good as new.) The shreds should be about one to two inches long and 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide.



















By this time, my husband, Bob, and younger son, Spencer, were already in the kitchen, almost circling me like hungry wolves. “Stand back,” I said, waving a serving spoon at them in mock-defense. “Dinner will be ready in a minute.” All that was left to do was to spoon the pulled pork on to hamburger buns and top with some onions, which were incredibly soft by now and bursting with flavor from having been cooked so long with the meat. Some people also add coleslaw on top of this, but I put the slaw on the side, along with a big serving of cornbread.

Well, I fed the animals, otherwise known as my family, and they were very happy. I probably could have served 12 other people as well. If you make this, invite company!

Video:




CAROLINA BARBECUED PORK

2 onions, quartered
1 (4-6 pound) boneless pork butt

Rub:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Vinegar Sauce:
2 cups cider vinegar
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons ketchup
¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar, or more to taste
3 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons hot red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
½ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon garlic salt

Place quartered onions in crockpot. Combine brown sugar, paprika, salt and pepper; rub over pork butt. Place pork over onions.

Combine vinegar, ketchup, brown sugar, salt, hot red pepper flakes, ground black pepper, ground white pepper, dry mustard and garlic salt; stir to mix well. Drizzle about one third vinegar mixture over pork; cover and refrigerate remaining vinegar mixture.

Cover crockpot and cook low for 10 to 12 hours. Drizzle about one third of the reserved vinegar mixture over the pork during last half hour of cooking (you can also add a little barbecue sauce here, if you like).

Remove meat and onions, drain. Chop or shred meat and chop onions. Serve meat and onions on hamburger buns. Pass remaining vinegar sauce to drizzle over sandwiches.

HOLY MOLE!

Ever since my older son, Sam, came home from my neighbor’s house raving about the chicken mole he’d had for dinner, I’ve been trying to make the dish myself. I should say I’ve been trying to make an edible version of the dish. It’s been close to a year now and I’ve prepared no less than four putrid renditions of mole sauce, ranging from an über-time-consuming one that sent me on a search for Pasilla chilies and Mexican chocolate, to one so simple that all you had to do was add chicken broth to a bottle of supermarket mole poblano sauce.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, “How bad could they really have been?” Well, pardon my French, but we have a saying in my family when something tastes truly awful, and I can still picture Sam taking one bite of the made-from-the-bottle mole and telling me, “Mom, this tastes like ass.” If ass tastes like spoiled milk interlaced with hot sauce and chunks of bitter chocolate, then he was right.

I was finally successful with my last try, a recipe that I found on the Rachael Ray magazine website, believe it or not.

Bob nearly begged me not to make the mole again. “Laura, I don’t understand. Why are you doing this to me?” he asked.

“If, I get the recipe right, you’ll like it,” I promised him.

“I don’t think I like mole, even at a restaurant,” he said.

“Yes, you do. Remember the time at Guadalajara when you tasted Lauren Fisher’s mole sauce and you said it was so good?”

In case you haven’t figured it out already, not only am I the Inspired Chef but I’m also the Obstinately Determined Chef. Even though I’d had a succession of failures, I wasn’t going to give up because I really wanted to nail this mole sauce. That wasn’t my only reason though. Bob had had some complications from a recent sinus surgery, i.e., major nosebleeds, and we had to cancel our winter vacation to Mexico’s “Mayan Riviera,” just south of Cancun, which we’d planned over a year ago with four other families. I cried the entire day we were supposed to have left, and drank tequila straight from the Patron bottle until I couldn’t see straight.

In my haze, I reminisced about an event that took place back when Bob and I were in college. I was a little sister in his fraternity and they were having a “Let’s Go to Mexico” party. Whereas all the other fraternities had similar bashes where the winning couple would be given two tickets to go away on a vacation to Puerto Vallarta or some Caribbean island, the Sigma Chi version was a little different. In a nutshell, you were supposed to drink so much tequila that you passed out and thought you went to Mexico. If my memory serves me correctly, the “winner” here was the person who fell asleep on the couch and got a Frito Bandito mustache drawn on his upper lip in permanent black marker.

Pulling myself together, I decided that if we couldn’t go to Mexico, I was going to bring Mexico to us. So, that’s where the mole came back into the picture.

Do you know what the history of mole is? According to http://www.mexonline.com/, mole poblano is a “thick rich, chocolate-tinged sauce made famous in the colonial mountain city of Puebla, Mexico.” According to the website, “Some sources say that moles have as many as 100 ingredients, but that’s an exaggeration . . . 30 ingredients are not unheard of, and some mole recipes contain 10 different types of chilies alone. Other ingredients include: peanuts, almonds, fried bread, plantains, lard, sugar, bittersweet chocolate, cinnamon and cloves.”

I had invited our friends, the Peskoes, for dinner. My original plan was to make two different moles, and I figured we could vote on our favorite sauce. That plan came to a halt after I prepared the first recipe, which actually had some of the ingredients I just mentioned. To my horror, it was as terrible as all of its predecessors, tasting heavily of peanut butter and some unidentifiable taste that made me want to be sick. I ended up pouring the entire contents of my Le Creuset iron pot (it was heavy!) down the drain of my kitchen sink.

My heart was heavy too, and I admit I was disappointed. I sat at the kitchen counter and moped as I read over the ingredients for my next mole, the one I had gotten from Rachael Ray. I didn’t have high hopes, as this recipe didn’t actually have any of the ingredients listed on the mexonline.com website, plus it called for Reese’s peanut butter cups. I mean really, how can any decent recipe for mole have peanut butter cups in it? I decided to unwrap a Reese’s cup and eat it while I mulled this over. “Mmmm,” I said out loud. I’d forgotten how good they were, so chocolaty, peanut buttery and sugary sweet! I decided that maybe there was hope for the recipe after all – but not much.

The first thing I did was heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil in my pot and sauté some chopped up onions and garlic. Then I added a little allspice and stirred the mixture together. While my other recipe that day had included cinnamon and ground cloves, this one had substituted allspice, which I assumed was a combination of those two and other spices. Later research on the web would prove me wrong. According to Wikipedia, “Allspice is the dried unripe fruit of the Pimenta dioica plant, a tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico and Central America. The name ‘allspice’ was coined by the English, who thought it combined the flavor of several aromatic spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.”

My next step was to add some canned fire-roasted tomatoes, chicken broth, espresso powder, peanut butter cups, raisins, a pinch of salt and, last but not least, half of a chipotle chile in adobo sauce. The recipe called for a whole chile plus a teaspoon of the adobo sauce, but I highly advise against this unless you are into really fiery food. Plus, you can always add more later if you want. The sauce’s faintly sweet smell, hinting at a hidden spiciness, made me believe that I might be heading in the right direction.

After the mixture simmered for a while, I let it cool down and then pureed it in the blender with a little extra broth. The result was a thick, brownish-red sauce that at least looked like mole. The real test would be to taste it. Tentatively, I stuck my wooden spoon in the blender and brought a small amount of the mole to my lips. The sauce actually tasted good, with touches of chocolate and cinnamon, followed by a delayed reaction in the back of my throat when the heat of the chipotle chile kicked in. If not exactly like the restaurant mole, it was close.

Our friends came over for dinner that night, and I served the mole poblano over some grilled chicken cutlets and brown rice, and accompanied it with a salad. I held my breath when everyone lifted up their forks and took their first bites, but to my relief, they seemed to like the mole. Bob even had a second helping. So while there were no sombreros or suntans for us that week, at least we had a little taste of Mexico.


PEANUT BUTTER CUP CHICKEN MOLE
www.rachelraymag.com
From Every Day with Rachael Ray, October 2008

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 cup fire-roasted diced tomatoes
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, chopped, plus 1 teaspoon adobo sauce
1 teaspoon espresso powder
3 peanut butter cups, such as Reese’s, chopped
1/4 cup raisins
Salt and pepper
1 pound chicken cutlets

In a small skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is soft and the garlic is just beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in the allspice and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes with some of their juice, 1/2 cup chicken broth, the chile and adobo sauce, espresso powder, peanut butter cups, raisins and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool slightly.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Season the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper, then cook for 3 minutes per side. Remove from the skillet and cover loosely with foil to keep warm.

Using a food processor, puree the cooled sauce with remaining 1/4 cup chicken broth, scraping down the sides if necessary. Spoon the mole sauce over the chicken.

Serves 4

TEXAS SHEET CAKE

I started to ponder what dessert I was going to bring to the Super Bowl party about a week before the big event. “What about lemon squares?” I asked myself. “Maybe I could make a chocolate cheesecake, or get fancy and whip up a tiramisu?”

My plan was to make my dessert of choice a few days ahead of time and therefore be able to enjoy my weekend. But that never happened. Not only did I not bake a dessert, I didn’t even go shopping for ingredients, much less finalize my selection. And I can only offer one reason for my delinquency – I joined Facebook. And this is what took place for three days in a row: I typed in my e-mail address and password to access my Facebook page and was instantly sucked into a fifth dimension, where I talked to friends I hadn’t seen or heard from in 25 years, played three simultaneous games of Scrabble, and electronically passed on the Duke Blue Devils Fan Club wave. Then, after what seemed like five minutes but was actually three hours, I returned to reality, horrified that I’d wasted an entire afternoon. All in all, I had managed to accomplish absolutely nothing – although I did get 42 points for spelling out Q-U-E-N-C-H in Scrabble.

Super Bowl Sunday morning I vowed to get to work on dessert. But of course that was after logging onto Facebook and triumphantly spelling out G-O-O-S-E-D for a triple word score of 38. I also scanned my “wall,” only to find a posting from my husband’s colleague, Jeanne, that said, “Check out Bob at our holiday party.” Opening up the photo, I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed to discover that it was quite tame. At first I thought about asking Jeanne if she had anything a little more incriminating (I could use some new jewelry), but decided to control myself and just responded with a thank you. Anyway, it seemed Sunday was frittering away, or at least I was frittering away Sunday, so I decided to finally focus on dessert.

“What am I going to make?” I lamented as I walked downstairs from the guest bedroom/office and ran into Bob scrounging for food in the refrigerator I had yet to restock due to my online priorities.

“Can you make that Texas Sheet Cake?” Bob asked with a hopeful look on his face. I thought a saw a little bit of drool on the side of his mouth, but that might have been my imagination.

“Now that’s an idea,” I said. I had made it for previous Super Bowl parties but in the last few years had given it a break.

I went to my desk, piled high with days of unopened mail, and grabbed my blue plastic accordion file filled with my favorite recipes. I spilled out all the contents from the desserts section across my kitchen table. Hidden among the unkempt and unorganized layers of yellowed newspaper clippings, torn-out magazine pages, and faded faxes and copies was the item I was looking for – two stapled together 3x5 index cards with a recipe for “Texas Sheet Cake” written out in my mother’s loopy, nearly illegible script. The blue ink bled in cloud-like, watercolor splotches across the recipe, a remembrance of times past when I had either dripped milk on the cards or left them on a wet counter, or probably both.

Although my mom had never made the recipe, I had vivid childhood memories of this moist chocolate cake with creamy chocolate frosting. I had often enjoyed it growing up on visits to my Aunt Hope and Uncle Phil’s house, where a brood of five teenagers – four of them boys – plus frequent guests made the large cake, baked in a 11x18-inch jellyroll pan, an attractive choice for my aunt. I don’t know when or why my mom copied down this recipe and mailed it to me, but I think I’ve had it for over 15 years and made it close to a dozen times. Thanks to a note inscribed by my mother in the top right-hand corner of the first index card, one thing I do know is whom to thank for the recipe and that’s Millie Korman, who was once a close friend of my mom’s and Aunt Hope’s before a falling out of sorts resulted in her ouster from their inner circle. While I’ve subsequently seen similar recipes online, none are quite the same as Millie’s.
I decided to go with the Texas Sheet Cake for several reasons. One, Bob asked me to make it and it could serve as payback for neglecting him and the house for a few days of living in an electronic fog. Two, it’s relatively simple to make and takes under 40 minutes start to finish. And three, I had all the ingredients in the house, which was a good thing since I was running short on time, especially if I wanted to squeeze in one more game of Scrabble before leaving for the party.

The first thing you need to do for this recipe is melt butter, water and cocoa in a small pan. I prefer to do this in a double boiler because it allows the ingredients to heat slowly and evenly, thus reducing the risk of burning. I’ve had my same Paul Revere copper-bottomed double boiler since I got married, so 22 years and change. It’s got two fitted saucepans. You put some water in the bottom pan and fill the top one with the ingredients you want to melt via indirect heat. If you don’t have a double boiler, feel free to improvise with two pans separated by a trivet or other heat-resistant spacer.

While the butter and chocolate were melting, I beat the eggs in a small bowl and then whisked in the vanilla, baking soda and sour whole milk, which I made by adding a tablespoon of vinegar to a half cup of milk. In a large bowl, I mixed together the flour, sugar and salt. The next step was to add the first two concoctions to the flour mixture and gently blend together. At this point the deep chocolate color, creamy texture and sweet cocoa smell made me want to stick my finger in the bowl and take a taste, but decided to save myself the salmonella threat and waited for the frosting.

After I poured the batter into the jellyroll pan, I stuck it in the oven and got to work on the frosting. Employing my trusty double boiler again, I brought some butter, cocoa and milk to a boil. In a separate bowl, I poured in a box of confectioner’s sugar and added a little vanilla, then added the cocoa mixture and blended it all together until a velvety chocolate frosting emerged. Now was the time to sample the goods. Since Sam, my older son and counted-on taste tester, was not available (he’s now a freshman in college) and my younger son, Spencer, was in town skateboarding, I offered first dibs to Bob, but he turned it down because he’s on a diet. (Although I must tell you, he was among the flock of guests who had second and even third helpings of the cake that night). Apparently it was up to me to lick the spatula clean and make sure the frosting was OK. And it was. It had the sweet and sugary taste of fudge, but the consistency was just a little softer.

After the timer went off, I opened up the oven and a welcome waft of chocolate perfumed the air. I shook the pan gently and noticed that the cake was jiggling a bit in the center, so I put it back in for another five minutes.

The key with this recipe is slather on the frosting with a knife as soon as the cake comes out of the oven. That way the frosting seeps into the cake and makes it even moister. Plus the heat of the cake makes the frosting easy to spread. All that was left to do was get my blue icing pen out, draw a football and insert XVIII.

With about half an hour to go before the kick-off, the cake was done and I had a few minutes to relax. But that’s not what I did. I ran upstairs to update my profile on Facebook, which read, “Laura is…playing three games of Scrabble and not getting any work done.” What should I write next? Well, I decided to play one more round of Scrabble and think about it.

TEXAS SHEET CAKE
By Millie Korman

Cake
1/2 lb. butter or margarine
1 cup water
4 tbs. cocoa
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour whole milk (add 1/2 tsp. vinegar to 1/2 cup whole milk)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. salt

Icing
1/4 lb. butter
4 tbs. cocoa
6 tbs. milk
1 lb. confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)


1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease 11x18-inch jelly-roll pan.

2. Melt butter, water and cocoa in a double boiler.

3. In a small bowl, beat eggs with sour whole milk, vanilla and baking soda.

4. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar and salt.

5. Add butter mixture and egg mixture, mixing gently.

6. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 20 minutes or until cake tests done. Spread icing over hot cake when it comes out of the oven.

7. To make icing: Melt butter, cocoa and milk in a double boiler. In a separate bowl, combine confectioner’s sugar and vanilla (walnuts are optional). Add butter mixture and blend thoroughly.

Spaghetti Squash Casserole/Vegan Sweet Potato Latkes

I am starting to worry that my husband and I might become the only carnivores left among our circle of friends. Not only are the children of many of my closest acquaintances turning vegetarian, but now a growing number of my contemporaries are also heading in that direction (with the exception of R., who sneaks red meat when her husband isn’t looking). I’m wondering if soon we will have no one to go with to tear into T-bones at our annual outing to the Peter Luger Steak House.

While I’m not planning to give up meat any time in the near future, I thought I’d like to try to make a healthy vegetarian dish for dinner. My friend Hillary told me about a recipe for spaghetti squash casserole that she had found in the Moosewood Cookbook, but when I mentioned it to Bob, he asked me what I was going to serve with it, like it was some sort of side dish.

“That’s the whole meal,” I explained.

“Well, I’m not sure if it will fill me up,” he said, a look of concern on his face.

Instead of getting frustrated, I got inspired (you know I am the Inspired Chef!). I recalled a recent Saturday night when Bob and I were out to dinner with our friend Peter and his new girlfriend, Susan. She told us her daughter was a vegetarian and also had many friends who were vegan, and didn’t even eat fish, milk products or eggs. Susan was saying how hard it was to make sweet potato latkes for her daughter and her friends because she couldn’t use eggs to make them stick together when frying.

This made my ears perk up. Bored with traditional potato latkes (fried potato pancakes that are the traditional hallmarks of Chanukah), I had been making sweet potato latkes for years, and had just added a carrot and parsnip batch to my repertoire. Always up for a new challenge, I told Susan, “I’m going to research this and find out what to substitute for the eggs.”
So, given Bob’s request for a side dish, I had my menu planned: spaghetti squash casserole, salad, and vegan sweet potato latkes for an appetizer. Now all I had to do was find a recipe that had an egg substitute. And this is why Google is so great – all I did was type “vegan sweet potato latkes” into the search engine and dozens of choices popped up. I worked by process of elimination, first cutting out all the recipes that called for baking (in my mind a true latke must be fried). Then I dropped the ones that looked too complicated or called for ingredients I didn’t have and didn’t want to buy, like xantham gum and agave nectar. The winning recipe came from http://www.vegweb.com/ and was mostly chosen because I had the flax seeds and water (obviously!) needed to make the egg substitute, plus the requisite sweet potatoes, onion, baking powder and flour. I also jotted down a note from someone who’s screen name was “oktokrewl” about adding cornstarch to the flax seed mixture to make the pancakes hold together better.

I made the sweet potatoes the night before I served them. First, I scrubbed and peeled two large potatoes and threw them into the food processor. The onion was the next item dropped in. Then I poured the chopped up mixture into a glass bowl and soaked up the extra water with a handful of paper towels (regular potatoes have much more moisture to absorb and usually require a cheesecloth).

After cleaning up the food processor, I added some flax seeds into its basin and started the machine. Let me save you some time and dishwashing duty right here. This did not work, nor did the blender that the recipe suggested. I was about to give up when I spied my coffee grinder on the kitchen counter and thought I’d give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised when it grinded the seeds down to the consistency of fine cornmeal. (You can also buy them ground up, I later discovered.)

I returned the ground flax seeds to the food processor and added some water and about a teaspoon of cornstarch (thank you, oktokrewl!), then blended them together. The mixture was brown and gooey, and though the recipe said it should have a “milk shake-like consistency,” it didn’t look like any milkshake I’d ever drink. Ignoring its appearance, I poured my “flax eggs” into the chopped sweet potato and onion mixture, and then added the other ingredients. I also threw in some extra spices – nutmeg, allspice and curry – to bring up the flavor level a notch.

All that was left to do was fry. But have you ever fried latkes? Here are some tips: 1) Wear clothing you don’t like because you will most likely get splattered. 2) Use a large pan you’re not particularly attached to. I use the same pan every year and it’s covered with battle scars of dark brown grease that no amount of Ajax can remove. 3) Put on your exhaust and crack open some windows. You and your entire house are going to smell like French fries, but at least this well help a little bit.

For the next step, I poured a hearty amount of canola oil into my pan. Don’t skimp here. It should be about an 1/8 inch high. After the oil was good and hot, I started adding tablespoon-sized heaps of the sweet potato mixture into the pan, about six or seven at a time. Soon the pancakes were sizzling and the heavy scent of fried food filled the air. After I could see that the bottoms were browning (3 or 4 minutes), I flipped them over with a spatula to finish them off. Another note: don’t turn your back or make a phone call here; the latkes can go from perfect to burnt in about 30 seconds, so stay focused. When both sides were nicely fried, I put each finished latke on my spatula and then slipped it off onto a pile of paper towels. I also put paper towels on top of the latkes to soak up the extra oil. Happily, most of them didn’t break, so the “flax eggs” seemed to have done the trick as far as serving as the glue to hold the pancakes together. The couple that broke didn’t go to waste. Since I wanted to taste-test the recipe anyway, I took this as my chance to sample my experiment. I must say the latkes tasted like the real thing – oily, salty, and a little bit crunchy, with a hint of Middle Eastern spices. I did detect a little extra sweetness compared with previous batches made with eggs, but that was the only difference.

When I was done frying all the latkes (the recipe makes about 15, but you can double if you’ve got the time and energy), I let them cool off, put them in a Tupperware container with layers of wax paper between them, and stored them in the fridge. By that time I felt my pores were oozing oil, so I threw my clothes in the washer and went upstairs to shower.

By the next afternoon I had recuperated from my adventures in frying and decided to proceed with the spaghetti squash casserole. I pulled out the squash from my garage refrigerator and lugged it upstairs. Probably weighing in at three or four pounds and measuring about eight inches long, the squash looked like a medium-sized pumpkin, only it was yellow and more oval shaped. I cut it in half lengthwise and scooped out all the seeds, then put it in the oven (skin side up) for about 40 minutes to soften its flesh. While the squash was baking, I sautéed onions, garlic and mushrooms in a large pan, then added chopped tomatoes and dried oregano, thyme and basil. By the way, if your spices are more than a year old, don’t even bother using them. Their flavor is faded and they probably smell musty. Toss them out and buy a new batch; you’ll be much happier.

You’re supposed to cook this mixture until most of the liquid evaporates. For some reason this was not happening, so I had to use a baster to get rid of the excess. When this was done, I spooned the contents of the pan into a large bowl.

Then came the fun part. I’ve never cooked spaghetti squash before so I was excited to see what would happen. After the squash halves were done softening in the oven, I pulled out the pan they were on and set it on top of my oven range. I was planning to wait for them to cool off, but I soon got impatient so I grabbed my white silicone Orca oven mitt and cradled the half piece of squash in my covered left hand while I held a fork in my right hand to scrape out the flesh. Amazingly, it came out like springy yellow strands of spaghetti. “This is so cool,” I said to myself with a big smile on my face, like I had just discovered the secret to the fountain of youth.

All that was left to do was add the rest of the ingredients – the squash, ricotta cheese, fresh chopped parsley and breadcrumbs – to the bowl and stir them all together, then pour the mixture into a buttered casserole dish and top with grated parmesan cheese. I stuck it in the oven and that was it.

When I opened up the oven door to pull out the casserole, I was greeted by a gush of hot air and the enticing aroma of baked vegetables and cheese. I personally couldn’t wait to try it, but I can tell you that when Bob got home from work he was less than enthusiastic.

“What did you say was in this?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about it, I also made some latkes,” I tried to assure him.

“The ones with the fake eggs? Why do you do this to me, Laura?”

“Bob, you know that anything fried in oil tastes good. Remember when you said that about the carrot and parsnip latkes and then you liked them?”

As it turned out Bob contentedly ate the sweet potato latkes with some applesauce. He even took a second helping of the spaghetti squash casserole. I liked the casserole, too. Creamy and rich in taste, it reminded me of a vegetable lasagna, but it had no real pasta in it. I sat at the table, pleased that I had gotten Bob to accept a no-meat meal. Of course, I had patted myself on the back too soon. As we were clearing the dishes, he said, “I think I could go for a hamburger tomorrow night.”


GEOFF’S VEGAN SWEET POTATO LATKES
www.vegweb.com

2 large sweet potatoes (yams)
1 large sweet onion
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons flour
3 flax eggs*
Salt and pepper to taste (approx. 1/2 teaspoon salt)
1/3 cup of whole flax seeds
1 cup water
(I also added 1/4 tsp. each of nutmeg, allspice and curry powder)

Using a mandolin or wide vegan cheese grater (I used a food processor), grate the sweet potatoes and onion into a bowl.

Add baking powder, flour, flax eggs, salt and pepper. Stir/mix very well. Cover a pan with a layer of oil. Form cookie-sized pancakes and fry them up

*Flax Eggs (from How It All Vegan): 1/3 cup of whole flax seeds, 1 cup water

In a food processor or blender (I used a coffee grinder), grind the flax seeds until they are a fine flax meal (or you can buy the flax seeds ground up). Slowly add the water (I also added 1 teaspoon of cornstarch) until the mixture has a thick milkshake-like consistency. 3 tablespoons = 1 egg. Mix makes a total of 6 egg equivalents.

Makes 15 latkes


Spaghetti Squash
Moosewood Cookbook

1 8-inch spaghetti squash
1 cup chopped onion
2 medium cloves crushed garlic
2 fresh tomatoes (medium- sized)
1/2 lb. fresh, sliced mushrooms
1/2 tsp. oregano
Salt and pepper
1 cup cottage or ricotta cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella
1/4 cup freshly-chopped parsley
1 tsp. basil
Dash of thyme
1 cup fine bread crumbs
Parmesan for the top
Butter for sauté

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Slice the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Bake it, face down, on a buttered tray for about 30 minutes, or until easily pierced by a fork. Cool until handleable. Scoop out insides (use a fork).

While the squash bakes, sauté the onions and garlic with salt, pepper, mushrooms and herbs. When onions are soft, add freshly chopped tomatoes. Cook until most of the liquid evaporates.

Combine all ingredients (I added the fresh parsley here). Pour into a buttered 2-quart casserole. Top with lots of grated parmesan. Bake uncovered about 40 minutes.

4-6 servings

KALE: THREE TIMES A CHARM

My first encounter with kale took place two weeks ago and I’ve been traumatized ever since. While I promise you a wonderful recipe in the end, please enjoy my foibles on my road to kale soup perfection. Between careless mistakes and bad luck, it took me three times to get the soup nailed down, but I hope you’ll agree, it was well worth it.

The trouble all started on my bi-monthly excursion to pick up produce from my local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which distributes food from upstate Roxbury Farm out of a garage of a house in Pleasantville. The way the CSA works is that you pay to get a share of what’s been harvested from the farm each week, with a chalkboard telling you the specific quantities of fruit and vegetables to take from the bins. Reading the board, I piled my fall harvest bounty into my eco-friendly canvas bags (I’m always trying to minimize my carbon footprint, even though I drove over in my Audi Q7 that I think gets negative-two miles per gallon). Following the instructions, I packed up a head of ivory white cauliflower, a pair of orange and dark green acorn squash, a pint of ripe red apples, a bunch of dark green broccoli rabe, and a bag filled with several sweet potatoes heavily caked with the mud that they were buried in until earlier that morning. Last but not least was a rubber-banded bundle of kale, so large that its giant green-black leaves, rubbery in feel and highly textured and curly, jutted out of my bag. I carefully placed it in the front passenger seat of my car so that it wouldn’t pick up any dust or dirt from being tossed in the trunk with the other bags.
Read more...
I was immediately intrigued by the kale because I’d never bought or cooked it before. Feeling my alter ego of The Inspired Chef emerge (it’s been in hiding lately), I decided that I had to make a dish with the kale that very evening. Back at home, I threw all the other produce into my garage refrigerator but brought the bag with the kale into the kitchen. What was I going to do with this ridiculously large leafy vegetable?

First I decided to educate myself, so I went upstairs to do some research on my computer. Do you know anything about kale? Well, just in case you’re wondering, I looked up some information on wikipedia.com, which informed me that “Kale or Borecole is a form of cabbage (Brassica oleracea Acephala Group), green in color, in which the central leaves do not form a head.” Apparently, it’s related to broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens and Brussels sprouts. It’s also very high in a lot of vitamins and minerals, including beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin (whatever that is), and “reasonably rich in calcium.” Because I’m anemic, I checked to see kale’s iron content and took note that one serving provided about seven percent of a person’s daily requirements. Oh, and here’s a little extra bit of random information I found on the wikipedia site: “A whole culture around kale has developed in north-western Germany… There, most social clubs of any kind will have a “Grunkohlfahrt” (“kale tour”) sometime in January, visiting a country inn to consume large quantities of kale, sausage and schnapps.” But what really caught my eye was the following entry about a traditional Portuguese soup called caldo verde, which combines pureed potatoes, diced kale, olive oil, broth, and sliced, cooked spicy sausage. Since I had all those ingredients in my refrigerator, freezer or pantry, I decided to explore this option further.

On epicurious.com, I came across a recipe for “Potato Soup with Kale and Chorizo” from the March 2008 issue of Bon Appétit. In addition to the ingredients listed in the title, I also needed olive oil, a yellow onion, smoked paprika (I used regular), chicken broth and some rustic bread for croutons (which I passed on the first two times I tried this, but made the third and it was worth the effort). What can I say? I was inspired. I couldn’t wait for my chorizo, the spicy sausage, to defrost, so I ran out to the grocery store and bought some more so I could make the dish right away.

Back at home again, I rinsed off the kale and patted the leaves dry with paper towels. After cutting out the thick stems with a sharp knife, I chopped the kale into small pieces. Next, I cut up the onion, then skinned and diced a couple of large russet potatoes that had been hiding in the bottom of one of my refrigerator bins for close to a month. I was happy to be cooking them before they started sprouting weird green buds like the last time I’d forgotten to use them. Finishing up my sous chef duties, I pulled the reddish-brown colored chorizos from their plastic wrap and placed them on my cutting board. I cut off three links and took a knife to the first one, running it down the side of the sausage. Then I gently dug in my thumb nail and started prying loose the thin, filmy skin that surrounded the link. The casing easily slid off leaving the “naked” sausage, which I cut into thick slices, exposing the greasy, marbled, fatty meat inside. After quartering the slices, I was ready to start cooking.

First, I cooked the onion, making sure it was translucent before adding the paprika and chorizo, followed by the potatoes and what I thought (we’ll return to this, I assure you) was the one cup of chicken broth the soup called for. Finally, I threw in the bowl full of kale. While it looked like a lot when it was in the bowl, the kale wilted and shriveled when added to the pot. All that remained was to let the soup simmer for an hour. I remember thinking that it didn’t look like there was enough broth, but I said to myself, “The kale must release a lot of liquid when it’s cooking.”

Just as I was finishing up the prep work, my neighbor Lauren called. Since the soup didn’t require any more attention (or so I thought), I decided to run over to her house for a little bit. The couple of minutes I was planning to spend over there quickly turned into a half hour. Strolling back to my house in the cool evening air, I thought I smelled a faint aroma of burnt sausage. As I walked into my garage the smoky scent grew thicker and by the time I entered the kitchen, I knew I was in trouble. My soup was burning. A look inside the pot revealed that all the liquid had dried up and there was a thick, burnt layer of kale, potato and sausage caked to the pan’s enamel.

Panicking, I filled up a glass of water from the sink and poured it on top of the charred remains. I tried to scoop out the unburnt portions, thinking maybe I could still salvage part of the soup. Running down to the pantry, I grabbed a couple cans of College Inn broth and poured them into a new pot, adding the sorry mixture that I’d been able to recoup. Stirring the new soup, I started to think about what had gone wrong. Why had the soup burned? Then I looked over at the recipe and realized that I had misread the chicken broth measurement: it said eight cups, not eight ounces. Why didn’t I question that more when I saw there was so little liquid in the pot? I really had no answer. I decided to heat up the new soup, picking through it and pulling out any blackened bits I spotted, which pretty much seemed like every piece.

I really didn’t have much else to serve at dinner, except for some leftover chicken, so I decided to test the soup out on my husband, Bob. “I overcooked this a little bit, but just try it,” I said as I set a bowl in front of him. I looked at him from across the table as he lifted the spoon to his lips and waited for a reaction. I have to say he was rather gentlemanly about it. “I think it would have been really good if it wasn’t burnt,” he said, and then pushed the bowl aside. “Let’s order in some Chinese.”

I was determined to make the soup again and get it right. Only I was out of kale, so I had to go to the supermarket the next day to restock. Walking up and down the produce aisles I couldn’t locate any kale. Then I saw the produce manger, Jerry, who gives me all my insider information.

“Are you all out of kale?” I asked him.
“Come back tomorrow morning, we’re getting a delivery.”
“What time?” I wanted to know.
“It’ll be here by 10 a.m.,” he said.

I picked up the kale the next day and made the soup that evening. Bob was out at a dinner meeting, but I figured I would leave it for him to have for dinner the following night because I was going to be out. Everything was going just right. I had chopped all the ingredients, added the right amount of broth and was letting it simmer. I decided I would dip in my cooking spoon and try a taste. I can tell you I was not expecting to be greeted by a fiery sensation that stabbed at my tongue and made me cough uncontrollably. “The chorizo couldn’t have been that spicy,” I thought. “What did I do wrong this time?”

Then I looked over at the little clear plastic bag of bright red powder — what I thought was the paprika. “Oh no,” I said to myself. I licked my finger, stuck it inside the bag and then put it in my mouth. This time the heat was even more extreme. Apparently, I had put in two teaspoons of cayenne pepper instead of paprika. I guess that’s what I get for not labeling my spices!

After all that prep work, I wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe I had put so much time into cooking the soup and had made such a careless mistake. Was there anything I could do to correct it? I stomped upstairs and searched the internet to find information on reducing the heat of a dish. Most of the advice centered on adding more ingredients and liquid to counteract the spice and someone suggested adding honey. Back in the kitchen, I put all of the ingredients in a strainer and ran water over them for a minute or so. Then I put the mixture back in the pot and poured in a couple more large cans of chicken broth. I tasted the soup again and it was still on fire so I went to step two, adding the honey. It helped a little but I still thought the soup was too spicy. I probably should have tossed the whole thing down the disposal, but I just didn’t have the heart. I let it cool off and put it in the refrigerator.

I must have forgotten to tell Bob about my debacle. The following evening, as I was drinking wine with my friends, my cell phone started buzzing. The text from Bob read: “What’s the deal with the soup? Are you trying to kill me?” Oops!

After I nursed by bruised ego for a couple days, I once again had an uncontrollable urge to make the soup and get it right.

“I’m not going to eat it if you make it again,” Bob said, seeming to have finally lost his patience.
“I am going to make it and you’re going to like it,” I told him. He glared at me. “I’m going to get it right this time, I promise!”

And I did. I made sure to use the real paprika, I made sure to add the right amount of broth, and I even made the suggested homemade croutons by sautéing some rustic bread in olive oil. I was almost afraid to taste it when it was done simmering. Tentatively, I dipped in my spoon and took a sip. “Nice,” I thought.

The soup had just the right amount of spice from the chorizo, and the potatoes and kale added extra flavoring and texture. No ugly surprises this time. When Bob got home from work he refused to try the soup at first, but I finally convinced him. I have to admit I had a huge smile on my face when he got up and got seconds!

POTATO SOUP WITH KALE AND CHORIZO
Bon Appétit, March 2008
By Roy Finamore

5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
8 ounces fully cooked smoked Spanish chorizo or hot Calabrese salami, casing removed if necessary, chopped
2 teaspoons smoke paprika*
1 ½ pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into ¼ -inch-thick slices
8 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 ½ pounds kale, stemmed, torn into small pieces (about 16 cups lightly packed)
3 cups ½-inch cubes rustic bread

Heat 3 tablespoons oil in large pot over medium heat.

Add onion; cook until translucent, about 8 minutes. Add chorizo and paprika; stir 1 minute. Add potatoes and broth. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Add kale; stir until wilted and soup returns to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Refrigerate uncovered until cool, then cover and chill. Rewarm before serving.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons oil in large skillet over medium heat.

Add bread cubes and sauté until golden, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle croutons with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD: Can be made 4 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.

Divide soup among bowls. Top with croutons and serve.

*Sometimes labeled Pimenton Dulce or Pimenton de La Vera Dulce; available at some supermarkets, at specialty food stores, and from tienda.com.

Makes 6 servings

Apricot Season

I have apricots on the brain. I think the reason why is that I just finished reading a book called The Man in a White Sharkskin Suit. It’s a memoir written by Lucette Lagnado about growing up in a wealthy Jewish family in Egypt in the mid-20th century and then immigrating to America because of mounting anti-Semitism in her homeland. The book is amazing in its ability to recreate the sights, sounds and even tastes from the narrator’s privileged young life on Malaka Nazli, the street where she lived in Cairo.

It seemed like apricots were mentioned on every page of the book. There were Lagnado’s accounts of looking out her apartment window and watching vendors pushing wheelbarrows full of fresh apricots, figs, grapes and other fruits. There were also tales of Zarifa, Lagnado’s paternal grandmother, who was convinced of the magical healing powers of apricots, causing her to slip them into just about every dish she prepared – from rice to meat to chicken -- so that each meal was infused with a sweetly tart flavor.

With the book on my mind and apricots currently in season, I opened up a recent New York Times Dining In/Out section (August 6, 2008) and discovered Melissa Clark’s “A Good Appetite” column, featuring a recipe for “Honey-Apricot Parfait with Greek Yogurt, Walnuts and Cinnamon.”

My mouth was watering before I finished reading the column. I tore out the recipe and promised myself I would go early the following Saturday morning to the farmers’ market and pick up a pint of these luscious little fruits, which have a subtle citrusy fragrance and soft velvety orange skin. I did indeed get to the farmers’ market but all of my apricots didn’t make it home because I decided to eat two of them in the car, and, of course, dripped yellow juice all over my white t-shirt.

I also went over to the health food store and bought some Greek yogurt. I like the Fage (pronounced Fa-yeh) brand with zero percent fat because it’s really rich and creamy, plus full of calcium and protein -- and only 90 calories to boot. I had the other items in my kitchen: sugar, cinnamon, a lemon, good honey to drizzle on top (go for something like lavender, orange blossom or wildflower), and some walnuts.

Once I had gathered all the ingredients, I went to work. Halving the recipe (since I was only making it for myself), I cubed a cup of apricots, put them in a small bowl and then tossed them with lemon zest, cinnamon and sugar. While I let the mixture rest for a few minutes to draw out the juices, I toasted the walnuts in the oven to release more of their flavor and make them crispier.

Next, I stirred the yogurt in its container until it looked nice and thick. At this point, I wanted to lick my spoon because the white fluffy yogurt looked so much like ice cream. Beware, this is a mirage. If you do choose to give in to the urge and taste it, be forewarned that you will get a rather tart surprise. A better decision is to sample the marinated apricots cubes, which is exactly what I did. Savoring each juicy sweet bite, I had to force myself to stop eating the fruit so there would be enough left for the recipe.

The directions say to put half of the yogurt into a parfait glass or bowl. I put mine in a coffee mug the first time and a wine glass the second go-round, but if I ever served this for company I’d hop over to Pottery Barn or Pier 1 and pick up something a little nicer!

The next step is to drizzle a little of the honey on the yogurt, followed by a layer of the walnuts (think baklava). I spooned the cubed apricots on top, saving a few pieces for garnish. I repeated the yogurt, honey and nuts one more time, then sprinkled the reserved apricots on top.

I have to tell you that this turned out to be the best breakfast I have ever made for myself, although it would also be a perfectly delightful (and healthy) snack or dessert. With its colorful layers of white, brown and orange, it not only looked great but also tasted terrific, boasting an incredible combination of tart and sweet flavors and crunchy and creamy textures. Taking a big bite, I closed my eyes and could almost transport myself to Lagnado’s cherished Middle Eastern childhood.


Honey-Apricot Parfait with Greek Yogurt, Walnuts and Cinnamon
The New York Times, Wednesday, August 6, 2008
By Melissa Clark


10 ounces apricots, pitted and cubed (about 2 cups)
1 to 2 tablespoons sugar, depending on sweetness of apricots
¼ teaspoon lemon zest, optional
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup Greek yogurt
Good honey for drizzling
½ cup chopped toasted walnuts

Toss apricots with sugar, lemon zest (if using), and cinnamon. Let rest for a few minutes to bring juices out in apricots.

Stir yogurt until creamy. Divide half of it between two bowls or parfait glasses. Drizzle with a little honey and sprinkle with nuts. Spoon apricots into each glass, saving a few cubes to garnish tops. Repeat layering of yogurt, honey and nuts, then garnish with reserved apricot cubes. Serve immediately.

Yield: 2 servings