Thai Chicken-Coconut Soup

Katie, I see your chicken barley soup, and raise you....Thai Chicken-Coconut Soup!
(from Epicurious.com)

They said it makes 4 servings, but I would estimate 5-6

Rice noodles (the recipe never actually says how much, but eyeball it and you can't go wrong)
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1–2 red Thai (or jalapeño) peppers, seeded and finely chopped (plus slices for garnish)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon (or lime) juice
4 tablespoons Thai fish sauce, divided
1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, sliced (3 cups)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 5 ounces each), cut into 2 1/2-inch-long by 1/4-inch-wide strips
1 cup light coconut milk
2 cups baby spinach
2 tablespoon chopped cilantro (plus sprigs for garnish)

Place noodles in a bowl; add enough warm water to cover and let sit until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain. Combine broth, pepper, garlic, ginger, lemon zest, lime zest, lemon juice and 3 tablespoon fish sauce in a large pot. Season with salt. Bring to a simmer, add noodles and cook 3 minutes more. Using tongs, transfer noodles to a bowl and cover with foil to keep warm. Add mushrooms to broth; season with salt, if desired; simmer 3 minutes more. Add chicken and coconut milk and simmer, stirring, until chicken is just cooked, about 3 minutes. Stir in spinach until it begins to wilt, about 1 minute. Add chopped cilantro and season with remaining 1 tablespoon fish sauce. Using tongs, divide noodles among 4 bowls. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with sprigs of cilantro and slices of pepper.

Results:

I'm eating the results right now, and it is heavenly. Much like the other soup I did (Lemon Chicken Soup), this combines salty, citrusy, and creamy flavors. This one just has a little bit of a kick behind it with the ginger and hot peppers. This recipe is a little more labor-intensive then the others I usually use, expecially with the hokey-pokey, in-and-out of the pot with the noodles (necessary b/c rice noodles are fragile and will break up in the hot soup if left in for too long), but start-to-finish was still under 1& 1/2 hour. My changes: I ended up not finding anything but canned green chiles, instead of whole peppers, and I used the entire 4 oz can in this soup. Other variations: I used 2 cups of coconut milk (1 can) instead of 1 cup, and decreased the chicken broth by 1 cup. I also used low-sodium chicken broth. Between that and the fish sauce, I did not need to add any additional salt. I did add, however, additional ginger because you can never have enough ginger in my book. Finally, I saved 1 of the 2 cups of coconut milk until the very end because then you have a fresher taste to the milk.

By the by,
For those interesting in pairing this soup with a wine, might I suggest a brighter white wine, such as Yellow Tail's Pinot Grigio. It's strong enough to stand up for itself, but accents the ginger and citrus without overpowering just beautifully.

Chicken Vegetable Barley Soup

From All Recipes

Prep Time: 35 Minutes Cook Time: 35 Minutes

Ready In: 1 Hour 10 Minutes Yields: 12 servings

"Hearty and flavorful, this chicken and barley soup is the perfect comfort food for a cold winter's night."

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup slivered almonds 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 medium onion, chopped 1 cup chopped celery 4 cups sliced fresh mushrooms 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 cup chopped carrots

5 cups diced red potatoes 3 cups chopped cooked chicken 2 1/2 quarts chicken broth 1 cup quick-cooking barley 2 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley salt and black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Spread slivered almonds evenly over a baking sheet. Toast in preheated oven until golden brown and fragrant. (about 5 min)
2.	Heat the oil in a large stock pot over medium heat. Cook onions, celery, mushrooms, and garlic in oil until onions are tender.
3.	Stir in carrots, potatoes, chicken, and broth. Bring to a boil, then stir in barley. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes.
4.	Remove from heat, and stir in butter, parsley, and toasted almonds. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

RESULTS: Don't skip the almonds, they're a really nice touch. Just be careful about burning them; I'd set the timer for 5 minutes and then keep checking them. Obviously, I learned this the hard way. All in all, a really comforting soup, and I think you could switch out vegetables, if you have to get rid of some others. Also, if you don't have quick barley, as I didn't, I just simmered the barley in the chicken broth for 45 minutes or so before adding it to the soup. Enjoy!

Swiss Chard with Parmesan

I've always been attracted to the bright lights swiss chard (pronounced CHard, like CHoo CHoo train, but I can't seem to break my habit of pronouncing it SHard) at the farmer's market, and I always get it, but it's a bit of a challenge. I want to just cook it like spinach, but the stems are tough and bitter, and the leaves are also not as wilty. I found this recipe in my Spoon cookbook:

SERVES 4

2.5 lbs Swiss Chard
scant 1/2 cup milk
3 Tbls butter
generous 1 cup Parm cheese, freshly grated
salt and pepper

Separate the chard leaves from the stems using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife. (Set the leaves aside to make soup.) Cut the stems into 2-inch pieces and cook in lightly salted boiling water for 10-15 minutes, until tender, then drain well. Heat the milk to just below simmering point, then remoive the pan from the heat. Melt the butter in a pan, add the chard steams and cook over high heat, stirring frequenty, for a a few minutes. Pour in the hot milk, lower the heat to medium and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan, season with salt and pepper, and transfer to a warm serving dish.

RESULTS: The Spoon is all about the warm serving dish, by the way.

I really liked this. The stems did lose all their color, and I think I boiled them too long because they got a little mushy, but they also lost their bitterness. I even sauted the stems in mostly olive oil with just a little butter for flavor, and I used very very little parmesan, and it was still great.

Also, I didn't have any soup in mind for the leaves, so I just chopped them up and added after I was done sauteing the stems, right before adding the milk (which I doubled or tripled). They wilted nicely. More time-intensive and more clean up than just sauteing like spinach, but I'm tired of spinach.

This week I got beet greens. We'll see how those taste!

Buckeyes

Makes about 30

2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. vegetable shortening

1. Put sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt into a mixing bowl and beat well with a wooden spoon. Roll peanut butter mixture into 1" balls and transfer to a wax paper–lined cookie sheet in a single layer. Freeze until firm, 15–20 minutes.

2. Melt chocolate and shortening in a small heatproof bowl set over a small pot of simmering water, stirring often. Remove pot and bowl together from heat.

3. Working with about 6 peanut butter balls at a time, insert a toothpick into the center of a ball and dip about three-quarters of the ball into the melted chocolate, leaving about a I" circle of peanut butter visible at the top. Twirl toothpick between your finger and thumb to swirl off excess chocolate, then transfer to another wax paper–lined cookie sheet, chocolate side down. Slide out toothpick and repeat dipping process with remaining peanut butter balls and chocolate, reheating chocolate if necessary.

4. Freeze buckeyes until firm. Smooth out toothpick holes left in peanut butter. Buckeyes will keep well sealed in cool place for up to 1 week and up to 2 weeks in refrigerator. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

RESULTS: How can you go wrong? It's nice when I can make something to help Chris connect to his Ohio roots, even though he's not an OSU fan, and it's a bonus when that thing is the Greatest Flavor Combination Of All Time.

I just have two notes. It's easier to roll the peanut butter into balls if you sort of squeeze it in your hand for a little bit to warm it up a little; otherwise it gets a little crumbly. Also, I guess I make my balls too small or something, but I've made this twice so far and ran out of chocolate both times, so I would make sure you have a whole 12 oz bag of chocolate chips on hand, just in case you need to melt more.

White Bean and Kale Stew

From Cooking Light:

"Steeping a savory cheese rind in a soup's broth infuses cheesy, salty accents throughout. Cooking your own beans is simple if you've planned ahead, though you can rinse and drain canned ones for a higher-sodium result. Serve with salt-free crackers or toasted baguette slices."

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: about 1 1/2 cups)

Ingredients
* 1 pound dried Great Northern beans
* 2 applewood-smoked bacon slices
* 2 cups chopped onion (2 medium)
* 6 garlic cloves, minced
* 6 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
* 2 cups water
* 1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
* 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
* 1 bunch kale, stemmed and cut into 2-inch pieces (about 5 cups)
* 1 (2-ounce) piece Parmigiano-Reggiano rind
* 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preparation
1. Sort and wash beans; place in a large bowl. Cover with water to 2 inches above beans; cover and let stand 8 hours. Drain.

2. Cook bacon in a large Dutch oven over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, reserving 2 teaspoons drippings in pan; crumble. Add onion to drippings in pan; cook 6 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add garlic to pan; cook 30 seconds.

3. Add beans, broth, 2 cups water, thyme, rosemary, and kale to pan; bring to a boil. Add rind to pan. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour and 15 minutes or until beans are tender. Remove from heat; discard rind. Stir in juice.Garnish each serving with about 3/4 teaspoon bacon. Yield: 8 servings (serving size: 11/2 cups soup).

RESULTS: I would like to know what kind of parmigiano-reggiano cheese these people are buying that they have rinds? Maybe I'm buying the wrong sort of cheese. Anyway, this stew was okay. The lemon juice is a nice touch, I didn't think I'd like it, but it was good. The thing is, I didn't do the bacon thing. I've never really noticed that such a small amount of bacon makes that much of a difference with a dish that makes this much food. Plus, I sort of object to having to buy a whole large package of an ingredient that I would never use otherwise (applewood-smoked bacon? whaa?) just to use as an accent flavor. Otherwise, I think calling this a "stew" might be stretching it, it was a little too thin to be a stew. Much more of a soup.

I've got a big thing coming up on Friday at work that's not going well at all (it's a dinner that not nearly enough people have RSVPed and not nearly enough work has been done on it because the main faculty envisioners are either really busy or disinterested, and it's up to me and my bosses to try to pull this thing together without either the ability or the authority to make judgement calls on what's being done) but has also consumed about 95% of my work time. This makes me wake up at 3:30 with a to-do list running through my head. So, instead of focusing on that, I thought I'd complain about Kroger.

Our Kroger has redesigned its entire space. It bought out the shop next to it and "expanded", although other than adding a bulk food aisle (more of a half aisle, really), I haven't found any additions so far. But, they're still working on it. Which is awful because they have to keep shifting around the inventory as they replace the floors. All the floors. Very slowly. So, yesterday the office supplies, cosmetics, international foods, and giant bottles of cheap vodka were all in the same aisle. People were wandering aimlessly looking for baking soda (in neither of the baking aisles or any of the scattered spice aisles) and vinegar. Vinegar was always hard to track down at this Kroger, but now you need a PI and a bloodhound.

I'm a list shopper, the joys of which I learned from Mom. I make a list in the order that the items are in at the store. I also tend not to deviate from that list unless something catches my eye, so I can just skip huge portions of the store (previously, the cookies and crackers, cereal and candy, baby food, greeting cards, and makeup were all in adjacent aisles, none of which I usually buy). This is really only possible if the order of food in the store stays the same. Our Giant at home, as far as I know, has not changed the order of its aisles in my lifetime. I could still walk in and go directly to the vinegar. Even Chris is irritated by the shifting around at Kroger, and he's more of a peruser. Now, not only are the aisles all jumbled, but the store itself is completely reversed. It's a sad, sad state of affairs.

Ode to the Paw Paw

It's paw paw season! For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, the paw paw (or Indiana banana as we call them here) is the Single Greatest Fruit Of All Time. I'm sure I wouldn't say that if we could have them year-round or find them in the grocery store, but they're only available at the farmer's market for about a month and they don't keep well enough to carry in grocery stores, so I spend most of the summer kind of itching for them, peering around for the one guy at the market who sells them. I was in Chapel Hill last weekend for a conference, and Suz heroically volunteered to go early and stand in line to buy me some. Thanks Suz!

More paw paw facts: These are native fruits and are apparently only recently gaining in popularity because they can be grown organically pretty easily, they're pest resistant and all that good stuff. Unfortunately, they flowers smell like rotting meat, they're pollinated by blowflies and carrion beetles, and they can't self pollinate, so you need at least two of these trees that smell like death. Apparently farmers either pollinate by hand or hang chicken necks to attract the beetles and flies. Yum.

What do they taste like? Sort of like a banana mashed together with a mango and turned into a custard. I think you can use them in recipes, but I like eating the flesh with a spoon. It's luxurious.