Curried Coconut Carrot Soup

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Well, I totally forgot to take any pictures leading up to the completion of last night’s dinner, but that’s probably okay, since this is one of the easiest soups you’ll ever make.  I’ve made many variations of carrot soup before, but this one had a few new elements to it — inspired by the Esalen cookbook which I’ve been slowly working my way through all the bookmarked pages of, I also added an apple to the mix, and roasted this along with the carrots instead of simply throwing them in to the pot to boil.  I don’t know how much of a difference that really made, but this soup was delicious so let’s just go with it.

The first thing I did was chop my carrots into thirds — nothing too labor-intensive here — along with a cored apple.  These got coated with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted in the oven for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, I did the usual soup-prep thing: chopped up an onion and a few cloves of garlic, and this some some ginger, too.  I sauteed these all in some olive oil, along with a few spoonfuls of my Indian curry powder.  Once the onions were translucent, I filled the pot with broth (using Better Than Bullion these days, since until last night, we haven’t roasted a chicken in ages!), and let that simmer until the veggies were done.

Once they were soft, I took them out of the oven, added them to the broth, and brought this to a boil.  I was too lazy to get out the blender, so I mashed the carrot and apple pieces directly in the pot with our potato masher (an immersion blender is #1 on our list when we go to Kitchen Kaboodle to spend the Hanukkah/Christmas gift cards we received from Dad and Kathy this week!), and added half a can of coconut to give the soup some creaminess.  And because coconut milk is delicious in just about anything.

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For the rest of this meal, I have Jesse and Hollis to thank — Hollis, who brought over some kale which I quickly sauteed in the skillet in a bit of coconut oil, slat, some Balti seasoning from Penzey’s, and a few squirts of my favorite lemon juice — a perfect green side dish to accompany this meal; and Jesse, who swung by New Seasons on his way home from work and already had the chicken roasting in the oven by the time I got home in time for a nice Thursday night dinner with two of my favorite people.

Oh, but this wasn’t just any chicken roasting.  It was a chicken slathered with this.

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He also injected this directly into the breast of the chicken with a syringe, if you want to really know how this went down.  This rub is courtesy of one of my vendors at the Urban Craft Uprising, and it is amazing.  I mean, I even though it was amazing when I sampled it off of a wooden stick at the show, as well as smeared onto a crust of some leftover baguette and topped with brie while impatiently waiting for the carrots to finish roasting for the soup.  But hot damn, rub it all over a chicken and pop it in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour, and you will never be able to eat a regular roasted chicken again.

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This is but one of half a dozen different flavors that we acquired from One Screw Loose at last weekend’s show, and be warned: this may be appearing on most meat we consume for the next few months.

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This Week’s Groceries

Portland Fruit Company 10/4

  • Garlic
  • Milk
  • Eggs
  • Chard
  • Red onion
  • Globe grapes
  • Orange bell pepper
  • Asparagus
  • Cilantro
  • Broccoli

TOTAL: $23.74

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $276.26

 

An Dong Market 12/6 — Jesse’s World-Famous Curry!

  • Sorry, folks.  Every item on this receipt just says “grocery.”  I’ll have to get him to blog about this sometime.  It’s outta this world.

TOTAL: $41.23

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $235.03

 

New Seasons 12/13

  • 5 lb. bag of carrots
  • 1 apple
  • Bulk popcorn
  • Dozen eggs
  • A whole chicken
  • Whatever else Jesse decided to buy…?  We’ve got to have a talk about saving those receipts!

TOTAL: $27.54

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $207.49


Chicken Peanut Bok Choy Stir Fry

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Last night felt like a huge welcome home — the first meal I’ve cooked in ten days!  Yes, between impromptu backyard barbecues, Jesse treating us to gigantic calzones on a Friday night when I had to stay home and catch up on work for the third evening in a row, and then a quick emergency trip up to B.C. to wire myself the remainder of my Canadian money that I’ve been saving since college, so that all my accounts are consolidated for my upcoming down payment on a house(!), I haven’t actually bought vegetables and done a full load of dishes and cranked out a good solid meal in over a week.  Even with my crazy insane-o-pants schedule, that doesn’t happen too often.

Earlier this week Jesse and I had been musing about what appliances and accoutrements we each have in our respective kitchens, realizing with satisfaction that when our kitchens eventually merge, there will be little to no redundancy, and between the two of us, we will suddenly own every appliance created (including a crock pot, pressure cooker, AND deep fryer).  Well, except for a KitchenAid, but I still maintain that that one’s unnecessary.

Now, I just recently acquired a super awesome heavy duty cast iron skillet, which I’ve been using to cook pretty much everything I consume, but during the mental tour of my kitchen, when I got to my well-seasoned wok, which sits in one of my big underneath cupboards, I realized that I’ve perhaps never cooked Jesse a wok meal before, and it gave me a serious hankering to do just that.

This is pretty much a re-run of my go-to Pad Kee Mao routine, but this time with chicken and some toasted peanuts for some extra protein, and to bulk it up.  I wanted leftovers, and Jesse is a serious eater.

First, I got these rice noodles soaking in some hot water, while we discussed whether or not a home warranty is necessary (I’m thinking no, when your boyfriend is a super smart contractor, right?  I’m all about taking the money that could be going to an insurance company and putting it into my own “emergency/repairs” fund).

I sauteed those up in some garlic and dark soy and sugar, and set them aside, then in the empty wok, browned some chicken and raw peanuts, with salt and chili flakes.

I sliced up some carrots and celery (on the diagonal, of course.  That’s what differentiates an Asian stir fry from an American saute!), and got these cooking with half a sliced onion and some minced ginger.  Then I whisked up a simple sauce of soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger powder, chili paste, fish sauce, and sesame oil, and added it to the veggies slowly, so that the liquid absorbed but didn’t overpower the stir fry.

Towards the end, I added a few handfuls of adorable little shitake mushrooms, and half a bunch of this awesome looking bok choy.

I spooned a little more sauce over the top, then added back in the chicken, peanuts and rice noodles, and mixed them all together until perfectly combined.

Served it up and garnished with fresh lime, sriracha, and extra sauce to taste.

And then, we drove up to Tonalli’s on Alberta and got ice cream cones.


This Week’s Groceries

New Seasons 6/14

  • Half gallon milk: $2.89
  • Shitake Mushrooms: $2.38 — would have been way more expensive but he charged me as a portobello.  Score!
  • Carrots: $1.06
  • Broccoli: $3.02
  • Bok choy: $1.76
  • Pascilla Peppers: $0.26
  • Garlic: $1.08

TOTAL: $12.40

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $29.08


Curried Ginger Carrot Soup, Black-Eyed Pea Salad, and Tangy Citrus Cabbage Salad

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 This is what a fantastic Monday looks like:
  • Waking up as the little spoon
  • Having someone else make you a supremely rich and flavorful cup of coffee, out of hand-ground, French-pressed beans
  • Catching up on the weekend’s email and blogosphere news
  • Getting a looming dentist appointment out of the way
  • Scoring a new pair of cute Mary Janes for $10
  • Figuring out how to hook your iPod up to your car stereo so you can catch up on phone calls while you drive around town doing errands
  • Finding a cool shelf for the super exciting new pattern station(!) you’re installing at work this week
  • Buying like 100 pounds of vegetables for the next week for only $35
  • Getting all your laundry, dishes, and cleaning out of the way in the early afternoon
  • Cranking out an hour of transcription in 90 minutes
  • The thrill of watching UCU applications come pouring in at the speed of about one every five minutes during the last 24 hour rush of summer apps before tomorrow’s deadline
  • Spending the evening listening to Democracy Now and WTF while you cook up a storm.

Let me elaborate.  I cooked a lot tonight.  I was kind of on a roll with being productive and didn’t want to stop.  And, this way, all I have to do tomorrow during my (faux) day off is some morning transcription, go for a run, and then my favorite: parking it at a cafe on a (hopefully sunny) Tuesday afternoon with some iced coffee, cranking out 4+ hours of UCU and Yarnia work so the rest of my week is a little more manageable.  Especially because this week holds a lot of fun things in store, including one of my favorite bluegrass shows, dinner with friends, and a trip up to Seattle.

So.  I did the obvious.  You know, roasted a chicken, baked some bread.

Sundried tomato / fresh dill / half whole wheat bread

But then I also made curried ginger carrot soup, tangy shredded cabbage salad, and black eyed pea salad.  Oh, and soaked and boiled chickpeas for some hummus that I’ll be making tomorrow, and homemade chicken stock is boiling on the stove as I write this (in the same pot I used to make the soup, after transferring the latter to tupperwares for the week.  Genius!)

So first, the soup.  Not sure where I stumbled upon this recipe from, but as soon as I saw it, I couldn’t get it out of my head and even though I really shouldn’t be this excited about soups in April, it’s still like 40 degrees and raining in Portland, so even though I try to defy the weather by incorporating sockless shoes and vests into my wardrobe, it’s still a welcome warming meal.

This soup began by melting 3/4 of a stick of butter in my big soup pot, and sauteeing half a yellow onion (chopped), and a good sized chunk of ginger (minced).  
I accidentally stumbled upon a great trick for the ginger, BTW.  I have this part of my fridge that is supposed to “chill” things, but it’s so close to the icebox it really just half-freezes them.  I’ve started putting things like ginger and jalapenos and lemons in there — little flavor punches that I like to buy without clear intention, and that sadly go bad when left in the regular part of the fridge.  And apparently ginger, in this half-frozen state, flakes off like crystal, beautifully and effortlessly, when you pretend to try to slice it really thin.   

Then I chopped this gargantuan bundle of carrots that I bought today.  I love how cheap carrots are.  Seriously, this entire pile of carrots cost $1.90 and they are sooo bright and crisp and sweet.
After cooking the onions and ginger in the butter over medium heat for about 10 minutes, I added in the carrots and stirred so they were coated in the butter.  Five minutes later, I added three cups of my homemade chicken stock, 
and 2 tablespoons of my favorite curry powder (“Muchi” curry powder, in the bulk section at New Seasons).

I let this boil together for 30 minutes, and then pureed it in the blender in batches, leaving a cup or two un-pureed so that there are still some carrot slices in there for texture.  Not a fan of the 100% pureed soups.  I returned all the soup to the pot and added a cup of milk and salt to taste.  


Okay, while this was all happening I’d been cooking some black eyed peas that I started soaking this morning.  Bean salads are one of my favorite make-ahead meals for the workweek.  They just get better the longer they sit in their marinade, they’re super easy to transport, proteinalicious, and can be made with whatever leftover crunchy vegetables you have lying around.

For instance, celery that never got used from last week.  I chopped up the rest of that bunch and added it to the big salad bowl with the cooked beans (I had started with 1/2 cup of dried beans this morning, if you’re concerned about quantity).
I also added half a red onion, 1/3 of a jalapeno pepper, and half a bunch of parsley, all finely chopped.  I also had some leftover mint that was left at my house left weekend when I hosted a ladies’ afternoon clothing swap.  There were Mojitos aplenty, but not enough to eat up two packages of fresh mint, so that got chopped up and added to this salad, too.  
Then, a super simple dressing:
  • olive oil
  • red wine vinegar (about half as much as the oil)
  • smoked paprika
  • fresh oregano, chopped
  • salt & pepper

And then, still on the salad kick, I whipped up this salad, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.


I know this is weird, but cabbage is pretty much my favorite vegetable (nudged out only by kale.  But come on…you can’t compete with kale!), so rather than the 2 cups she recommends I just went ahead and chopped up the whole head.  I have no patience for grating cabbage with a cheese grater, nor do I have a Cuisinart, so I took a chef’s knife to it instead.
I actually did buy a serrano chile just for this purpose, in a rare fit of recipe adherence, but I have to say, that and the toasted mustard seeds totally give this salad the perfect flavor, and just different enough from my go-to cole slaw recipe to make me feel like maybe a new season is finally in the air.  

So in addition to the minced chile, I added to the mix:
6 tablespoons lemon juice
1.5 teaspoons salt
1.5 teaspoons sugar

And then I toasted 1.5 teaspons of whole mustard seeds in some canola oil and, once the seeds started giving their satisfying pop, poured the fragrant topping straight into the bowl.  I can’t wait to see what this tastes like tomorrow after it’s had a night to mellow out in the fridge.

Oh, and since I was roasting that chicken for future lunches, and never know what to do with the wings within my grand scheme of roast-and-freeze-in-meal-size-portions-for-work-night-dinners, they seemed like the perfect way to round out tonight’s dinner.


Okay, now I get to reward myself with some pajamas and serious veg-out knitting.