'Soups on' block print by Aviva Steigmeyer

My daughter recently sent me some lovely cards she’d made, and I think this one just captures the mood of the season. It’s time for soup!

Since New Year’s Day, I’ve been on a soup-making kick. I’ve made my old favorites, like the parsley-potato soup, pictured above, and tried out some new variations, like Martha Rose Shulman’s cauliflower-curry soup, also pictured above.

The great revelation of 2011 was the immersion hand-blender, which simply renders vegetables into creamy soups — without any cream. The wonder of it, though, is in the clean-up — snap off the blending-part of the stick and wash it. The hand blender has made life (at least when it comes to blending) so much easier that I’ve semi-retired my regular blender to an undisclosed under-the-counter location. (The hand blender is also wonderful for smoothies…. my favorite is mango lassi made with frozen mango chunks, yogurt and milk…)

Some other soups I’ve made in the last week: broccoli-potato (another for the hand blender, and good with a little nutmeg and pepper),  minestrone, and Lebanese lemony-lentil with spinach.

Italians say that eating lentils on New Year’s Day (Capodanno) will bring you luck (the lentils are said to resemble coins and thus eating them will increase  your chance of becoming rich). Though I made my lentil soup a few days after Capodanno, it still couldn’t hurt to eat lentils…

Though there are plenty of ways to make lentil soup, this recipe remains my favorite version, and it’s particularly nice that I almost always have all the ingredients I need in my kitchen already. I like to add a little cayenne, chipotle or cumin to spice it up a bit.

Along with your soup, enjoy some good bread, of course (it won’t kill you). Also, how about a little salad?

Spinach salad with Cara-cara oranges and feta cheese

Citrus is especially nice in a winter salad, I think — adding bright color, contrast and refreshing tart-sweet flavor. I used oranges in these salads, but sections or pieces of grapefruit, mandarins or Meyer lemons would all be just fine as well. Or mix several kinds of citrus with a vinaigrette, with or without lettuce or greens. Or avocado.

Avocado and oranges with marinated red onions and cilantro

Even I — someone who does not celebrate Christmas or attend many (any?) holiday parties — got swept up in the annual cookie-baking frenzy this year.  I made Hanukkah half-moons (a variation on absurdly rich snowball cookies), refrigerator cookies with hazelnuts and, pictured above, triple ginger cookies.

Those ginger cookies captured most of my attention.

Years ago, I looked forward to receiving a box of fabulous triple ginger cookies from my sister’s boyfriend every December. They were spicy and chewy, with bits of candied ginger adding extra texture and heat. My daughter and I loved them. We asked for the recipe, but were told that it was a secret.

I’m still miffed that when my sister broke up with Matthew (“Mateo,” she called him), she let him get away with the secret recipe.

But this year, I thought: Things are different these days — there’s the Internet.

Epicurious.com offered this highly rated recipe and I gave it a try, doubling the amount of grated and powdered ginger but otherwise following it closely.

The first batch I baked had a good flavor but came out way too hard, so I reduced baking time to 11 minutes. Much better, but they still weren’t chewy enough, the candied ginger wasn’t as distinct, and the cookies seemed a little too puffy.  Too much baking soda? Different candied ginger? More butter?

I don’t know, but they just weren’t quite as wonderful. Let me know if you have any suggestions (and Mateo, if you’re out there — it’s time to share the secret!)

Maybe I’ll try again — next year.

For now, I am so burned out on cookie making, with all that butter and sugar. Basta! with the cookie baking!

It’s edging toward that time of year when I resolve to eat healthier snacks. Nice juicy, sprightly mandarins are my current choice (though I must say they do go well with the ginger cookies, and even the hard over-baked ones can be dipped in coffee or tea).

Satsumas are a type of mandarin. When sold with stems and leaves, you know they're fresh.

….where the next idea may be coming from.

I was standing at the checkout counter of the grocery store ready to pay for a baguette when the checker called over to another checker: “I have to tell you about my latest method of making brussels sprouts. They’re so delicious!”

“I want to know too,” I said.

“Okay, first you roast them with a little oil and salt and pepper. Then you dress them with a mixture of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup.”

The next day I had to try it. The roasted brussels sprouts — cut in half and the tough end part removed–were a revelation in themselves. First, the outer leaves fell off and turned crispy, delicious for snacking before the rest were done. After about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven, the sprouts were ready for the plate.

For a pound of brussels sprouts, I had cooked down 2 tablespoons each of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup till it was reduced to about half and starting to thicken. (Instead of the vinegar-maple syrup combo you could use an aged balsamic vinegar alone, or some pomegranate molasses, available in Middle Eastern stores, for that tart-sweet flavor.)

Then it was simply a matter of transferring them to a favorite plate, and drizzling the sauce over them. Simply a good idea, from grocery store to table.

Maybe even for those people who think they don’t like brussels sprouts.

You never know…

This Thanksgiving, I took a twist on the traditional green beans, and dressed them up with some lemon zest, toasted hazelnuts and pomegranate seeds.

I really love the juicy tang and jewel-like appearance of the pomegranate seeds. And last year I learned how to get the seeds out  with the not-so-secret underwater method (only the pomegranate is underwater, not the person doing the seeding), which is easy to find on the Internet.

Once Thanksgiving, and all this cooking frenzy is over, at least for the time being, it’s a lovely time for leftovers. “Leftover” is not the prettiest word, but for many people, it’s one of the favorite parts of this holiday.

Turkey sandwiches are classic, of course, and back when Thanksgiving was at my house, there was always turkey-barley soup on the stove.

But this year, even though our hosts, Nell and Marc, generously let us pack up  leftovers to take home, we didn’t have enough turkey for the classics. So, I got the idea to make a turkey-pot pie with the little we had and a lot of vegetables. At home I found onion, carrots, potatoes, a fennel bulb, frozen peas and corn, and the filling was on its way. I diced up the turkey we had (while thinking one really could make this a vegetarian meal…)

Then I decided to make it even easier by making it into a cobbler. I remembered making something from Mark Bittman’s recipe, and sure enough, that recipe has the best easy cobbler- topping.

Not all of the filling I made fit in my pie pan, so the next day I added some sauteed mushrooms to the mix.

I think a mushroom cobbler sounds like a good idea

Mmmmmm……..we gobbled most of that one up too.

Guess what? There were enough pomegranate seeds left over to toss into a salad to accompany the cobbler. They made a wonderful contrast to the deep green of the spinach leaves — and yet another reason to be thankful for leftovers.

I just read an interview with Michael Pollan, who said:

“I could live on bread for the rest of my life.”

I couldn’t agree more.

In early September I went to Germany for a week, and every day the breads–hearty and substantial– inspired and sustained me.

Bread and pretzels, Munich

I couldn’t possibly taste all that I wanted to sample, but the breakfast buffet at the hotel where I stayed in Munich for a few days had a variety of sliced breads and crackers, as well as baskets of warm rolls….

Hofpfisterei bakery, Munich

There are so many types of bread in Germany. Round breads, square breads, brown breads, black breads, white breads, rye breads, sourdough and sweet. Breads with sunflower seeds pumpkin seeds, flax or poppy, breads with walnuts or oats or dried fruit — and so many more. This website, which describes the most common types,  says there are about 300 types of bread in Germany and more than 1,200 varieties of rolls and mini-breads.

You can often get sandwiches at the bakeries too — and bring your food to the beer garden or a park (or both at the same time at the English Gardens in Munich) if you like.

This "power sandwich" had fresh cheese, radishes and arugula in a seeded roll. Very tasty.

When I got home, I started baking the no-knead bread recipe with healthy proportions of rye and wheat flours, oats, cornmeal and various seeds.

This dark bread was really a cheat — I used a tablespoon of cocoa powder in the dough to make it dark. The real Schwartzbrot (black bread) is a dense square-ish loaf made with at least 90 percent rye flour and baked for 24 hours to let the sugars in the bread caramelize, thus achieving its dark brown color and moist chewy texture.

For a hearty no-knead bread, follow the directions here, adjusting the ingredients as follows (or changing as you see fit!):

• 1 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1/2 cup rye flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup cornmeal
• 1/4 cup whole oats
• 1/4 cup (or more) sunflower seeds and/or pumpkin seeds
• about a tablespoon each of whatever other seeds you like: flax, poppy, sesame
• 1/4 teaspoon yeast (instant or regular)
• 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt

You may need to add a little more water than the 1 5/8 cup called for in the recipe — you should have a soft dough that barely holds together. Let rest at least 12 hours — I do this overnight — and the surface should be a little bubbly. Sprinkle with flour so you can gather it up into a loose ball and place on a lightly floured board or counter. Gently fold the dough over once or twice and let rest about 20 minutes, folding again after 10 minutes.

Follow the rest of the directions for resting dough, preheating Dutch oven, and baking. I bake this loaf covered for 25 minutes and uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes at 450 degrees.

"It is impossible to think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without soup or bread in it."-- M. F. K. Fisher

And there was food.

When we got home from Chicago, exhausted, Martha  brought over a big eggplant parmeggiana casserole–enough for a few nourishing and delicious dinners. (And she brought homemade madeleines for dessert too!)

Maggie and Scott sent a box of Seckel and Bosc pears from their orchard that satisfied my craving for fresh fruit.

My students gave me a big dark chocolate bar (and flowers and the sweetest card) and told me not to share it with anyone.

And Laurie drove over the mountains, bringing a box full of the last vegetables from her garden.

We tossed the chunks of squash, beets and carrots with some olive oil and salt and put it in the oven to roast to tenderness, adding some onion and garlic after the root vegetables were softened. And that was our brilliantly colored supper, so simple and warming.

All of these were comfort foods, coming as they did with so much kindness and thoughtfulness.

My sister Milly and I were reminiscing about the Old World comfort dish Mom used to make–as did, apparently, all other Jews of Eastern European extraction: Kasha Varnishkes. It’s composed of kasha (buckwheat groats), lots of onions cooked in chicken fat (or oil) and bowtie noodles. Mark Bittman has a good little article about this dish and an entertaining video on making it. Mom often made this as a vegetarian dish (using oil) and added sauteed mushrooms.

I will be making some soon.

Edith Arshack Sonneman, 1940

It’s not often that I feel justified eating cake for breakfast, but with some out-of-town family and friends dropping by in the mornings this past month, I’ve had the perfect chance to make a lovely fruity coffee-cake with an amusing 1950s name: Blueberry Boy Bait.

In 1954, the cake won second-prize in the junior division of a Pillsbury baking contest, contributed by a 15-year-old girl.

A couple years ago, Cooks Illustrated had a revised recipe for this cake, and I made my own changes to the Cooks’ recipe, cutting down on the sugar, adding lemon zest and more blueberries. I posted the recipe on this blog about a year ago, but it’s worth repeating.

A generous layer of blueberries on top of the batter forms a delicious jammy topping

Blueberry Boy Bait

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly butter a 13 x 9″ pan or two square pans or pie pans.

• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups blueberries
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1. Cut the butter into the flour and sugar with your fingers until crumbly, with some pieces the size of peas. Reserve 1/c cup of this mixture.

2. Add baking powder, lemon zest, salt, egg yolks and milk to the remaining flour-sugar-butter mixture and beat with a mixer or whisk until well blended.

3. Whip egg whites until they hold 2-inch peaks. Fold them carefully into the batter, and spread the batter into the prepared baking pan.

4. Sprinkle the blueberries on top of the batter so they cover much of the surface; then sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture.

5. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, until the cake bounces back. Place cake pan on a cooling rack for 20 or 30 minutes; serve warm or cool.

Speaking of the tried and true, I’ve made a couple versions of a blackberry cobbler I developed a couple years ago — and that reminded me that one of the first posts I wrote on this blog was about the eight blackberry cobblers I’d made in the summer of 2009.

Blackberry cobbler #8 was the winning recipe

Blackberries are in season now and we’ve picked so many we have scratches all over our arms and legs and stains on our clothes. I’ve put them in cornbread and scones, made blackberry jam, blackberry crisp, blackberry sauce,  and more than a few cobblers.

Blackberry Fool

I even tried making a blackberry fool one time when I had a little cream on hand, and it was very good.

Just picked

In fact, we are just about satiated with blackberries!  Still, it’s really nice to have a bowl of fresh berries around for snacking and adding to the morning granola. And you never know, I just might make one more blackberry cobbler this year.

You can make the cobbler with any kind of berries, and it wouldn’t hurt to add some peaches too — peaches and blueberries are always nice together.  (I haven’t had enough peaches this season to do anything other than eat them without adornment.)

Last time I made the cobbler,  I used the coarser polenta cornmeal and it had a nice crunch to it. But either way it’s a good, homey dessert. (And you can indulge a little after that light supper of corn and salad — see previous posts.)

For dessert with a dash of ice cream. If there's any left over in the morning, berry cobbler makes a dandy breakfast.

Berry cobbler

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

• 5 to 6 cups berries (any kind)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon flour
• juice of 1/2 a lemon

Mix above together in a 10-to-12″ Pyrex pie plate and bake the berries (without the dough) for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Meanwhile, make the dough:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 Tablespoon sugar

1. Mix the above in a bowl; then cut in 3 Tablespoons of cold unsalted butter, using your fingers or a pastry cutter, until the butter is the size of corn kernels (more or less). Stir in about 2/3 cup of cold buttermilk, just until thoroughly moist. Don’t over-stir.
   
2. When the berries are bubbling hot (after the 30 minutes), drop mounds of the dough on top in various places. Use a big spoon for this.
3. Bake for about 20 minutes or so, until the dough is golden
4. Let the cobbler cool a little on a baking rack; then serve warm, with ice cream if you please.

Blueberry Boy Bait and Blackberry Cobbler make it seem like it’s still summer.

Oh, wait a minute — it is still summer!

Thanks to our neighbors, Dick and Kay Porter, for the glorious dahlias that do indeed "beautify the neighborhood."

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Late summer colors from the farmers’ market

I had another cauliflower revelation when my farmer’s market vendor, Amy, convinced me to try Romanesko–that outer-space version of cauliflower. She described its flavor as “nutty” — and she was right.

We had a couple of lunches that were not much more than a bowl full of cooked Romanesko. One time I tossed it  with the basic lemon-olive oil dressing and tossed with roasted sunflower seeds.  Another time I melted a bit of butter over the hot vegetable and grated some Pecorino cheese on top.  Both times we just gobbled up our vegetables and no complaints.

Then I decided to go all-out on the colorful salad theme, and tossed together both the Romanesko and the purple cauliflower. And carrots. And potatoes. I think there were some roasted hazelnuts in this one too.

However, here’s a confession: A lot of times, I’ve been too lazy even to cut and cook all the vegetables and mix them up with some dressing. Too lazy to make a salad, that is.

That’s why I’m happy that it’s corn season. Steve shucks the corn outside on the deck (no, really, it’s just a carport, but it has a great view) and I throw it in boiling water for a few minutes. Add a bit of butter and salt at the table and we’re more than halfway to dinner, in my estimation. Especially if the corn is fresh, sweet and tender.

It could be as simple as adding a salad and some bread, as I did one evening.  (If your lettuce is as sweet and fresh as the lettuce I buy from Terra Verde Farms, that salad will make you happy too.) And fresh tomatoes–I never have enough of these. You could invite a vegan to share this meal.

Corn, salad and sockeye salmon

Another evening it was corn and salad with a piece of wild sockeye salmon I’d bought from Vis Seafood, Bellingham’s magnificent fish store. It’s pretty easy cooking when about all you have to do is shop at the right places…..

But back to corn. Even when I don’t have fresh tomatoes or sockeye salmon, I’m happy if I have some corn to put on the table.  Everything has been a little late around here this summer, so the corn is still a recent entry– and still very tender. I’m sure we won’t tire of it before the end of this month.

Corn: these days, it’s the main course.

P.S. When my dad came to the U.S. from Germany in 1939, he was shocked that people were eating corn. In Europe, it was only fed to livestock. It didn’t take long, however, for him to become a great fan of corn on the cob.

Lately, it’s salads for lunch and, often as not,  more salads for supper.

Contrast is important in a salad: textures, tastes–and colors.

The dark pinks and magentas of red onion, beets, purple cauliflower or red cabbage look stunning against vivid greens.  The salad above was a basic green salad with different types of very fresh lettuce (thank you, Martha) and some marinated red onions, which are simply made by cutting the onion in half, slicing thinly, tossing on some salt and a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar and some peppermint, dried or fresh (minced). Let the onions marinate for an hour before serving.

Here’s some more salads I’ve been enjoying lately:

Multi-colored couscous, yellow peppers, cucumber, garbanzos, green onion, feta, kalamata olives, mint

I dress most of the salads in my basic olive oil-lemon juice-salt mixture, but sometimes I use vinegar or lime juice in place of the lemon juice.

Beets in balsamic vinegar with feta, walnuts, cilantro

Arugula with fresh figs, walnuts, Parmeggiano shavings

Kale salad with corn fritters

Check out the corn fritters on Alexandra’s wonderful cooking blog. They’re delicious. (I made a couple changes — used low fat Greek-style yogurt instead of full fat and green onions in place of a shallot.)

Bean salad: cannellini beans, green and yellow string beans

Potato salad with tuna in olive oil, green beans, red onions, lemon zest

Spinach salad with feta cheese, toasted walnuts, kalamata olives. And bread.

Green beans with red onions, celery and toasted walnuts

The salad above was inspired by Smitten Kitchen’s recipe, with some changes. The almonds sounded great, but Steve is allergic to them, so it was toasted walnuts, again — and my version of the red onion.

Watermelon salad with feta cheese, fresh mint and lime

Sometimes the salad doesn't even get mixed up in the bowl....

A favorite farmers' market vendor

I get most of my vegetables from the farmers’ market,  farm stands or generous friends….

My latest fascination is purple cauliflower

I made a quick pickled cauliflower by slicing thinly and rubbing the pieces with salt -- and the color was terrific

A little kitchen chemistry: I discovered that if you squeeze lemon juice on cooked purple cauliflower it turns from lavender to a vivid magenta color….

Confetti salad: bulgur, purple cauliflower, carrots, green beans, peas, green onions, basil--or was it cilantro?

That was the inspiration for a new salad…. “What’s this called?” Steve asked. I’ve heard the name Confetti Salad applied to other colorful concoctions, so I’m sure this will fit in the confetti category.

I'm already thinking about the variations I'll make....

What’s your favorite salad these days?

It’s been a time of abundance lately, especially of the fruitful variety. Right after  my raspberry marathon, our neighbors invited us over for rhubarb crisp — and then gave me several pounds of rhubarb (I made rhubarb sauce, excellent with yogurt and granola).

Then we headed over the mountains to the Peshastin ice cream social. Peshastin is a tiny town along the Wenatchee River, in the fruit country between Leavenworth and Wenatchee, Washington.

It’s a delightful small-town community event where people buy cakes, pies, cookies, ice cream and coffee — and all the money goes to support the town library.

A lot of the sweets were better to look at than to eat, but the cherry pie was tasty.

Though we were only in orchard country for one day, our friends generously gave us many gifts of food:

Scott and Maggie let us sample the season’s early Red Hale peaches and then took us out to the cherry orchard to pick pie cherries to take home (and we picked some sweet cherries too — these were a late variety, Vans, in a year where everything is pretty late).

The cherry picking brought back memories of the many seasons that Rick and I picked cherries, traveling from Lodi, California, to Wenatchee, Washington, to Polson, Montana.  And the pie cherries reminded me of childhood summers spent with my family in Door County, Wisconsin, where we went to community fish boils and ate cherry pie for dessert.

Next: apricots! Rick let us pick as many apricots as we wanted from the prolific tree behind his house. It only took minutes to fill a couple of boxes.

And greens. Laurie made us pesto and vegetable salads and gave us bunches of kale and chard from her garden to take home.

When I returned to my kitchen, I had a lot of produce to deal with. Not to complain, though! I set to work pitting cherries, drying some in my food dehydrator and using some to make a cherry pie. (For the latter, I’m afraid I wasn’t as generous as I should have been with butter and sugar, so the pie didn’t make the cut for this post. It still tasted pretty good though:  a pinch of cardamom was very nice with pie cherries.)

I cut and dried most of the apricots and we ate the rest fresh (I meant to make apricot butter but never got to it.) I sauteed the chard with garlic and made kale salad (more about that soon) with fresh apricots and toasted walnuts.

Laurie made a delicious salad with lemon-treated kale and mangoes.

I also got some tips along the way that made things easier:

• Laurie told me about “massaging” kale with lemon to make it as tender as cooked greens, without the cooking.  This is the same process of “cooking” with acid that is used with ceviche — but I didn’t know it’d work with greens. You just use the juice of a lemon or two with a bunch of kale, mixing or massaging the juice and the torn or shredded leaves with your hands. It really transforms them. Another lemon miracle.
• Maggie suggested drying the pie cherries. They took a while in the food dehydrator, but  I really like the tart-sweet result. I’ll be using them in my granola or cookies in place of dried cranberries.
• Aviva told me that her friend Hannah uses a paperclip to pit pie cherries. It works! You just unbend one side of a large wire paperclip and use it to pry the pit from the cherry.

As I pitted the last of the pie cherries to put in the freezer–perhaps to make a more indulgent cherry pie this winter–I thought about how grateful I was for the abundance of food and friends.

A final thought:  A jarring contrast to all this plenty is the famine in the Horn of Africa. I don’t want to be preachy, but charities are having a really hard time getting adequate donations. If you can help, Unicef and many other charities are doing good work trying to prevent millions of children from starvation. Thank you.