Tomato Soup

I made Tomato Soup today. It surprised me how easy it is. I had the recipe memorized after making it once.

1/3C onion
olive oil
1 can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can water
1-2 tsp sugar
basil or Italian seasoning, to taste
cream, to taste

Start by sauteing the onions in enough oil to make a thin layer on the bottom of the pot. Here's a tip from my brother (which he picked up from the cooking shows): let your pan heat just a little bit before you put the oil in. Not rocket science, I know, but I wouldn't have thought of it on my own.
 Once the onions are translucent, add all remaining ingredients except cream. Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer for several minutes.
Add cream, if desired. Serve hot.
And that's it!

Super simple, but delicious.

Quinoa Casserole

Recently, my mother and I made a quinoa casserole. When my mother cooks, she uses only a few measuring cups. Most of the ingredients are added a handful at a time until the balance looks right. This is close to the recipe:

2 C quinoa, cooked and cooled
2 T oil
1 small onion
1/2 C mushrooms, sliced
1 + 1/2 C grated cheese
3 C spinach
1/4 c sour cream
8 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat oil and cook onions until translucent. Add mushrooms and cook 3-4 min. Cover to keep warm. In a separate bowl, stir together quinoa, cheese, eggs, and sour cream. Add spinach to onion-mushroom mix, and cook until wilted. Combine all ingredients in a greased casserole dish, and bake in preheated oven until done, about 30 minutes.

Serve warm. Enjoy!

Quinoa

Quinoa. That strange food. What is it?

Quinoa is a grain. You cook it like rice, and in most recipes you can use it as a substitute for rice. Raw, quinoa looks like little seeds or pebbles, but when it is cooked, quinoa has a lovely golden color and the germ separates from the seed to leave little curlicues.

Why eat it?
Quinoa is very nutritious. And it tastes amazing. The flavor it slightly nutty. It's somewhere between rice and pasta. It has no gluten.

How do you cook it?
Just like rice! You can even cook it in a rice cooker. Use 1C quinoa to 2C water. Make sure you rinse the quinoa well before cooking. We rinse it by filling a bowl with water, placing the quinoa in a fine sieve, and stirring the quinoa around in the water until the water above the quinoa is clear.

How do you use it?
Cooked quinoa can be eaten plain or added to a wide variety of dishes. I like to eat it with just butter and salt. If you put a cheese sauce on quinoa it tastes similar to Mac n' Cheese. It can be added to soups to thicken them, salads to add flavor to them, or cooked up into a Quinoa Casserole (recipes to come soon).

Mushroom Tofu Egg-drop Soup

Soup Season has been in full swing for months now, and Mushroom Tofu Egg-drop soup is my go-to soup. I have brought this for lunch day after day. My mother and I created the recipe. She started with a basic soup and I suggested changes until we ended on this. It is very much Marielle Food.

Ingredients:
1/4-1/3 cup onion
2 tbsp olive oil or butter
5-6 mushrooms, sliced
2 cans of chicken broth
1+3/4 cup water (or just refill the can of chicken broth with water)
*optional* garlic
2-3 oz firm tofu (1/6 container), chopped
2 eggs, beaten

Fry onions in olive oil or butter until onions turn translucent. Add mushrooms, cook 5 minutes. Add chicken broth and water (and garlic if you would like). Immediately add tofu and bring soup to a boil. Add beaten eggs, do not stir yet, and let sit for 30 seconds to allow the eggs to set, then stir gently for 30 seconds. Let coast to desired temperature and serve or ladle into mason jars and refrigerate for later (lunch... or a picnic!).

Notes:
If you are making a pot to save and serve later, you can reserve one can of chicken broth to add at the end to cool the soup down.
Pardon my italics... I love stirring... and I usually overdo it.
It's not a very pretty soup, but it tastes good.

Enjoy!

(Gluten Free) Fruitcake Cookies

 

The other night my I tried to make some gluten free cookies. My family tries to eat gluten free. For the most part, this isn't a problem. There are gluten free flours. I think we mostly use Oat Flour. Anyways, these cookies were our own recipe, and they turned out alright. They were a little bread-y, like a mix between a cookie and a biscuit. I think walnuts would be a good addition, to give the cookies a little crunch. They aren't perfect, but they're good in a pinch.

Here's the recipe:
1 + 1/2 cube butter
4 packs sweetener
1 + 1/2 T molasses
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 C cream
3 eggs
1/2 C Bob's Gluten Free Baking Mix
1/2 C Almond flour
1/2 C Oat flour
Fruitcake mix, to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Combine all ingredients and drop onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 15 min.

The recipe might be improved by replacing the almond flour with quick oats, adding more eggs, or adding walnuts.

Poached Egg: Attempt Two

I successfully poached an egg today.

Yay!

I started with a different recipe, one that was more specific. One inch of water, check. It also called for more vinegar, 1 tablespoon. Last time I decreased the vinegar because I was using fewer eggs, but this time I used the full amount of vinegar because the amount of water was the same as the recipe. Vinegar, when poaching an egg, is supposed to help coagulate the egg whites. It definitely helped to have more vinegar. The egg whites mostly stayed together this time. I also left the egg in longer this time, knowing that I don't like soft yokes. When I spooned the egg out, it looked fine. I cut it open, it still looked fine. I tried it, it tasted great!

=)

Poached Egg: Attempt One

I tried to poach an egg today. Key word: Tried. It didn't go so well.

First, I used a different kind of pan than the recipe called for, mine was both smaller around and taller. Consequently, when the recipe asked me to fill half of the pan with water, I didn't know how much water to use. I think I put in too much.

Then, I was only poaching one egg instead of four, so I decreased the amount of vinegar in the water, from 1 teaspoon to about 1/3 teaspoon.

Next, I was supposed to bring the water to a simmer on high, then reduce to a gentle simmer on low. My pan's water boiled on high and definitely didn't simmer on low.

Once I finally got the water to simmer properly, I slipped the egg in. The egg whites did not stay nicely around the yoke like they were supposed to. They spread out like those thin wispy clouds you see way up in the sky. I let them sit, hoping they would fix themselves. A few minutes later, I pulled the egg out. It didn't look great, but maybe it would taste OK. Then I cut it open. It was way too soft inside. I tried to eat it, but found it far too unappetizing. I threw the remainders away.

I didn't even bother taking a picture. It wouldn't have looked good anyways.

Oh well.

Cream of Carrot Soup

In the winter, there is nothing better than a hot bowl of soup. It chases away the cold in your mind and your body. So, on one particularly cold day, I made my first recipe for this project: Carrot Soup. I was hesitant to start, because I knew that there was a lot a didn't know (and don't know) about cooking, and I didn't want to mess up. I know, that's the point, to mess up and learn by trial and error, but the little voice told me I had to get it all perfect the first time. My little voice tells me that a lot. It's not very helpful.

I read the recipe about 10 times. Maybe if I just memorized it, I wouldn't make any mistakes. I noticed I had the wrong kind of onion, no cilantro, black pepper instead of white pepper, and chicken broth instead of chicken stock (there is a difference). Not the greatest start.

I was pretty clumsy chopping the onions and the carrots, but it made me laugh. I. Love. Cooking. I love browning butter and sifting flour and stirring in ingredients. I love chopping and dicing and baking and boiling and almost everything cooking related. It gives me a peaceful energy. The only things that stop me are not having enough time, only having so much stomach to fill, and fear of messing up.

The soup turned out great. No cilantro, but I'm not very fond of cilantro, so it wasn't missed. I added extra pepper to my own bowl. I also didn't puree all of the carrots. I wanted a little substance in the soup, and if I make this soup again, I think I will try adding other vegetables at the end. Maybe cauliflower and peas? I think it would be delicious.

 

Life is full of delicious things.