Patatas bravas and cauliflower soup

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You know that Spanish tapas dish, patatas bravas? The one with potatoes in a spicy, smokey tomato sauce? This is my soup version of that. Plus cauliflower, for texture, flavor, and because potatoes and cauliflower are such good friends. It’s an easy soup to make, and the broth – warm, rich and spicy, is perfect for the freezingly dreary weather we’ve been experiencing here lately. I wanted it to be very brothy, but if you wanted a thicker soup, I think it would be nice to add a picada at the end…a mixture of toasted almonds, bread fried in olive oil, and garlic, all roughly ground together. I might try that some time! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Here’s Mississippi John Hurt’s beautiful Spanish Fandango, and Elizabeth Cotten’s equally heartbreakingly beautiful Spanish Flang Dang.
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Spinach, white bean, pecan bisque

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Spinach White bean pecan bisque

This soup is like green velvet. Greener than velvet is this soup. Ahem. This soup is made with a base of pecan tarator sauce. That’s what makes it smoooooth, and that’s what gives it a wonderful depth of flavor. I used butter to make this, but if you used olive oil instead it would be vegan, and yet so mysteriously creamy! I made croutons from the same whole grain bread that’s in the tarator sauce. I cut it into rough cubes, fried them for a few minutes in olive oil, and dusted them with basil and black pepper.

Here’s Bobby Vinton’s Blue Velvet because it’s stuck in my head now!
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Butternut squash pecan dumplings

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Butternut dumplings

I invented these little dumplings because I wanted something to serve with my pecan tarator sauce. I tried to think of something that would complement the earthy nutty flavor, but that would bring some surprising elements of its own to bring to the table – the dinner table, that is. I think these have a nice balance of flavors and textures. Sweet soft roasted squash, sharp briny capers, crunchy pecans, and smoky smoked gouda. The pastry on these is different from a regular paté brisée. It’s softer, and (as I imagine it) more dumpling-like. It’s actually loosely based on knish-dough recipes that I have read. It contains no butter! It’s not vegan, because it has an egg in it. But if you’re trying to avoid butter (why would you do that?) this is a good one to try. I added a little Spanish paprika to the crust, to echo the smokey flavor of the gouda, and to make them a lovely rosy color.

Here’s Johnny Otis‘ Harlem Nocturne, which is just a remarkable piece of music.
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Pecan-whole grain tarator sauce

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Pecan tarator sauce

I was thinking about tarator sauce the other day. The word means different things to different people, and contains different ingredients in various locations around the globe. For me, a tarator sauce is a combination of nuts, bread-soaked-in-water and seasonings. It is a thing of wonder! These unlikely elements combine to form something subtly flavored, smooth, creamy, and completely dairy-free! At first, I generally used pine nuts and white bread, garlic and lemon. Definitely delicious. Then I used almonds, because they’re also lovely and much cheaper. I made this savory vanilla sauce, for instance. And a tarator sauce can make the base of a creamy soup. My version of Jane Austen’s white soup combines an almond tarator sauce with white beans and cauliflower.

I’ve always thought of tarator as a pale ivory concoction, and I’ve generally used pale nuts and white bread. Well, the other day, faced with a very tasty but rapidly aging loaf of whole grain bread, I thought, why not make a tarator sauce with that? And I used pecans, because they have a wonderful distinctive flavor. And I used balsamic instead of lemon juice, for a little depth. And then I added roasted garlic, thyme, and rosemary, because it seemed to need all those things. Turned out delicious! We ate it as a sort of dip for butternut squash-pecan dumplings. But tarator sauce is very versatile. It’s good with french fries, or on roasted vegetables, or as a dip for anything you can think of dipping in it.

Here’s Soul Sauce from Cal Tjader

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Bakewell tart with cherries, cassis and bittersweet chocolate

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bakewell tart

My love of black currants is the legendary stuff of legend. Unfortunately, they’re not readily available in America, and my tiny black currant bush doesn’t produce very much in the summer, let alone in January. What bad luck! But black currant jam and creme de cassis are readily available in America. What good luck! For a while now, I’ve been wanting to make a bakewell tart…a tart with a pate sucree crust, a layer of jam, and a layer of almond-cake-like frangipane. I have such fond memories of eating them as a child, when we lived in England, out of a little box, with fondant and a cherry. Mine would be a little different, though. Of course I wanted to use black currant jam. And then I decided to add dried tart cherries and chocolate chips, for a balance of deliciousness. I soaked the cherries in cassis, then mixed them with the jam and the chocolate, and, I must say, the combination is killer! Especially together with the crispy cookie-like crust and the soft fragrant almond topping. A wonderful combination of crunchy, chewy, sweet and tart.

Bakewell tart

Here’s Ska Jam by Tommy McCook and the Supersonics

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Beet risotto croquettes

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Risotto croquettes

What do you do with all of your leftover risotto? Turn it into croquettes, of course! You could make these with any risotto, I think, but I had beet lime risotto left, so that’s what I used. They’re very very simple to make, and they make a nice meal with a big salad. I couldn’t decide if I should fry them or bake them, they’d be crispier fried, but they’d fall apart and smoke up the kitchen, so I decided to bake them. If I had a deep fryer, I probably would have used that. But I don’t! (As we discussed this conundrum, my husband and I came up with the idea of slow cooker deep frying. For maximum oil absorption! Yum!) Baking them also gives the special surprise cheese in the center a chance to melt. What’s better than melted surprise cheese? We had these with a sauce made of pesto, balsamic, and a little of the broth that I used to make the risotto itself, but you could vary the sauce to suit your mood or the risotto that you used. My son dipped them in barbeque sauce!

Here’s A Tribe Called Quest’s wonderful Ham and Eggs. That’s right, they say “nice red beets”!

Asparagus tips look yummy, yummy, yummy
Candied yams inside my tummy
A collage of good eats, some snacks or nice treats
Apple sauce and some nice red beets
This is what we snack on when we’re Questin’
(both: No second guessin)

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Toasted beet risotto with lime

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Beet Risotto

Holy smoke, I’m excited about this one. Here’s how it all went down…we recently saw the fascinating film Beats, Rhymes and Life about A Tribe Called Quest. I was going on and on about it, and my friend Luke told me that Japanther, a band I like a lot, had just released an album called Beets, Limes and Rice! First of all – what a good name for an album! Second of all, what a good combination of tastes! Sweet, earthy beets and bright tart limes? Genius! So I decided to make a risotto (that’s the rice part) with beets and limes. I like risotto, but after years of encountering risotto as The Vegetarian Option at restaurants, I’ve become slightly disenchanted with it. Making this beet risotto brought all the magic back! For one thing, it’s really pretty. It’s lovely and ruby colored. For another thing, risotto is fun to make. It’s almost therapeutic. It requires attention, but it’s not really demanding, it can’t all go wrong for you. Well, it could, but it’s not likely to. And for yet another thing, risotto can be sort of mushy (I’m sorry, risotto, but it’s true). Which is why I decided to top it with pistachios and serve it with baby arugula, to be mixed in at the last minute, so it wilts slightly but retains its texture and bite. And the goat cheese, beside being a pretty white addition to go with all the scarlet and green, adds a nice touch of tartness to mingle with the lime and offset the beety sweetness.

beets, limes, and rice

And as it happens I’m completely enamored of the Japanther album. Here’s a track called Porcupine.
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Broccoli and kale paté

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broccoli and kale paté

Brassicaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! This paté brings the sexy back to your brassica. Yes, they smell funny when you cook them. Yes, they’re good for you. Yes, when overcooked they’re stodgy and horrible. But brassica can be really delightful – bright, green, flavorful, juicy! That’s how we find them in this delicious and simple paté. My sister-in-law, Christy, was over for dinner the night I made these. She doesn’t like kale or broccoli (I know, I’m a very considerate hostess!) but she asked for two helpings of this! We ate this on thinly sliced toasted whole grain bread with a bowl of soup, and it made an easy, satisfying meal. It would make an elegant appetizer, as well, or snack for a party.

Here’s Beirut’s brassy Gulag Orkestar to listen to while you boil your brassica.
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Root vegetable minestrone

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Root vegetable minestrone

I was in the mood for something really simple. Just vegetables in a warm broth, slightly sweet/slightly tart. I liked the idea of using root vegetables, because they seem perfect for the time of year, and for the simplicity I was seeking. They also have a nice contrast of sweet (carrot, sweet potato) and slightly more assertive (turnip). I seasoned this very simply – just rosemary, basil, oregano and a little fennel seed. I made pasta to add if you wanted, which, I suppose, is what makes this minestrone and not just vegetable soup. I used elbows, because there’s something sort of childish and soup-out-of-a-cannish about them, which I like. And I added a few spoonfuls of sugar when it was cooking, and squeezed a lemon in at the end, but you could easily leave out the sugar and let the vegetables shine with their own sweetness. SInce this is supposed to be simple, I’m going to stop talking about it and tell you how I made it!

Here’s Mikey Dread’s Roots and Culture.
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Apple cake with flapjack topping

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Apple cake

You know who could make this cake? Peter Rabbit’s mom, that’s who! I realize that this is the third time I’ve attributed a recipe to Peter Rabbit’s mom. The truth is, she’s a master chef, and she’s going to have a show on the cooking channel. It’s going to be called Fantastic Foraging!! Actually, thinking about Mrs. Rabbit’s culinary skills seems to represent the epitome of warm and comforting winter cooking, for me. Cooking with food you can find in hedgerows. Like blackberries. And there is a layer of jam between the apple cake and the flapjack topping. I should also mention that this is “flapjack” in the English sense of the word…an oaty cookie made with golden syrup, not the American sense, which is a pancake, which would make a weird topping for a cake. So, this is a spicy cake made with molasses topped with a layer of blackberry jam and then a chewy crispy layer of oats mixed with butter, golden syrup and raw sugar. Simple. Nice with coffee in the morning, nice with a dollop of vanilla-flavored whipped cream, a chunk of dark chocolate and a glass of wine after dinner.

Here’s In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree by Duke Ellington
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