Green Gazpacho

First - I have a new lens for my camera, so if pictures are a little wonky, please bear with me as I learn the differences between it and what I was using before. Thank you.

Second - this is the best hot-weather supper I've made in ages. I couldn't figure out what it might taste like from reading the recipe, but it's amazing. I made a few adjustments to the recipe to tailor it to what I had on hand, but not that many. Give it a shot - it comes together in practically no time at all. And if you omit the croutons, there isn't a whole lot going on that might heat up the kitchen.

Third - the recipe says it serves six. That might be more like serves six to eight. This made a LOT. And that was without the ice in it, which would have boosted the volume further still...

Yotam advises that a standing blender is the best way to prepare this gazpacho, but I imagine that would take many batches. I used my 12-cup food processor and still found I had to pour some of it into a bowl, prepare the rest and combine it all at the end. Not a hardship, but I imagine that might get a little tedious in a smaller standing blender... An immersion blender might do the trick, but as I have never really used one myself, I couldn't say that with any confidence. If anyone does try it with an immersion blender, can you please let me know how it goes?

This soup is loosely based on tarator, a cold yogurt and cucumber soup from the Balkans, according to the introductory text in the cookbook. A green gazpacho is a new concept for me, as most of the gazpacho recipes I have read prior to this feature tomatoes rather heavily. I really enjoyed the vibrant colour of this soup as well as the layers of flavour. And given that it's comprised mostly of green growing things, it tastes incredibly fresh. I think I am in love.

As usual, the recipe is directly from the book and the written description includes my alterations and observations.

Green Gazpacho
(p. 180, Plenty)

Serves six (or more)

Croutons
2 thick slices sourdough bread
4 tbsp olive oil
salt

Soup
2 celery stalks, including leaves
2 small green bell peppers, seeded
6 mini cucumbers (1 1/4 lbs), peeled
3 slices stale white bread, crusts removed
1 fresh green chile (or less if you don't want it too hot)
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cup walnuts, lightly toasted
6 cups baby spinach
1 cup basil leaves
2 tbsp chopped parsley
4 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 cup olive oil
3 tbsp Greek yogurt
about 2 cups water
9 oz ice cubes
2 tsp salt
white pepper

To make the croutons, preheat the oven to 375F. Cut the bread into bite-sized cubes (Yotam advises 3/4") and then toss the pieces with the olive oil and some salt. Spread on a baking sheet and bake for roughly 10 minutes, or until the bread has crisped and turned golden. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool until needed.

To make the soup, begin by assembling and prepping your vegetables.

The first of my substitutions came here - I used large garden cucumbers rather than the mini ones due to cost, used one very large green pepper rather than two small, and added an extra stick of celery because my two were looking a little scant. Roughly chop all of the vegetables and place them into your blending option. I am going to say food processor going forward, as that was what I used. This amount of vegetables was already a substantial volume in the processor, so I went ahead and pureed what was there to give me more room to pile in additional ingredients. The results looked like this:

To that puree, add the bread, chile, and garlic. You can retain the chile seeds if you'd like it a bit hotter, or add additional chile to taste. I didn't have any white bread in the house (I rarely do) so I crumbled up and used the last chestnut scone in place of the bread slices instead, figuring with the nuts in the soup, the flavour of the scone wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't. You could probably get away without including any of the bread called for if you wanted to. Then I added the spinach, basil, vinegar, and oil. I omitted the parsley because I was out. Then I had to blend again as I was running out of room in the processor. To the results of the second blending I added the nuts, substituting the pecans I had on hand for the walnuts.

I blended everything together into a smooth puree, and then poured roughly half into the bowl I intended to use for serving as I was out of room in the processor with a few ingredients yet to add. I knew I was out of room because there was green juice sneaking out of the connection for the lid. It looked like the Hulk was bleeding on my counter.

To what remained in the food processor I added the Greek yogurt, water, salt, and the white pepper. At this point I thought I was going to include the ice, but then realized I didn't have enough in the freezer to chill both the drinks and the soup, and opted to reserve it for the drinks as I could settle the soup into the fridge for a decent stretch of time before my company arrived. So I combined the two portions of puree and stirred them together well before putting the bowl in the fridge.

If you like your soup thick, I advise leaving out the ice cubes. I made it this way and it had a lovely texture and body. If you prefer your soups a little thinner, add some or all of the ice, or additional water until you achieve your desired consistency. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Serve immediately and very cold.

We crumbled a bit of feta and a few of the croutons into the soup as a garnish and enjoyed it immensely.

I was really happy with the meal tonight: gazpacho and a strata I had made earlier served for the main course, and we had homemade coconut lemongrass sorbetto for dessert and Pimm's lemonade as our beverage. I wasn't sure all of the flavours would work together, but they did. An excellent meal shared with people I am quite fond of resulted in good conversation and the passing of a pleasant evening. It was exactly what I wanted today and I like it when things work out that way.

Chestnut Scones

One of the purchases I made while I was at home was a bag of chestnut flour. I'd been looking for it haphazardly for the last year, ever since reading this recipe in Dorie Greenspan's Baking and finally found it at the Italian Centre Shop. I might be the only person I know who dances a jig in the middle of a shop aisle upon finding flour, but I'd be happy to be proven to be in good company. 

These scones have a slight sweetness and their flavour is subtle, but really lovely. I was expecting them to be more exotic than they turned out to be, but that was just fine. It's a great recipe as is and I think there's room for tinkering. I want to make another batch and add some of the bergamot extract to it, as I think it could be delicious.

Chestnut Scones

(p. 34, Baking)

Makes 12 

1 large egg

3/4 cup cold heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup chestnut flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick or half a cup) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled

To begin, centre a rack in your oven and preheat it to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat if you are lucky enough to have one. 

In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir together the egg, cream, and vanilla. I ended up using vanilla soy milk instead of the cream, which wasn't a problem. 

In a larger bowl or the basin of a large food processor, measure out the flour, chestnut flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk or pulse to combine the dry ingredients thoroughly. Add the chilled butter pieces and blend the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You should have some larger flakes of butter and some smaller pieces - the variation is a good thing here. If you are working with a food processor, take care not to over-process so that everything is evenly dispersed. 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix to combine. This dough will be wet and sticky. Don't over mix it or the scones might be tough. I found it easier to remove the flour/butter mixture from my food processor and do the wet/dry mixing in a bowl on the counter. Still in the bowl, knead the dough gently by hand 8 to 10 times until if forms a smooth mass. 

To shape the scones you have a few options. Dorie recommends turning the dough out onto a lightly floured counter, dividing it in half, and shaping each half into a disk roughly five inches in diameter. Each disk can be cut into six wedges. Alternatively. I portioned the scones straight out of the bowl with my fingers, which resulted in a more rustic drop-scone look that I happen to be partial to. The scones can be frozen at this point by placing them on a baking sheet, putting that sheet in the freezer and then wrapping them with plastic wrap once they are fully frozen. They don't have to be defrosted before baking, just add about 2 minutes to the total baking time. 

To bake the scones, place them in the oven for 20-22 minutes, or until their tops are golden and firm to the touch. They are best if cooled on a rack for 10 minutes before serving, or at room temperature. 

My new camera lens gets here today, so here's hoping I can provide some better food photos with its assistance. ^_^

Watermelon and Feta

I have just come back from a great visit to my home city, refreshed and laden down with ingredients for cooking and baking that I have yet to find in Regina. I probably spent a little more than I should have, but who could turn down bergamot and pistachio extracts? Or a dark fuchia-purple opaque vinegar that has been infused with cassis? Or the five colour orgoglio pasta that looks like bits of cubist paintings shredded and rolled into tiny tubes? Or the Polish fruit teas that smell like summer in a bag? Not me.

Having these new things to play with has revived my cooking brain a bit, which was feeling a little burnt out and bored prior to the trip. I can now make the chestnut scones I'd read about in Dorie Greenspan's Baking. I can try a new variation on pistachio gelato. I can muck about with the bergamot extract and see what happens. It's exciting and I needed this sense of play back. I also needed the heat to not be hovering around 40C with the humidity and it has obliged. It's still warm here, but not so prohibitively warm that I feel like I can't cook, although I might save my baking for the late evening just the same. I've also just finished reading Blood, Bones & Butter, which is an amazing memoir full of wry and gritty humour and descriptions of food and places that practically glow in the mind. It has stoked and sated my wanderlust in equal measures and tempted me back to the kitchen to make good, simple food.

Before I left to go home, the heat here was intense. Part of the problem with that kind of heat is that I don't feel much like eating and far less like cooking. I can sit and research the entire day if I have iced teas to sip on, but negotiating solid food decisions becomes difficult. I had splurged on an abundance of produce at the beginning of the month (yay scholarship disbursements!) and was mostly eating things  plain and raw. Along with the Rainier cherries, apricots, cucumbers, and tomatoes I had purchased was a small watermelon. This watermelon became dinner one night when it was too hot to even think. Initially I prepared half the watermelon because I wasn't that hungry, but the flavours wowed me so much that I went back for the other half and polished it off, too. This is my new favourite way to eat watermelon and I was so surprised by it that I texted a few friends that night extolling its virtues. You will want to try this, promise.

You don't have to stick to the proportions of the recipe if you don't feel like it - adapt it to whatever suits you. I didn't use the full measure of feta, and I added a bit of fresh, course ground black pepper to the second batch. I also omitted the olive oil and the onion the second time around, although fruit infused olive oils could probably be a lot of fun here. The basil is a surprising and delicious addition - give it a shot, even if you have your doubts about it.

Watermelon and Feta
(p. 282, Plenty)

Serves 4 (if you feel like sharing)

10 oz feta
4 1/2 cups large chunks of watermelon
3/4 cup basil leaves (loosely to moderately packed)
1/2 small red onion, very thinly sliced (optional)
olive oil

Slice the feta into thin pieces or break it by hand into smallish chunks. Arrange everything except the oil on a serving platter or in a shallow bowl and gently mix them together a bit. Drizzle with the olive oil and serve immediately.

The Pricey Pesto

I am publishing this post mostly as an excuse to laugh at myself. Today, I let my inner magpie - that brainless, flighty, impulsive bit of myself that goes off on tangents that start "Ooh! Shiny!" and typically end in some kind of bemused contemplation or regret - buy a total of $64 worth of basil. How? My particular blend of mathematical ignorance combined with my desire to cook amazing things for other people and resulted in hilarity.

I was wandering the Farmer's Market this morning with my friends Bianca and Dale, admiring and getting excited about all of the produce that is starting to come available here now that we are a few months past melting. There were lots of lovely new additions to tables - colourful golden and burgundy beets, crisp lettuces and other leaves, freshly picked shelling peas, new potatoes, all kinds of squash... Among the new additions were bundles of dill and other herbs on display at many of the stands. As we walked past one particular stand I noticed a couple of very large pots on the ground beside a table and observed that they were full of lovely, full bushes of basil, one of the few fresh herbs I use a lot of that I hadn't managed to grow myself so far this summer. I asked the gent tending the stall how much the plants were, and he said "Well, they've been growing for quite a while, so probably $35 each." I nodded and decided I didn't need one that badly, or at least not that one, as I had heard of smaller plants available at a supermarket for quite a bit less. He then piped up and said that he was selling his loose basil for a dollar a gram. Somehow in my head that seemed like a reasonable price, and I remembered that I had promised Amie (well, promised is the wrong word really, it was more like ceding to her demands ^_~ ) that I would make the pesto buns I had made for a previous gathering again for our next one which is coming up quite soon. I knew I needed 1.5 ounces of basil (about 2 cups loosely packed) to make the pesto for the buns. So not being smart enough to pull out my phone and check the conversion from ounces to grams, I told the gent that I needed the 1.5 ounces and he nodded and set to work snipping bright green leaves from the bushes and piling them into the bowl on his scale. In the end he gave me 1.9 ounces of basil, estimating a 0.4 ounce loss once I had removed all of the stems. Converting that to grams resulted in 56 (if I am remembering all of the numbers correctly, and I think I am)... which meant I now owed him $56.

Talk about sticker shock.

My first reaction was to refuse as I certainly hadn't been expecting that kind of pay out - and to top it off, I didn't even have cash on me and had been planning on paying back my friends for the purchase once I made it to a bank. Apparently I looked shocked, because the gent was suddenly watching me fairly closely. More thinking out loud than trying to be annoying I said "I certainly wasn't planning on spending $56 to make these buns", to which he nodded. I knew I was going to go through with the purchase regardless, because it was my own fault that I hadn't done more to ascertain the outcome myself and it seemed unfair to leave the picked leaves behind to wilt and therefore penalize him for my shortsightedness. As I stood there and thought for a moment, he leaned over the table and with a very conspiratorial look said "I'll give it to you for $40." Still a lot of money, but slightly lower on the scale of wow. I accepted, borrowed the money to pay for it and then left my friends sitting at a sunny bench while I ran to the bank. From that point on, we got up to some other shenanigans, which included a brief sojourn to a supermarket to track down the smaller basil plants I had not purchased earlier  - two of them for $8. It's a slightly different variety, but hey, it works. I am pretty sure there are people buying similar quantities of weed for less money than I paid for the first bundle of basil, though...

It so happens that I am reading about the development of the modern economy for my research right now, and my experiences today illustrated a point I'd been learning about quite eloquently - it's usually better to own the means of production than to be reliant on buying the results. If I had bought the $35 plant at the beginning of the exchange I'd have saved money, had more than the required amount of basil for the recipe, and probably ended up with a hardier plant specimen than my later supermarket offerings. Live and learn. Now that I've had time to let it settle in my brain, it makes me laugh and is a good example of how my impulsiveness and good intentions get me into minor trouble now and again.

And now a quick set of photos to celebrate the pricey pesto:

The recipe for the pesto and the buns themselves can be found here.

Also - I now have a rasp grater. That thing is awesome.