Cooking - Fresh and Simple Corn Soup

With the spoils of a farmers' market on the kitchen counter, I came up with a simple soup yesterday that can be served hot or cold and falls into the "it's good for you " category of guiltless pleasures. I guess I'll call it "1,2,3,4 Soup" - you'll see why. My test tasters are in agreement that this is best served chilled - allows for more flavor to come through. So with reports of 112F in the valley and a mellow 80F up here in the mountains I'm perfectly happy to sip away at my soup on the deck, snoozing dogs at my feet and hummingbirds mobbing the feeders.

Corn Soup

Dutch oven or soup pot
TBSP or more olive oil
1 oz. pancetta or chopped bacon

Put the olive oil and pancetta or bacon in the pot, cook over med to high heat about 5 minutes until the bacon is crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and either discard (or in my case, mix with the dogs dinner!) solids and leave the rendered fat in the pot.

ADD

1 Cup sweet onion thinly sliced
2 Cups fresh zucchini thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic chopped

to the pot and cook in the fat/oil over low heat for about 10 minutes or until the onion and zucchini are cooked.

ADD

3 Cups fresh shucked corn kernels
Stir in gently and cook a further five minutes.

ADD

4 Cups broth or water * and simmer 20 minutes or until corn is cooked.
I added a whole dried ancho chili to the simmering broth for added flavor. You could substitute 1/2 tsp. of dried red pepper flakes and add them in the initial sauteing of onion and zuchini.

* I used a Culinary Broth packaged by College Inn (it was what I had in the pantry) this is a chicken broth flavored with white wine, thyme and rosemary . You could use plain chicken stock, vegetable stock or water. Personally I like the "body" you get from a stock.

After cooking, cool check to see if you need salt and then puree in batches proportionate to the size of your blender or food processor. I found that the blender did a better job on the corn than did the processor. Serve hot or cold with a dab of sour cream mixed with diced fresh red pepper and cracked black pepper for garnish.

Cooking - He wooed me with a lamb curry

I love food for all its sensuality. I love the scent of onions sauteing, a ripe melon, a freshly baked loaf; I love to browse food displays. I'll take Granville Market, Pike Place, East Sound Saturday market on Orcas, St. Philip's Farmer's market in Tucson, over the latest movie offering; I love the snap of a freshly harvested green bean; I love hefting perfectly proportioned eggplant in each hand and most of all I love the taste of a fig, sun ripened and plucked from the tree.

I don't eat a lot, I avoid buffets; I do like to play with my food. Maybe twenty plus years ago following divorce from my first husband I became conscious of my need to share this love with a partner. I realized that in that marriage food was purely functional. Yes, I was a good and adventurous cook; I gave splendid dinner parties but he had no role in that. It was compartmentalized as my job. Shortly after that breakup I had a relationship with a man who celebrated food, who was openly demonstrative about his likes, who teased me in the kitchen, peeled the potatoes and did the dishes. This is it, I thought, nirvana - a man at ease in the kitchen. Didn't last long but that shared passion became a benchmark for other men in my life.

My late husband, on our third date, arrived at my house with an apron, a cleaver, a leg of lamb and a box full of spices – he wooed me with a lamb curry. Even during his long illness, when his appetite was diminished, he'd reminisce about a meal we had cooked together and ask for it again. In those long months I cooked many dishes just for the sounds, tastes and scents. One day he recalled a dish we had shared in Sardinia – fregola con vongole – clams with fregola, a Sardinia pasta a bit like couscous. I scoured Tucson for fregola , finally getting up the nerve to call the a chef/owner of a well known Italian restaurant. He listened to my story and prepared the dish for me. By the time I brought it home, David had forgotten his request but it didn't matter.

I’m in a relationship now that I have high hopes for. He loves to cook, he enjoys the same sensual approach to food as do I. We’re still long distance but of the many daily e mail exchanges and phone calls, food figures largely. Just little details about what we're having for breakfast, the peach that was so ripe and full of juice he needed to change his shirt after eating it, me spreading avocado on toast and sharpening it with a squeeze of lime and a grind of black pepper, the halibut steak that flaked like a dream and was made even better with the addition of a little lemon zest and parsley to the pan sauces, the simple soup I’m about to make today with ripe, sugar heavy sweet corn and pancetta. When we are together we love to plan a meal, shop, pick the right wine – and then cook, talk, laugh and share. That's what I mean when I write that I love food for all its sensuality.

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Cooking Blog - Bon Appetit . Thanks for the memories, Julia

I see maybe four movies a year - I'm just not a movie person but one coming out soon is penciled in my book. Julia and Julie - based on two true stories, the first, Julia Child's My Life in France (co-written with her nephew) and on Julie Powell's blog of 2002-2003 when she made a dish every day for a year from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Can't wait. I think any of us who had access to a kitchen from 1960 onward and exposed to The French Chef, the PBS cooking show, have been influenced by Julia Child. Her books were my bibles in the kitchen. I was fearless in following her recipes – all my friends were. August issue of Bon Appetit magazine has a delightful tribute to Julia and a suggested menu of her classics. Were she still living she would be 97 this month and the article is a birthday tribute. The dessert made me smile. I first made a Reine de Saba cake in 1976. It was my contribution to a Julia inspired potluck amongst my circle. It was such a hit that I made it again a week or so later for a small dinner party at my house. One of the guests raved about it. Blooming with my success I offered to bring it to a celebration they were having for a major life event at their house in the next month. “You will?” wonderful and this rather exotic woman who choreographed modern dance (her husband composed quite strange atonal music) hugged me. “We have eighty people coming”. I gasped, regained my composure and the day before the party made ten Reine de Saba’s – didn’t make another for twenty-five years!

Julia Child inspired heroics in the kitchen. I lived in Cincinnati 1975 to 1981 and although the details escape me now, for some reason the architect who had designed our house in the sixties became a dear friend and at one point lived with us for several months. Didn’t know it at the time but he was entering into dementia and rather strange behaviors resulted. I taught at a university and had two children. I came home one day to find the kitchen in total chaos, every single pot I owned dirty and the table set for dinner. Woody had had a “Julia moment” and made dinner. The centerpiece of the meal was a bloody roast duck and the carcass had been ”pressed” to produce ‘juice”. Another time I was teaching and there was a knock at my door – it opened to reveal Woody looking agitated and beckoning me. Fearing something terrible had happened at the house I rushed over to him – he grabbed my arm and literally dragged me to the parking lot – “Just look “ he said. And there in the back of his VW, suspended in a sling made from a sheet was, as he put it, “the perfect French loaf”. Back home I discovered that he had ‘modified’ my beautiful new Jennaire by removing all the shelves and lining the inside with clay tiles to reproduce a French bread oven.

Ah, Julia, thanks for the memories, the inspiration, and the laughter in the kitchen and for encouraging my efforts to master the art of French cooking. Bon Appetit. I plan on making the full suggested menu from the August Bon Appetit and will enjoy every moment of doing so – and I’ll lick the bowl when I make the Reine de Saba.

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Keep it Simple

Rainy, low cloud day up in the mountains yesterday and I have two grandsons to feed and amuse - lost count of how many rounds of Scrabble we played.
Did a freezer raid and found boneless short ribs - the essential ingredient for a simple slow cooker dish.

2lb. boneless short ribs
2 large sweet onions
1 can Guinness or other dark beer
1 tsp. dried thyme or several sprigs of fresh
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
good grind of cracked black pepper
Sea salt to taste (Maldon preferred)

Put the flour, mustard and pepper into a large ziplock bag. Add the beef, shake well to cover. Remove beef and discard bag and remaining flour.

Put the beef into a slow cooker, slice the onions thinly and add along with the thyme, Guinness and a good pinch of sea salt (if using regular salt add later when you can taste the sauce). Cook on low 8 hours.

We had this last night with mashed sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli - all plates were cleaned! Feeding kids I'm often reminded that simple is better and identifiable foods more palatable but this stew pleased them; more so , I think, because they were involved in the preparation process. Don't worry about alcohol in this - the cooking burns it all off and the result is a smokey, rich sauce.

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Here's What's Cooking at Connections

I’m convinced that life comes around and bites women twice. First time with the Freshman20 – those pounds you put on eating dorm food and then in later life, the Post Menopause20! Things change when the hormonal balance is mucked around with. Throw in a good dose of stress, family issues that have you putting yourself second and women quickly fall into habits that entice that extra weight to stick around.

New Year brought that introspection my way. “Need to lose at least 15 lbs “ I muttered. A regular gym denizen and a regular walker – dog demands it, I was in good muscle tone shape – just carrying extra baggage. I know from past endeavors diets don’t work for me. I also know that the moment I feel deprived I console myself with a bacon sandwich. I upped the cardio and cut down on portion sizes (or so I thought). Five weeks into my new regime I had gained three pounds! Drastic measures needed said my child sized G.P. – you need to jump start your metabolism. However she offered no suggestions as to how to do that.

Flipping through a magazine I came across an ad and endorsement for Nutrisystem. I bit. To be absolutely honest, its severely restricted calorie intake and flavorless food does work. I lost 7 lbs the first month. I also lost my patience, and my sense of humor. When the second month’s supply arrived I opened the box to find more of the cardboard tasting pizza crusts and dried food soup containers. I lost my temper! I called the Company and reamed out the helpless young man on the end of the line and cancelled my future orders. I packed up the box and left it at a food collection station in the shopping center near me.

Lessons learned: 1. I gained a very good visual of exactly what calories looked like and have been able to cut down portions accordingly. 2. Food is too important in the fabric of my being and daily life for me not to shop, handle, prepare, grow and share food.

Welcome to the Connections for Women Cooking Blog. Our intent is to share a love for food, cooking, gardening, eating well, entertaining, recipes, trends, moans and groans, whoops and hollers about all of the fore mentioned. Your comments are welcome and encouraged