Canned Soup

You might be asking yourself why I bother dedicating an entry to canned soup. Then again, you might not be a soup snob and enjoy it every day. Whichever the case, I am not a canned soup aficionado since I tend to make soup from scratch. As everything else really. However, I had a tooth pulled a couple of days ago and was not in the mood to cook, also partly due to the heat engulfing our house, thus I resorted to Campbell’s Chicken Soup with Rice and the one with noodles. On the rare occasion that I’m sick and can’t move, I ask my husband to pick me up soup from the store, which usually turns out to be just those cans. So I’m familiar with it. It’s not rocket science to heat it up and it tastes pretty decent. Today I actually made it a point to check the ingredient list and nutritional label. It was way overdue and I finally remembered to do so. Needless to say that I was flabbergasted despite the prior suspicion I had that I wouldn’t be happy with the outcome. Why in heaven’s name was there cream in it, milk solids, beef extract, various types of sodium, high fructose corn syrup and my favorite, mechanically separated chicken. Mmm. Nothing like chicken meat straight out of the Matrix. After reading the label to my husband, we mutually decided that it is in our best interest to make the damn soup ourselves, which I have done when not sick. Honestly, you throw water, a couple of drumsticks, carrots, onion and rice into a pot, add salt and bring it to a boil and you get the same thing. Minus the 2,000 milligrams of sodium. Yes, that’s how much one of those small cans of soup has. I did the math. And then promptly realized why my stomach and kidneys hurt. I should have consumed an extra gallon of water afterwards. Alas, I have learned my lesson and won’t do it again. For an extra twenty minutes, I can have a delicious soup made by moi without the worry of having mechanically separated my chicken.

Salt vs. Sugar

People tend to be either salt or sugar freaks, with the occasional exception of craving both equally. I am partial to salt, probably due to my upbringing. In Romania and Austria, we do love pickled and salted things. Olives, pickled vegetables such as cauliflower, green tomatoes, cucumbers, horseradish and carrots, bacon on its own and fermented items such as cabbage are just a few. I constantly hear that children have delicate palates and cannot tolerate strong tastes. If you had told my family that back in the day, they would have looked at you as though you had sprouted two heads. I ate pickles before I had a real sandwich. Same with the aforementioned items. Salt and vinegar are in my blood and I’m planning on passing that tradition on.
My husband on the other hand cannot for the life of him say no to anything sweet. Which is of course why he married me. Just kidding. He does have a serious sweet tooth though, which is great for me because I get to bake to my heart’s content. I can guarantee you that no crumb of cake is thrown away at our house. It compliments his afternoon cup of coffee, as well as my breakfast, our lunch dessert and of course the obligatory midnight snack. Because we are those kind of people. We snack at midnight. No matter what zip code or country we are in, we found out.
I am bringing him around to the salty side though. Slowly, very slowly. It took me 10 years to convince him that pickles with certain sandwiches are the bomb. I think Katz’s Deli in NYC really had more convincing power than my constant pushing however. So maybe I should thank them for making my husband see the light. First it was pickles, now it’s mustard. Lordy lord, it’s madness, I tell you. Next we might even move on to olives. The really salty kind. You know which ones I mean.
Until that time comes, I will indulge him and bake another cake. Actually I’m just indulging my own need to bake more than his need to munch on something while enjoying a cup of Joe.

Grilling At Home

A few weeks ago our neighbors moved out and sold us their gas grill. It’s a fancy piece of a thing and thankfully not as difficult to use as I thought. Although we have yet to change out the propane tank. Since we grilled on the 4^th of July, yes, we did the grilling, my husband was inspired to grill chicken drumsticks at home as well. And boy did they turn out good. Nothing like coming home from work on a Monday and being surprised by dinner. Actually nothing like being surprised by dinner period, since he rarely makes dinner. It was a delicious and wonderful surprise and I even managed to take pictures of the end result. Although I still have to write down the recipe of the marinade, which was passed down from his mother. Until then, here are pictures to get your mouth watering. It's chicken and green beans with garlic and pine nuts. He went all out.

 

Austrian Food Site

One of my favorite food websites is www.ichkoche.at, which is an Austrian site and thus written in German. Obviously if you can’t read German, this won’t be much help to you, unless you have spare time to translate, but I thought I’d mention it because you can browse through photos of recipes and at least get ideas. Translating the recipes isn’t hard either since most of them are not overly long.

In any case, this is where I go when I get homesick. I look up my favorite foods, figure out how on earth I can recreate some without setting my kitchen on fire and then get incredibly hungry. To be expected when looking at a food site. Which is not what you want to do before going grocery shopping, by the way. Trust me.

So I know the site by heart and have resorted to turning some of the recipe photos into a collage that graces my desktop, much to my colleagues’ dismay. If we meet in my office, they get to stare at this. I don’t think it’s too much…

 

Chili Potluck

In honor of tomorrow, we had a potluck at my office today, consisting of a chili cook-off, baked beans, cornbread, hot dogs, deviled eggs, pasta and potato salads and desserts. Needless to say, I feel as though I won’t be able to eat for a few days, as is always the case on such occasions. But alas, tomorrow is July 4th, which means I’ll probably be doing it all over again.
I made deviled eggs which were devoured like hot cakes. I borrowed from my mother’s recipe and added wasabi to them, which gave them a nice kick. I’ll have to write the recipe down to post here next time. They are always a popular item at the buffet table and are very easy to make. No need to buy them from the store because the home-made ones do take much better. And really, isn’t everything home-made better anyways?

New Kitchen Faves

There are always things I want to add to my kitchen library, which is what I call the entire domain really. It doesn’t just pertain to cook books, which I have plenty of, but to gadgets, references and just the coolest tools ever. For the longest time, I have wanted the items pictured below. In fact, I can safely say that I waited years to get that darn knife rack that when I finally picked it up, I felt like a kid at Christmas. It’s worth waiting for the things you really want, and since I am particular about the type of chalkboard or just the perfectly round cake dome, it can take forever for me to purchase items from my wish list. So these are the latest additions that I have used almost daily now.

 

Chalkboard 

 

Cake dome 

 

Self-explanatory 

Caprese Salad

It is safe to say that it has been hotter than Hades in the Southwest, which leaves me lethargic and in no mood to cook whatsoever. Come to think of it, I think my waistline has shrunk simply because I haven’t been eating. I have been pounding the water though, which in itself fills you up. On the rare occasion when I have moved my butt into the kitchen and thrown some ingredients together, it has been to refresh our melting selves. Think salads, fruit and not much else. So without further ado, here is a recipe for one of our all-time favorite salads, which I make at least once a week, usually for lunch. I didn’t invent it and I’m sure you’ve had it before at restaurants, but it’s much cheaper to make at home and it’s very easy.

A few notes about the recipe; I substitute red wine vinegar for the lemon if I’m out of lemons and I usually use sea salt, but regular will work too - just use less and taste it in case it needs more.

1 large tomato

1 fresh hunk of mozzarella

4 basil leaves

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

½ lemon 

Serves 2 

Cut the mozzarella into slices. Cut the tomato into slices and cut the slices in half so they are the same size as the mozzarella. Roll the basil leaves up together like a cigar and cut them into thin ribbons (the fancy term is a chiffonade). Arrange the tomato and mozzarella slices on a platter. Sprinkle the salt over them, squirt the lemon over and drizzle with the olive oil. Lastly sprinkle the basil ribbons over the salad and serve. You can let the salad sit for 10 minutes or so for the flavors to develop before serving.