Full of Leeks

A few weekends ago Joan and I finally got around to making Potato Leek Soup. I really wish we would have made it sooner as it was so easy to make. It’s really just three ingredients: potatoes, leeks and broth. The hardest part really was finding room in our grocery bag to fit the seven leeks that we needed for the soup. However it was fun to continually make joking puns that not only our bag “had sprung a leek” but other things around the house did too. I even held up one to the ceiling so I could go, “Uh oh, our ceiling has a leek!” (This is what my wife has to put up with everyday.)

As I said, making the actual soup was easy. First, I did a simple scrubbing of the leeks and Yukon Gold potatoes. Next, I cut the greens and the root of the leeks off. Then to get all of the dirt out of the leek’s layers, I cut them in half, swooshed them around in the sink full of water, and then let them sit in that water (an Alton Brown tip). Then after doing that with all the leeks, I dried them and chopped them. I moved them to a sauté pan and sweated the leeks until tender. While the leeks were sweating away, I moved on to the potatoes. I just simply peeled them and sliced them thinly. I suppose I could have diced them as well. The potatoes and leeks were then just thrown in the stock pot where I then added essentially enough chicken broth to cover. Next, I just let the pot simmer until the potatoes where soft. To finish things off we hit the soup with the immersion or stick blender to smooth things out and then just seasoned with salt and pepper.

Freshly cleaned produce

It’s also worth mentioning that while the soup was simmering, I still kept myself busy by making some Irish soda bread (as you can see there in the picture.) My first attempt at making the bread – and any bread in general – was done earlier in December. Both times I came out with good bread, however the second attempt went a lot more smoothly. I learned my lesson from the first time: You can never have too much flour on the board when you’re kneading. Well, I’m sure you can but I’m still far from getting to that point. Just like the soup, the Irish soda bread also is very easy to make with just a few ingredients - just flour, salt, buttermilk and baking soda. I do want to move up to making more normal bread, like a nice crusty white bread, which I’ll hopefully have time to make this week.

The bread ingredients

The dough and the board needed more flour

The obligatory cross cuts for soda bread

The very bulbous final product

A fine winter meal

My Big Sunday

Just stay with me on this tangent of a lead-in. I eventually get to food.

While most everyone else in America, and especially here in Wisconsin, was excited for the Super Bowl Sunday night, I was instead excited for soccer (or real football) that morning. I woke up bright and early at 6 am on Sunday, plopped myself in front of my laptop and watched the Scottish Cup match between Celtic and Rangers. Now, I do typically watch English and German soccer matches on weekend mornings, but typically ones that are on this early. This match though was different. This not only was a Scottish Cup match but it was Rangers versus Celtic. Not only are they cross-town rivals in Glasgow, always the top teams in the standings, and the most supported teams in the Scottish Premier League, but on top of all of that their matches pit together two longtime rivaling groups – Irish Catholics (Celtic) and loyal to England Protestants (Rangers).

There is not a rivalry in sports that even comes close to Celtic and Rangers. Visiting players routinely have had death threats yelled at them by fans, saying something to the effect that if they score, they’ll be killed. (Some fans of course do this to get into the players heads, some probably are actually serious.) Rioting, maybe better described as all-out brawls have happened at the stadiums. People have died because of encounters after matches. Don’t even think about going into a Rangers pub wearing any green, or a Celtic pub wearing any red or blue. For that matter, don’t even go into some neighborhoods wearing the other team’s colors. While it has gotten better in recent years, fans still have to be seated in separate sections of the stadium on match days. This may sound more or less normal, but there is also a ten to fifteen seat buffer zone between the two groups, with security guards stationed every two rows on each side of the buffer area.

The match itself was brilliant, the best match I’ve ever watched by far. Not only were the fans of both sides in full voice with their choruses of team songs and cheers, but the play on the pitch was just outstanding. Rangers had the momentum in the first half, which was only helped by Celtic’s goalkeeper being sent off with a red card and making them have to play a man down. At halftime break, the score was 2-1 in favor of Rangers. In the second period, Celtic was now in charge even with one less man than Rangers and they were able to draw even. Matters got worse for Rangers and one of their strikers received a second yellow card and was sent off. After that however, things more or less evened out and the game finished a draw, albeit with eight yellow cards and two reds. The two teams, and the two groups of fans, will meet again in a few weeks to decide who moves on in the Scottish Cup.

With all of that excitement so early in the morning, I was glad that I decided the day before that I would make a full Scottish breakfast for myself once the match was over. I can’t say that it was an official Scottish Breakfast (according to the Wikipedia article) as it did not contain any black pudding or haggis. (As a side note, I have not had haggis but have had black pudding which I do quite enjoy. Also, if you do not know what black pudding is, I suggest doing a Google/Wiki search on it. Just saying.) My breakfast ending up consisting of the following:

Two fried eggs – Cooked over easy

Baked beans – These were just your store brand generic style baked beans from a can. Maybe they were the wrong type, maybe they weren’t. If someone knows what type I should be using let me know.

Grilled tomato – I ended up just putting these on the electric griddle instead of grilling them. It wasn’t ideal, but we don’t have a grill or grill pan, just a George Foreman, and I wasn’t even going to get that out for just three slices of tomato.

Bacon – This was good meaty bacon that we got at the co-op the day before. It really should have been rashers for this or Canadian style bacon. However, bacon was something Joan would eat out of all of this so I just stuck to good normal bacon. Like there’s anything wrong with that anyway…

Oatmeal sausage – I had this in our freezer. My parents make a batch of it from time to time; the recipe handed down on both sides of my family. It must be a German thing apparently. I just eat up the stuff, but Joan doesn’t even like the look of it. With that said, she should be really glad it wasn’t haggis. I would like to try haggis sometime, but really I don’t mind the missing organ pieces and the lack of a sheep’s stomach.

English Muffin – First of all, this of course wouldn’t be called an English muffin in the UK, just a muffin. Second, I don’t think I really should have had this as part of a Scottish breakfast. Toast would have likely been more standard or a dense scone as the mention on Wikipedia, but I really enjoy the English muffins we get at the co-op. I feel like a good soda bread would be really good too.

Tea – Of course I had to have tea. However, because of poor planning, I made Scottish Breakfast tea the morning before. Not wanting to make the same tea two mornings in a row, I instead made River Shannon Blend, an Irish breakfast blend. It was definitely good, but it did not make as hearty of a cup as Scottish breakfast teas always do.

All in all, I think I did a decent job. It maybe wasn’t as traditional as it should be but it was enjoyable to eat and enjoyable to make. Plus, I used the electric skillet all to myself, because I made that much food. Oh, and did I mention there was bacon?

Teapots

After my last post about tea, I thought it may be worth showing our collection of teapots. They all do indeed get used, whether we want a smaller amount of tea (the yellow one), a large amount of tea (the large Brown Betty in the back), or something in between (the blue traditional one in the back or the red Le Creuset in the front).


Joan has been gone this weekend and I've been making a pots of tea for myself in the large Brown Betty, simply because it was already out. This has probably been a mistake as I've either have been unable to finish the pot, it's been cold by the time I get to the last cups, or I've been hyper as can be after drinking so much tea (I've only been drinking strong black tea, Irish Breakfast and Grand Keemun for those who want to know). Still, all the tea has yet to give me enough gumption to what to go outside where there's four inches of fresh snow, the first of the year. I'll just stay inside where it's warm, and so is the tea.

Tea-ing It Up

My wife and I are both tea drinkers. For myself, I first started drinking iced tea, then green tea, and then my wife (only then girlfriend) introduced me to real tea, her family being tea drinking Anglophiles. That first true cup of tea was five years ago.

I’m not against coffee. I’ll drink a cup of it here and there, if it’s the only thing being offered for breakfast or with dessert. Coffee however has a harsh acidity that doesn’t agree with my stomach and it gives me such highs and lows from the caffeine that I sometimes get headaches. It seems many people experience the same side affects but strangely put up with it. Sure there are coffee snobs out there who only buy the beans from their favorite roaster and brew their coffee in a French press (myself included when I make coffee for guests) but the majority of coffee drinkers enjoy their java as long as it’s black, in liquid form, and are able to put cream in sugar in it. Wait, no, there’s also the third type. The Starbucks coffee shop types who order their lattes and cappuccinos with a magical code, take it in a to-go cup, and then always rush off somewhere. Americans rarely drink their coffee to enjoy it.

Tea on the other hand is meant to be enjoyed. The English even have a traditional pause in the afternoon for their tea. Tea comes in many different forms and comes from many different countries. You have herbal teas, green teas, black teas, and many in between. Black tea alone has an endless array of varieties – flavored black teas, traditional English blends, and single region teas from China or India, just to name a few. A full day of tea drinking may start for example with an Irish Breakfast blend in the morning, a mellower Ceylon in the afternoon, and a nice herbal fruit tea in the evening.

At work everyone drinks coffee, except for me. The older generation fills their cups of coffee from the communal coffee machine – the Pour-O-Matic, while the younger generation grinds their beans and fills their French presses at the hot water faucet. I on the other hand have a Bodum tea press at my desk, where I measure out some hearty black tea for the morning, fill it up with hot water, and then push down the plunger minutes later (basically like a French press). Many of my coworkers are used to me drinking tea by now, but I always get the occasional glance or comment.

The most common comment by far is that tea isn’t strong enough and isn’t enough of a morning pick-me-up. I always respond with “well you’re drinking the wrong kind of tea.” A good strong morning tea should be just as dark as a cup of coffee and be able to take milk just the same. With that said, I’ve been asked if I put honey in my tea. Not unless I have a cold, again just a bit of milk if it’s a strong black tea. As far as pick-me-up qualities, tea has caffeine as well of course, but for me it seems to be more gradual and with less spikes than coffee, so I don’t get jittery.

As an aside, tea made from a tea bag is not good tea! Usually tea remnants (from making the good tea) are put in tea bags. You might be getting good tea, but not the best parts of said good tea. Plus, with the small bag of tea that you normally get with bagged teas, hot water does not have enough room to work with the tea leaves and really make them bloom. You end up getting a mild and inferior version of what you could get with loose tea put into a filter or even a tea ball.

I often get by at work with just a tin of English Breakfast tea from Twinings, which isn’t a bad fallback by any means. However, with that supply running out and our cabinet of tea at home also getting depleted, my wife and I recently had to make an order through Upton Tea Imports from Holliston, Massachusetts. Among our selections for this purchase was a sampler set of Assam, a package of Premium China Keemun, a package of Richmond Park Blend (an English afternoon blend) and a package of Cape Cod Cranberry (a fruit tea).

Our other source of tea is the Tea Source, a small two-store chain of tea retailers in the Twin Cities. My wife’s family is from that area so we are there quite a bit and go to the Tea Source nearly every time. Even though we had just purchased tea from Upton less than a week ago, we still bought some tea – a package of Grand Keemun and Irish Breakfast. The Tea Source and Upton each have their own blends and different suppliers so they have slight variances in tea. For example I haven’t yet found a nice smoky Keemun from Upton that I have with the Tea Source’s Grand Keemun. Being larger and more traditional, Upton also has more varieties, especially of black teas. They also seem to be cheaper than the Tea Source. However, with the Tea Source you cannot only sit and drink a cup of tea, but they will let you smell the bulk tea before you buy.

If you’re new to loose leaf tea, Upton has a ton of knowledge on its website. They go in depth about the history of tea, but also explain the more simple concepts – like how tea is made and how to brew the perfect cup. Tea can be very overwhelming, but it’s very easy to get into. Put the kettle on, steep some leaves, and enjoy.

We had a kettle; we let it leak:

Our not repairing made it worse.

We haven’t had any tea for a week…

The bottom is out of the Universe.

- Rudyard Kipling

Missing Your Mise En Place

I recently read a New York Times food blog post, where its author Pete Wells disregards the idea of doing prep work before cooking. (You can read the blog post here.) He mentions how having your mise en place, your prep bowls of minced garlic, diced tomato, stripped rosemary, and so on, all laid out perfectly before starting the actual act of cooking is a fairy tale dream. It’s something that only snooty French chefs and those on cooking shows ever do.

Wells brings up the fact how many people do not simply have the time to cook this way. Commenting on his own life, he opens with the thought of his six year old son doing the prep work for him before he comes home. He also mentions how Sarah Moulton (who I do enjoy) is coming out with a cookbook and possibly a television show where the cooking is done while the next items are being prepped. While this is great for those “hurried” people out there and for these few select meals that can be done this way, it is not something that you should strive for. Imagine sitting down to your meal at Thanksgiving.

“Why Betsy this turkey is still frozen inside!”

“Oh that’s the way they do things now dear. No thawing. Cooking without any prep work is the way to do it.”

Ok, ok. I digress and will settle down a bit. Maybe it’s old fashioned to think so, but I believe preparation is the best way to start anything – especially a good meal. I equate doing the prep work for dinner to building IKEA furniture. You take out the instructions (the recipe), you lay out all the parts to build the entertainment center (the prep work), and then finally you take the odd Swedish uni-tool and start putting the pieces together (you take your mixing spoon in hand and combine your ingredients). There is a Benjamin Franklin quote stating that, “By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.”

Now do I mean to apply prep work to literally every meal? Well, no. Making macaroni and cheese from a box has a relatively low failure rate and such few ingredients that preparing a mise en place is just a waste of time. But take for example my most recent prep work. For dinner I was making mushroom risotto, so I minced the garlic and shallot, diced the mushrooms, measured out the rice and grated cheese ahead of time. My reasoning? What if I didn’t have the rice measured out before the garlic and shallot were softened? What if the rice had soaked up the chicken broth and it was ready for the cheese but I wasn’t? Things happen while cooking and you have to be prepared.

There is an episode of Julia Child’s French Chef, where she advises home cooks to lay out everything on a tray before cooking. That way you have all your prepared ingredients all in one spot and you don’t get surprised by the recipe and have to dash off to hunt for something in your pantry in the middle of cooking. (Oddly enough Moulton worked for Julia on one of Child’s later shows.) The idea of being ready for anything and focusing on one thing at a time is a time tested practice. Sure, you can talk on your cell phone and drive at the same time, but you can’t do either one well while doing the other. So why would you want to apply this doomed multi-tasking to cooking?

Julia, how could you?!?!

A day after posting my ideas for a porch garden, I read an article in the New York Times that dropped an atom bomb on my little foodie world. Julia Child hated cilantro and arugula. Quoting the article, she "would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor." You can read the full NY Times article here.

The article discusses how many people have a rudimentary disgust for cilantro's flavor - Mrs. Child included unfortunately. Yes, I know, Julia was the master of French cooking, which doesn't typically involve cilantro or arugula. And yes, as Joan said to me, "Honey, everybody has to dislike something, right?" As rational as those facts may be, I don't know if I can just let it be. Next time I mince cilantro for some pico de gallo or eat a summery arugula salad, I'll think "Julia wouldn't have liked this." Or the next time I watch an episode of The French Chef, I know two of my favorites, arugula and cilantro, won't be in the ingredient list.

WWJD - What Would Julia Do, just won't have the same weight as before.

Porch Garden

Since moving to our current apartment, Joan and I have wanted to have a small container garden out on our porch. Having moved in last June, we got a late start on any vegetables for last summer so we didn't have much for plant life except for a small basket of flowers that Joan's mom gave us. This year we wanted to have a full-fledged potted garden that would bear an abundance of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. However, doing some research, I found that not many garden plants would do well on our very shaded porch. Essentially, I learned anything that you raise for roots or fruits for the most part needs full sun. Well crud. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I mean crops like tomatoes and peppers need to ripen in the sun. Still, crud.

After doing some research, I found that leafy greens and herbs are our target crops. With that said we came up with a handful of herbs and vegetables to raise.

- Cilantro
- Basil
- Rosemary
- Dill
- Green Onion
- Arugula

The list is a bit herb heavy of course and to be honest, I'm kind of back and forth on the dill. Also, we're taking a bit of a chance on the green onion, but we're thinking it might be okay as it has a small root and you eat some of the green bit anyway. When it comes to leafy greens, arugula is my hands down favorite. With it's peppery bite, it brings way more flavor than any other greens to a salad or to a sandwich. However, we might add spinach to the list as that's a nice hearty green to use as well and in my opinion mixes quite well with arugula.

Now we just have to go to Home Depot or to a nursery and get some pots and potting soil. Also, I'm fearful of the neighborhood squirrels and what they might do to our small garden, so we might have to get a raised plant stand or some other deterrent. The squirrels either come down from the roof or leap across a good ten foot gap from a nearby tree. From time to time they would dig in the small basket of flowers last summer and I definitely don't want them to digging in our small garden - our eventual food supply - this summer.

As far as the plants themselves, we'll be checking out the first outdoor market of the season for the Dane County Farmers' Market on the square this weekend. Typically there are a few greenhouses that sell young seedlings for planting. One booth in particular has probably a dozen different types of basil alone. If we end up not having good luck at the market, there are a few good nurseries just beyond the outskirts of Madison.

All in all, I have good hopes for a little garden. Of course, it's my first official garden so we shall see.