Broccoli Cheddar Soup

I have no clue why I decided to make this crap. I've never understood the broccoli and cheese combination. What's the point of taking an absolutely delicious, nutritious cruciferous vegetable and slathering it with fatty cheese, therby covering up every hint of its original flavor and negating the totality of its healthful properties? 

And if that "cheese" happens to be velveeta? Houston, we have a problem.

For me - and in the Mediterranean - broccoli is best served sauteed in garlic and olive oil, and seasoned with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon just before serving. 

Mmmmm good. Real good.

But while trolling the internet for recipes to use up some superfluous things in the fridge, I came across this recipe - which I tweaked - from the Food Network magazine. So here is a first (and most likely last) attempt at broccoli-cheddar soup.

Broccoli-Cheddar Soup
 -4 tbsp olive oil

-1 small onion, chopped
-1/4  cup all purpose flour
-1 cup milk or soy milk
-3 cups low-sodium
-2 bay leaves
-1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
-Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
-3 cups broccoli florets
-1 large carrot, diced
-1 1/2 cups (about 8 ounces) grated cheddar cheese
-½ cup grated parmigiano reggiano
-Chives for garnish

Directions

Cook onion in olive oil until tender, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the flour and cook until golden, 3 to 4 minutes, then gradually whisk in the milk until smooth. Add the chicken broth, bay leaves, and nutmeg, then season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, until thickened, about 20 minutes.

Add the broccoli and carrot to the broth mixture and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Discard the bay leaves. Puree with immersion blender until smooth.

Add the cheese to the soup and whisk over medium heat until melted. Ladle into bowls and top with crostini and chives

Eggplant Parmigiana

I don't make a lot of what Italophiles derisively call "Italian-American food." Dishes like spaghetti and meatballs, chicken piccata, and, the mother of all Italian-American fare, eggplant parm just don't do it for me on a daily basis. Nevertheless, when I am visiting my relatives and they cook this kind of stuff old-school style, I am the first in line to pack it down by the plateful. On a recent visit to my cousins house, we had what was the absolute best eggplant parmigiana that either of us had ever tasted.

I really should get the family recipe.

Really, though, eggplant parm is easy enough to prepare that whenever we get the urge, I pretty much just make it up as I go. How hard is it to slice up some eggplant, dredge it in flour, fry it in olive oil, and then assemble it with tomato sauce and cheese and bake?

When I stumbled upon this Whole Foods Eggplant Parm recipe that eliminated the frying step, I figured I'd give it a whirl. Eggplant acts like a sponge when you fry them in oil, so the one hazard of making the dish is that it can become way too oily.

In the end, this technique works quite well. There's still a huge clean up involved, but losing the frying step makes a difference.

Eggplant Parm
-Large eggplant, sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick pieces (I used two smaller, Sicilian eggplants which I find less bitter - you can salt and rest the eggplants after slicing to reduce bitter flavors)
-2 eggs, beaten with a fork
-1 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
-1 (25 ounces) jar pasta sauce (I don't think so - I made my own, see below)
-1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (I used smoked scamorza)
-1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese (Nope - use parmigiano-reggiano)

Preheat oven with a baking sheet inside to 375°F. Coat eggplant slices with beaten egg, then bread with panko crumbs. Spread oil on hot baking sheet and place eggplant slices on it in a single layer. Bake 15 minutes, flip and bake another 10 minutes.

Increase oven temperature to 475°F. In an 8 x 10-inch ovenproof dish, layer pasta sauce, then eggplant, and top with cheeses. Repeat, finishing with cheese. Bake until the cheese melts and turns golden in spots, about 15 minutes. 

Quick Tomato Basil Sauce
-1 tbsp olive oil

-½ medium onion
-½ clove garlic
-½ lb tomatoes, ½ 28 oz can
-Salt and pepper
-Basil leaves

Cook onion in olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes; add garlic and cook for 1 minute; add tomatoes and salt, pepper, and basil, and cook for 20-30 minutes, cool and puree in blender.

Lemon Garlic Chicken Thighs

Remember Emeril Lagasse? I don't mean "Bam" Emeril. I mean a quiet, creative Emeril as he appeared on the show "Great Chefs" and, later, "Essence of Emeril." Instead of prancing and dancing in front of a live studio audience, Emeril calmly and collectively shared some of his simple, interesting recipes, along with anecdotes about food history and culture. "Essence of Emeril" was a great show.

This recipe is adapted from one of Emeril's. I think I remember first seeing it on "Essence." We don't eat chicken that often. A drive down the Delmarva peninsula where the Tyson or Purdue factories live put an end to that practice. But when we can find a good organic, free-range supplier, chicken thighs are an excellent, often-overlooked option. The bone-in meat makes them ten times more tasty than the breast. They are super inexpensive. And perhaps most importantly, you have to really TRY to overcook them. Usually, they come out great even if left in the oven too long.

These days, I hear that Emeril is slinging $20 veal parm at the new casino in Bethlehem, PA.

I wish the old Emeril would come back.

Emeril Lagasse's Lemon Garlic Chicken Thighs
 -4 chicken thighs
-3/4 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp pepper
-1/4 cup all purpose flour
-2 tbsp olive oil
-1.5 cups sliced onions
-10 garlic cloves crushed
-1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

-1 bay leaf

-1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon

-3/4 cup chicken broth

-1.5 tbsp parsley

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Season the thighs with salt and freshly ground pepper. Place the flour in a shallow dish. Lightly dredge the chicken in the flour and set aside. In a large wide saute, heat the oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the thighs and brown well on both sides, about 6 minutes. 

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

Add the onions to the oil and cook, stirring to scrape up any browned bits from the chicken until wilted, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, crushed red pepper remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the bay leaf and cook 1 minute. Add the lemon juice, broth and browned chicken thighs to the pan. Bring the mixture to a simmer, cover tightly, and place in the oven. 

Bake for 20 minutes, remove the lid and cook an additional 15 minutes, or until cooked through and tender. Serve with parsley and a sliced lemon for garnish.

Emeril suggests serving with pasta. I cooked extra onions and instead served the chicken on a bed of them, with spinach on the side.

Garlicky Pasta Lentil Soup

New Year's Day 2013 was a memorable day indeed :)

KILU.

While some things change; others stay the same. And in our house - wherever that house may be - we strive to eat lentils for New Year's. In the Mediterranean, lentils are the must-eat food on the first day of the year, ensuring good luck for the days, weeks, and months to come.

Coming home to a near-empty pantry and fridge, I had designs on making a Neapolitan recipe of pasta with lentils... But when K made the call for "heavy" garlic, I decided to turn the dish into a hybrid between pasta with lentils and garlic soup.

In retrospect, I should have used green lentils... The red ones tend to break down into nothing (think Indian dal) so the result was more like a puree. But the flavors turned out just fine.

Garlicky Pasta Lentil Soup
-One cup red lentils, rinsed
-Five cups homemade chicken stock.
-1 tbsp EV olive oil
-1 carrot, minced
-1/2 medium onion, minced
-3 cloves garlic, crushed and finely minced
-3 cloves garlic, sliced
-1/2 tsp turmeric
-1 tsp dried oregano
-1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
-1 cup small tube shaped pasta (DeCecco's tubetti works well)
-Grated parmigiano reggiano cheese and chopped parsley 

In a medium saucepan, saute onion and carrot over medium high heat in olive oil until nearly soft. Add minced and sliced garlic, oregano, red pepper, and turmeric and cook for 1-2 minutes more. Add lentils and cook 1 minute more. Add chicken stock to lentils and cook, 15-20 minutes, until lentils are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste. Meanwhile, prepare a pot of salted boiling water and cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. To serve, place 2-3 tablespoons of pasta in a bowl and cover with several ladle fulls of the lentil soup. If the soup is too thick, add some reserved pasta water. Top each bowl with cheese and parsley, and drizzle with olive oil just before serving.

Cooking the pasta separately ensures that it stays al dente; if it cooks in the soup, it continues to absorb liquid and will get soggy.