Cream of Curried Broccoli and Asparagus Soup

This is one of my favorite “healthy” soups. Never mind the cream, the amount per serving is miniscule. I usually use only stems of asparagus, the spears go into omelet or other dishes even though I did use it as a garnish on occasion.

 Ingredients

1 onions, chopped

1/2 carrot, peeled and chopped

3 tablespoons butter

4 cups broccoli stems and flowers, chopped coarse

1/2 cup of asparagus stems, finely chopped

1 tsp. garlic, chopped

1 baking potato, peeled and chopped

6 cups chicken broth

1 tsp. curry powder

1/2 cup light cream 

Directions

Cook onions and carrots in butter over moderate heat, stirring, for 4 minutes.

Stir in curry powder and garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

Add broccoli, asparagus, potatoes and stock and season to taste.

Simmer mixture, covered, for 30 minutes.

Puree mixture with immersion blender until very smooth.

Add cream and heat over low heat.

Serve in preheated soup bowls and garnish with broccoli flowerets and croutons or toasted baguette slices. For better taste rub garlic clove on toasted baguette slices.

Another Week of Comfort Food

Christmas week is notorious for comfort food and my kitchen wasn’t any different.

Cannelloni. It just oozes comfort with béchamel, marinara and meat sauces topped with Asiago and Provolone cheeses and served with toasted garlicky baguette slices.

Roasted Chicken Thighs with Orzo. The thighs were roasted on a bed of carrots, onions, garlic and celery and served with orzo, one of our favorite pasta shapes. So good!!!

Pork Tenderloin pockets with local Swiss cheese. Tenderloin slices were pounded into a thin cutlet, seasoned with salt, pepper and Herbes de Provence and then stuffed with cheese and folded into an envelope shape. After shallow frying and then roasting in toaster oven I served them on bed of Lecsó (roasted peppers and onions).

Spaghettini with baby clams and cream sauce. Very quick to make and very good.

Our traditional Christmas meal: Pan roasted duck breast with red cabbage and bread dumplings. Duck breasts were cooked medium rare and just melted in my mouth. As usual, I used cold pan method where you start cooking the breast by placing breast skin side down in a dry heavy bottomed frying pan.

Another Week of Comfort Food

Actually, way too much of comfort food and way too much pasta for my liking. No less than 4 dishes were pasta and rest had potatoes!  It looks like next week will feature a lot of rice and rice noodle dishes.

Cannelloni.

When I was assembling this great dish I was thinking how closely related it is to Lasagne. In this version I used veal, ricotta and arugula filling with tomato and Béchamel sauce.

Roasted Chicken Legs with oven baked fries.

Crispy chicken skin, moist meat underneath and crunchy potato fries…what a combo!

Chicken breast stuffed with cheese.

Served with buttered noodles, spicy tomato sauce and arugula.

Chicken thighs, tomatoes and red peppers stew with buttered potatoes.

Penne Rigatoni with beef, mushrooms and tomato sauce.

Kassler with fruit sauce.

Traditionally the Kassler (German smoked pork chops) is cooked with sauerkraut but couple years ago I have tried it with pineapple and it tasted great. Since I didn’t have pineapple I tried a can of mandarin and pear compote. Great stuff! I’ll post full recipe later.

Veal and mushrooms ragout with buttered wide noodles.

Goodbye to Comfort Food

At least we hope that this was the last comfort food of this wet and cold spring season. Fittingly enough, to reflect the wet weather, I have prepared our favorite: Roasted Duck Leg and Red Cabbage. It was so delicious: crispy skin, moist and fall-apart meat, red cabbage that still had a good bite and a bit of crispness and served with soft and moist bread dumplings.
The Goodbye was very, very delicious.

Spaghettini with Clams and Cream Sauce

Another in series of comfort food recipes. This one is basically Spaghetti con Vongole recipe but without the shrimps.

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. olive oil

3 or 4 shallots, finally chopped

3 Tbs. chopped parsley

1 can of baby clams, drained and separated

1 c. of white wine

1/2 cup 35% cream or whipping cream

Nutmeg, pinch

Hot pepper flakes, to taste

1/2 tsp. white pepper

1/4 tsp. dried tarragon

Truffle oil, dash (optional)

Process:

Cook spaghettini till al dente, drain, foss with 1 tsp of olive oil and keep warm.

Heat frying pan and when hot add olive oil and then shallots. Sauté for few minutes but don’t allow to brown. Pour in wine and cook off. Add clam juice and cook till only about 1/4 cup remains. Add clams and sauté for about 2 minutes. Add cream and cook under medium heat till sauce starts to thicken. Add parsley, tarragon, nutmeg, white pepper, chili pepper flakes and optional truffle oil.

When pasta is cooked al dente, drain and toss with the cream sauce.