Cabbage Soup

When I first started cooking for myself seriously, I was 18 years old, and broke. Like any young female, I was self-conscious about my weight, and wanted to try my hand at the age-old fad diet roulette. I started with the cabbage soup diet, originally because I felt like hell and had insomnia, so internally I felt off-kilter, and it was wintertime, and I was always cold, regardless of how I dressed or how close I was to a heating element. While I only did the full diet for a week, I was surprised with how impressed I was with the soup, and continue to make it to this day. 

The smells and textures are satisfying and rich, and the color is quite exciting for a soup, known for their browns and creams. Gabe's father once told me this was the best vegetable soup he's ever tried. There are many memories in preparing this soup for me, as I've made it at many addresses in different phases of my life for different people, so it's quite a sentimental recipe for me, i must admit. It's one of the few foods that leave me feeling noticeable re-energized, post-consumption. The kid even loves it! 

Like any soup, throw anything in it, no dairy or squishy vegetables, though. I put mine in the slow cooker around eleven this morning and it's still on high, but it only takes a couple hours over the stove.

CABBAGE SOUP

a few garlic cloves

an onion

4 stalks celery

4 carrots

a pack of mushrooms

a can of tomatoes

a head of purple cabbage

onion soup mix

a box of vegetable broth

water

1. sautee the garlic and onion, add the carrots and celery, then the mushrooms, then the cabbage. color is flavor, you want to sear all of it to release the flavors in the soup. you can do this right in the pot, for ease. 

2. add the tomatoes, soup mix, broth, and enough water to cover the vegetables (as much ass you want, really, this is your tasty broth). bring to a boil, then simmer a couple hours until the carrots are tender.

great hot or cold, keeps all week, so it's a great one-pot lunch with a pretty purple broth.

Peach Jam

This endeavor was a product of dual inspiration, stemming from this recipe for champagne strawberry jam, as well as getting a new toaster, my collaborative tendency in my creative efforts reaffirmed even in coincidental circumstances. I'm convinced art isn't a successful process unless you're learning something about yourself. As my mother used to say to me, "Art is about the process, not the product". While food is a practical endeavor, in the sense that a bad-tasting dish is deemed a failure, I've found over the years that ruining a dish is the most effective way to reinforce what not to do. 

It is embarrassing, frustrating, and a waste of time and appetite, burning a sauce or a batch of brownies, but without those experiences, we would be just as inclined as ever to be neglectful of our convections, taking nothing from the process past a tasty dish, relying on luck and intuition versus the immediate, foul-tasting realization of a job, well, overdone. Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote:

“The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either.”

Anyways, to the jam! You'd think with all this talk of the value of culinary failure prefacing this recipe that I was unable to adequately execute it, and you would be WRONG! Have a little faith, folks! The jam is a standard recipe from the certo pack, and was the quickest preserve I attempted today (I worked with some apples as well, and will remind myself to type up an additional post of its own. Seriously. So much apple in jars.). As I prepared this, I thought of "sploosh", the mason jar peach drink the kids find in Holes. Did you read that book? I never got over the snake venom nail polish that redhead wore. What a great book for kids! It's been years and years, read it one time, still remember so much of it. What an effective narrative!

Took under an hour from boil to boil, so grab some tasty fruit from the produce section or farmer's market and try this out. The hardest part was remembering to sterilize the jars both before and after filling with warm sticky peach goo. Not sure if it works as well with frozen fruit, but try it, and let me know how it turns out.

Can't wait to try this with some Nutella.

PEACH JAM

4 large peaches
6 c sugar (around that, may be less)
a quarter cup lemon juice (or less, I like it bright and tart)
a blender
a fine mesh strainer (not a colander, a strainer for rinsing rice and sifting flour)
6 pint jars with lids
a pouch of certo

1. boil two pots of water: one for your jars, one for your peaches. Line the bottom of one pot with extra lids, so the glass jars don't touch the bottom and scald while they boil.

2. add jars to the pot with lids, making sure the water comes up to 2 inches along the side, and cover. Add peaches to the other pot. This is just to get the skin off easier.

3. After each has been boiling for ten minutes, cut off the heat. Leave the jar pot alone, don't touch the lid, just turn it off and forget about it for now.

4. Plunge the peaches in cold water, the cut up, discarding the pits and any peels you can grab (this isn't too big a deal, as the blender and the strainer help to pulverize any skin you miss down into a thick peachy paste). Add sugar and lemon juice, mix up evenly.

5. Toss sweet peach mix into the blender, pulse until uniform and smooth.

6. On the stove, heat a deep saucepan. Pour peach puree through strainer, using a spatula to mash the thicker bits through. When most of it goes through, add what's left in the strainer to the pot (not that much, but it thickens it and gives it a nice texture).

7. Stir constantly with a wire whisk on medium heat. Once the peach mix boils fully (still boils after stirred), add the certo, whisking for ONE MINUTE before cutting off the heat. Take pot off the heat, put on counter.

8. Next to peach pot, place a towel for your jars (glass is weaker when heated, and you don't want to risk breaking or cracking the glass by setting it on your countertop). Using a towel, pull the jars and lids out and set on the towel. Pour the peach preserves into each jar, leaving 1/8'' room at the top. Work fast to avoid contamination.

9. Seal each jar with a clean lid and return to the pot with the lids lining the bottom. Pour enough water in to cover 2" and cover, boil for ten minutes to seal the jars and sterilize further.

10. Take out and place on towel. Cool at room temp for 24 hours.

CHILI

Today is game day for the fellas, both foot and base-wise, if we're talking watching balls. It isn't a good week for our teams (the Lions are up, though! SUCK IT, PHILLY!), but the weather is starting its annual change, and when it gets chilly out, I start developing a craving for home-cooked chili. Something about the smell is very fall for me, like spiced apples and pumpkin pie, only without the festive connotations. 

I have holidays on the brain as of late, I must admit. My celebration season starts on Halloween, with store-bought candies pilfered from my daughter's pillowcase and caramel covered apples (if i can refrain from breaking into the bag of caramels first). Then there's the Day of the Dead, where I make sugar skulls for a traditional death altar and have a skull decorating party for the kid and her friends, complete with royal icing soaked in neon food coloring, feathers, googly eyes and an infinite amount of finely ground sprinkles. 

After that is Thanksgiving and my father's birthday. Each year we do trash can turkey outside, from the time Alice's restaurant comes on the local radio station until the Lions and the Cowboys kick off, the smell of charcoal-smoked meat increasing with our excitement as the hours go on. Then it's Yule, which is all about cookies, and New Years, which is appetizer nirvana, then Valentine's, which is terribly romantic. 

Even though we say each year we won't be observing it, our boycott resolves make it to about midday before running out for chocolate and strawberries and staples to make hand-rolled raviolis and cream sauce, served under candlelight with a glass of wine (okay, beer. It's never wine, not even in my fantasies). Gabe also has a birthday this month, requesting usually home-stacked spinach and beef lasagna with an oven-baked cheesecake, chilled overnight so he bites into a set, firm piece, creamy and covered in cherry pie filling. 

March is Mardi Gras and Julia's birthday, also spring break, so there's a ton of experimentation as the holiday season comes to a close. I enjoy being in the spirit of celebration for nearly half the year. The worst part of the year, if I'm being honest. I'd take any over none, but cold weather causes an inward retreat, and I love the environmental accessibility of summer. That and I slip less and am less afraid to make the drive into the city for classes. I have a Jeep, but that's not the point. 

There's a level of hyper-alertness, almost, in the colder months. As the temperature drops, the urge in me to find new recipes on food blogs I've yet to read, to buy a new cookbook while simultaneously sketching the layout of my own on the back of a recipe, itself scrawled hastily in sharpie on the back of an oversized index card designated for such hasty taste-based endeavors, rises inversely in instinctual compensation. "sniff...sniff...is getting cold...I MUST PREPARE AND PRESERVE THE FOODSTUFFS BEFORE I AM BURIED IN SNOW." I'm too dramatic. I live in St Louis, known for relatively mild-mannered winters, yet every year, my sole weather complaint is always:

"It is cold, and I am going to die". 

Anyways, chili. I had this recipe scrawled in the oversized sketchbook in my kitchen, the one i stick the rest of my successful attempts into. Like any soupy dish, chili is versatile, with a standard recipe that is surprisingly susceptible to personalization. A good chili takes a while to make, as any experienced cook will share, so start a pot in the afternoon if you want to eat it for dinner (I started mine around one and am eating it now at seven, but the cook time is predominantly preference, the general rule being "grab a bowl when you're hungry"). It's also one of those dishes that stinks up the whole house, infecting my relatives with CHILI MADNESS, so I usually make a beforehand snack to hold the family over. Pictured are beef little smokies wrapped in crescent rolls and baked for ten minutes for the easiest pigs-in-a-blanket ever. 

We all say we make the best chili. While I'll admit I've tried better recipes than that of my own hand, I continually tinker with a loose formula of ingredients, incorporating any recommendations I pick up from other chili connosseurs along the way (so please leave yours!), ending up with a better pot than the last every time, and enough leftovers to last through the week.

Game Day Chili

prep time: 10m   cook time: 2+ hours 

Ingredients

oil

an onion

garlic

lb ground beef

3/4 lb stew chunks

a can of beef broth

a bottle of dark beer

a cup of coffee

a large can of tomatoes

2 cans of tomato paste 

4 cans of beans

a can of corn

siracha

cumin 

cocoa

brown sugar

oregano

coriander

liquid smoke

dijon mustard

1. brown the onion and garlic in the oil.

2. add meat, brown

3. add the rest, stir

4. simmer until you're ready to eat (at least 2 hours for a nice, thich consistency)