Cream of Celery Soup

Via Epicurious with a couple adjustments: 1/2 cup sour cream instead of 1 cup whipping cream, and vegetable stock instead of chicken stock. It was the carrot-y vegetable stock that gave the soup the darker color. Garnished with celery leaves and croutons.

This was a great soup. But, friends, I'm quickly tiring of soup. Come on, Spring!

Fettuccini with a Tomato White Wine Sauce

The pasta I made from scratch following the recipe for basic egg noodles that came with my pasta maker mixer attachment. The sauce I made like this:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes (or to taste)
1/2 cup white wine
1, 28 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan and chopped parsley for garnish

Saute the onion in the olive oil until softened. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for about one minute. Pour in the white wine and let it bubble for a couple minutes, then add the tomatoes. Cook, covered, for about 15 minutes. Season to taste and garnish.

Neatloaf

It's favorite restaurant dish week! (Two posts make a 'week,' right?) The Neatloaf at Victory's Banner is major delicious. Like many of their dishes, the neatloaf has the magic. And it's pretty much ruined other vegetarian loafs for me (though I've enjoyed working out other versions). So when I found this recipe the other day, I had, HAD, to try it. I had to try it with such urgency that I ignored the fact that I did not have on hand many of the ingredients it called for.

Here's the version I made, and it turned out really well, though I think I would have preferred the herbs called for in the linked recipe. Oh, and a note: I use here a "chicken" bouillon powder that I've never seen for sale anywhere other than Apple Valley Market in Berrien Springs, Michigan. So, I don't expect you to have this in your pantry. If you want to make this version without it, maybe try using the soup mix that the linked recipe calls for.

Neatloaf
1/4 cup olive oil (total)
1 small onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons powdered "chicken" bouillon (or vegetarian onion soup mix)
5 1/2 ounces queso fresco, crumbled
5 1/2 ounces firm tofu, crumbled
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme
1/4 teaspoon fresh marjoram
1/4 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Saute the onion and garlic in two tb of the olive oil. Allow to cool. Stir together the remaining ingredients and what's left of the oil. Pat the mixture into a parchment-lined bread pan and bake for approximately 1 hour. It's done when the top is crusty and begins to turn a golden brown.

Neatloaf Sauce
A tablespoon or so water
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
1/8 cup Dijon mustard
1/8 cup to 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (to taste)
Pinch cayenne ground pepper (to taste)

In a sauce pan over medium heat, whisk together the brown sugar and water. Cook until the sugar is dissolved, then stir in the remaining ingredients.

Potato Pancakes

There's this super fantastic Swedish breakfast place down the street from me where they serve super delicious potato pancakes. Here's my take on those thin, starchy cakes:

1 cup flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg, beaten
1 russet potato, grated (a food processor grately aids here)
1 small onion, grated

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper. In a separate bowl combine the milk, beaten egg, potato and onion. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Scoop batter onto a hot, buttered griddle. The thin batter will run a bit. Once it's settled into a pancake-like shape, use a spoon to spread the potato out evenly. Cook for a few minutes on each side.

Mustard-Apple-Brie Grilled Cheese

Right, so, I've already featured an apple brie sandwich here. But this one has whole grain mustard! And it's grilled!

Black Bean Burger with Homemade Tortilla Chips

Last summer, I got a recipe for these vegan black bean burgers from Shape magazine. I think my sister left the magazine sitting on the porch at my parents' cottage in Michigan. I came across it one morning and was happy to discover that this was a perfect mid-Summer recipe, presented here on-bun, as an offering to the Spring that I hope is actually coming to Chicago.

To go with the burger, I made tortilla chips, which for some totally nuts reason, I had never done before. They're SO easy and SO delicious:

Cut corn tortillas into triangles. Drop them, in batches, into a good amount of hot oil (canola, or another neutral oil). When they puff up and float, they are finished. This takes literally seconds. Drain them on a paper grocery bag, salt them, eat them.

Oh! And! I once made these burgers in mini-size and served them as appetizers on a single tortilla chip topped with guacamole. They were a huge hit at the potluck.

Panko Crusted Seitan over Eggs Noodles and a Mushroom Parmesan White Sauce with Peas

1, 8 ounce package of seitan, cut in strips
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup canola oil

3 tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups chopped crimini mushrooms
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups milk
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1 cup peas, cooked
salt and pepper to taste

egg noodles

Dredge the seitan in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs and set carefully into the oil, which has been heated in a heavy pan over medium-high heat. Brown both sides (takes about 3 minutes per side), then remove with tongs and set on a paper-towel-covered plate to drain.

Over medium-low heat, melt half the butter in a sauce pan. Add the garlic, some salt and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms have softened. Remove them from the pan and set aside. Turn the heat up to medium. Add the rest of the butter, then the flour, whisking for about two minutes. Pour in the milk and whisk, continuously, until the sauce thickens. Add the parmesan, parsley, peas, salt and pepper, reintroduce the mushrooms, and cook until the peas are heated.

Boil the egg noodles. This takes very little time -- a few minutes once the water is boiling.

Assemble everything. Eat.

Roasted Curried Cauliflower

(via)

Baked Tofu Sandwich with Arugula Aioli

This is the very first post on Meals; for Moderns that's being tagged 'tofu.' Surprising, no? I must admit that in general, I don't love tofu. But I do really really like baked tofu. If you haven't baked it before, you're in for a treat. It's really unlike other tofu preparations, crusty with a delicate, soft interior. Add your favorite marinade and you're in business. I used, simply, soy sauce for this and supplied the strong flavors with the arugula aioli, but if you wanted to skip the aioli, I'd advise a more flavorful marinade.

Aioli*
1/2 cup mayonaise
2-3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup argula
salt and pepper to taste

Combine the ingredients in a food processor and process until there are no large chunks of garlic remaining.

Tofu
Extra firm tofu
Soy sauce or marinade of your choosing

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut the tofu into about 4oz slabs. To remove some of the water from the tofu, place it between tea or paper towels on a cutting board or plate. Cover with another plate, and weight that down with a jar of flour (as I did), cookbooks, or some heavy thing that seems like it won't fall over. Let sit for 10 or so minutes, changing the towels if they become soaked.

Brush all sides of the tofu with soy sauce (or marinade), then place the tofu on a non-stick baking sheet and bake for one hour.

It's done when the sides are crispy.

For the sandwich, I spread the aioli on both slices of toasted bread and topped the tofu with carrots and more arugla. The sandwich was a bit dry -- you might want to load up on the aioli, or add some tomato slices to increase the moisture content.

*Disclaimer: this is semi-homemade, not really aioli at all. If you'd like to make it from scratch, try blending this recipe with the 1/4 cup arugula.

Root + Squash Soup

This soup lacks the trademark sweetness of most root or squash soups (think carrot or butternut). If you like a sweeter soup, you could increase the carrots and decrease the kohlrabi or celery root. Really, this soup appears before you because this precise medley of vegetables had been appearing before me every time I opened the refrigerator for the last few days. If it hadn't been so happenstance, I would probably have focused more on a single ingredient. But the grouping is interesting too, each of the flavors playing against the others.

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tb sage, sliced thinly
1 1/2 pounds acorn squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 pound celery root, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 pound kohlrabi, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
salt and pepper to taste
32 fluid ounces vegetable broth

Over medium heat, cook the onions and carrots in the oil for a few minutes, until the onions begin to soften. Add the garlic, sage, squash, celery root and kohlrabi. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir to combine and cook, covered, for about 5-7 minutes. Pour in the vegetable broth, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are very tender. Puree.

This is how I make croutons. This time I used dill, parsley and more sage as the herbs. I also used a larger proportion of butter.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

So I finally made the best ever chocolate chip cookies, per the NYT. And you know what? They were pretty great. Even though I used all-purpose flour and chip-shaped chocolate chips.

I used a bit of scientific method on this recipe. I cooked a batch without resting the dough and then cooked two batches the next day after the dough had been refrigerated overnight. My findings: the cookies were great both days, but they seemed a bit chewier, denser and more uniform on the 2nd day. Better? I don't know.

And BTW: second day cookies pictured above.