A rainy day means Carrot and Coriander Soup

When we lived in England a good friend, and excellent cook, introduced me to the joy of Carrot and Corriander Soup. I loved the simplicity and freshness of this soup and when I found out I could buy it in a carrot in the refrigerated section of nearly every grocery store in England I was in vegetable heaven! 

I must have eaten this soup at least once a week for lunch because I could grab it, throw it in my bag and instant work day lunch. When I was pregnant with my first child I craved this soup so much I would buy 3 or 4 cartons a week! Which might just explain my daughter's love of carrots.

Imagine the withdrawal I went into when we moved back to the States. I searched for recipes for carrot soup that got close to the version I remembered so fondly, but even the recipe from the company who made the soup was never quite right. 

Well, after years of experimenting and playing with the recipe I think I have finally got it! 

Carrot and Corriander Soup

1 sweet onion, chopped (I like Vidalia onions for this)

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 tbsp butter

2 lbs carrots, roughly chopped, plus another 2 carrots grated 

6 cups water

1/4 cup heavy cream or half and half 

1/4 cup chopped fresh corriander leaves (cilantro for all us Americans 😊)

Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large stock pot and sauté the onions and garlic over medium-low heat stirring often, until onions are soft and translucent be careful to avoid browning the onions. 

Once the onions and garlic are soft and the  chopped carrots and the water. Cover, and simmer on medium high heat until the carrots are just cooked thru (about 10-15 minutes). 

Next purée the soup until smooth with either a blender, food processor, or stick blender. 

Return the soup to the pot and add the raw grated carrots, cream or half and half (you can omit the cream if you like but it isn't much and really does add to the flavor of the soup), salt, pepper, and Corriander leaves. 

Serve piping hot with crusty warm bread, or my favorite for a light lunch, tuna salad with cucumber on baguette. 

I hope this soup keeps you warm on a cold and rainy spring day, like it is here today.

Bon appetite! 

K

Bahn mi moment

Flowering trees and warmer temperatures have got me reminiscing of our favorite Viet-Thai restaurant, Lemongrass, in Kailua, Hawaii. They make the most amazing pork Bahn mi sandwich (made even more amazing when taken to go and eaten on beach, watching the all tourists and locals take in the sun and surf).

Now, there may not be any surf here but I have been craving this sandwich and thought I'd try my hand at recreating it. I think I got pretty close. 

There are a few components to build this sandwich so let's start with the pork

Lemongrass Pork

1 1/2 lbs pork shoulder thinly sliced

1/4 c. Fish sauce 

2 tbsp soy sauce 

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp sesame oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

5 stalks lemongrass minced

Mix all the above ingredients together with the pork and marinate up to 24 hours. (I use a zip top type storage bag for marinating for easy clean up. ☺️)

Grill over medium high heat until Cooked through, about 4-5 minutes per side. Set aside until ready to build your sandwich. 

Now, before we can build this awesome sandwich we have to make the picked daikon and carrots to top the sandwich. These pickles are lovely on their own, with a sweet and not too sour crunch to them. But they really make this sandwich pop! 

Pickled Daikon and Carrots

1 lb Daikon (Japanese radish), julienned 

1 lb Carrots , julienned

1 tbsp salt

6 tbsp sugar

2 cups boiling water

2 cups white vinegar

Dissolve the sugar and salt in the boiling water. Next add the vinegar, then pour over the daikon and carrots. Refrigerate until needed (should last up to 10 days in the fridge)

Time to build the sandwich! 

If you have a Vietnamese bakery near you , then I am super jealous because there is something just so special about the Vietnamese style French baguette- light, crispy, and not too dense. Unfortunately,  the closest one to me is over an hour away so I try to find the best  baguette I can in my neighborhood. 

First, toast the baguette. Then spread a nice layer of mayonnaise on both sides of the bread (use your own conscious here- I won't judge 😉), followed by a layer of the lemongrass pork, the picked vegetables, thin sliced cucumber, and fresh cilantro leaves. You can add sliced jalapeños as well, but I prefer to skip them in this dish. 

This was my sandwich, which I luckily remembered to grab my phone and take a quick picture before inhaling it. You can't tell but it is crammed full of snappy veg and fresh off the BBQ meat. Noms! Mission accomplished!

Xx

K

Focaccia for all my friends!

I just love carbs! I freely admit it. I tried to go paleo once and after about 3 days I was so hungry I was ready to gnaw my arm off!

This focaccia recipe is super easy- no! Don't run away! It is truly simple. Bread is generally a tricky thing to make but this is quick and easy. The only thing you need are a few very basic ingredients - flour, water, salt, sugar, yeast, and olive oil, and some time to let the yeast work its magic! 

Focaccia (adapted from "The Joy of Cooking" by Rombauer, Becker, and Becker, 1997)

Ingredients:

3 1/3 to 3 3/4 c. AP Flour

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

1 1/3 c. Warm water 

1 tbsp salt 

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil plus up to 1/4 c extra to top the bread prior to baking

See, I told you. Super simple.

Now, add the yeast and sugar to the warm water and let it sit while you measure the flour and salt. 

A quick word about the flour. I always err on the side of caution with the flour when making bread because after years of baking this bread I find that the amount water that the flour has absorbed during storage varies greatly from location to location and even the time of year.

So I start by adding 3 and 1/3 cups of AP flour to my Kitchen Aid mixer (with the dough hook attachment) along with the tbsp of salt. 

By now, your yeast and water mixture should have started to show some bubbles indicating the yeast are alive and you are good to go! If there are no bubbles your wee yeasties may be dead, in which case you will need to replace your yeast with a fresh batch. 

Once the yeast and water have been added to the mixer add your tbsp of olive oil and begin mixing on the lowest setting until combined. If everything starts to pull together in a nice dough ball, set the timer and continue to kneed the dough for 10 minutes. If your dough looks wet or isn't coming together into a ball, gradually add flour by the tablespoon full until it tightens up and just forms a ball like mass. 

*Caution* GO SLOW HERE! Once you start adding flour you can't take it out. But your patience will be rewarded if you keep an eye on the dough and add extra flour slowly.

Once the dough has been kneeding for 10 minutes turn it out onto a floured board or counter top and kneed by hand a few times into a ball shape. 

Place the focaccia into 2  very well oiled round cake pans (and by that I mean at least 1 tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil per pan, cover lightly with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place for about 2 hours. 

After 2 hours, the dough should have about doubled in size. Now, gently make a bunch of finger indentations into the top of the dough (so it looks like it has loads of little dimples all over), top with up to 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil (for authenticity use a heavy hand. It's worth the calories) and sprinkle with salt and bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. 

Let cool for a few minutes and serve! 

Bon appetite!

Xx
K
 

Note: This is also my pizza dough recipe

First thyme out the gate

Hi Everyone!

First off I would like to thank all my friends and family who encouraged me to start this blog.  I love you and I hope this lives up to your expectations.

Second, if you have any suggestions or even special requests, let me know and I will do what I can do.

And thirdly, I am most definitely NOT a fantastic writer, but I will try to do my best to make it interesting and take the advice offered to me by my step dad when I was 10 years old. "Just write like you are speaking to someone and it should sound about right."

Now... watch this space and I hope to get cooking soon! Sorry...I couldn't help myself.

Xx
-K