As a chef-instructor at the Cookbook Co. I get to meet a lot of people who are passionate about food. But recently I got to teach a Soup Sisters class to a group of ladies with a whole other kind of passion…

Since March 3, 2009 the Soup Sisters of Calgary have been getting together several times a year with the help of a crew of dedicated volunteers and supporters to bubble up a few large batches of soup.

The soups, usually 3-4 flavours (each batch makes 15 portions), are portioned out into glass tupperware containers and sent to the Calgary Women’s Shelter to help women and children who have been the victims of domestic violence.

The group also gets an opportunity to meet other women from the community with like minded positive outlooks, sample some of the soup they prepare and donate some time and money to a very worthy cause.

Not in Calgary? There are plenty of Soup Sisters affilliates across Canada in Toronto, Burlington, Vancouver and Ottawa. Check the Soup Sisters website for more info.

And for the gentlemen, don’t feel left out there’s Broth Brothers.

I’m all booked up for my next batch on September 26 batch, but check out the site for availabilities.

Thanks to all the fantastic passionate ladies for coming out, it was a total blast and I’m excited to see you at the next soup rendez-vous.

We prepared three soups

• Brenda’s famous Chili

• Chicken Noodle Soup, with real homemade broth

and this one from Kitchen Scraps….

PARSNIP AND GINGER, THE HOT NEW SOUPNESS

Carrots are so full of themselves. They are tall and fancy looking, and you find them at la-dee-da-dee parties, often flirting. Which may explain why carrots have managed to hook up with such a sexy spice like ginger. But instead of hanging around with such a conceited root, ginger would be much better off with the modest parsnip.

They are just as tall, but the carrot’s pale and less attractive cousin is always getting overlooked. For those who know how sweet and complex parsnip can be, it is hard to ever imagine going back. Sure, the carrot has more mass appeal, but in the right circumstances parsnips can be so much more fulfilling.

INGREDIENTS

5 small parsnips

salt for the boiling the parsnips

a big honking chunk of ginger

1 cup heavy cream

1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

fresh-cracked pepper

chopped fresh chives

PROCEDURE

Peel and roughly chop the parsnip into 1/2-inch rounds. Place the parsnip into a pot, and cover with cold water enough to cover by about 2 inches.

Bring to a boil and add salt.

In the meantime, grate your ginger to a fine pulpy mush into a small bowl. You don’t have to worry about peeling it first.

When the water boils, reduce the heat to medium to avoid the pot boiling over, and let it bubble away until the parsnip is soft and just starting to fall apart at the edges. It’s better to overcook than to undercook the parsnips.

Turn off the heat, remove from the hot burner, and let it cool down for 5 minutes. Carefully pour all of it into a blender.

Again, be very careful. You need to blend it while it is hot to make it smooth, but you also have to be careful not to blast molten lava parsnips all over your kitchen and vital body parts. Remove the little plastic thingy from the lid, and cover the hole with a tea towel. (This stops it from being airtight, which would cause an ugly kick at the start—although the steam can sometimes get hot on your hand.) Start on low, and build up the speed incrementally.

When the soup is looking smooth, turn it off and pour in the cream and ginger. Put the lid and tea towel back on and blend it some more.

Carefully pour the soup back into the pot, and starting on low heat, gradually increase the heat to medium or the soup will start sputtering all over the place like it is about to erupt—and your house will look like Pompeii.

Add the vinegar right before serving, and then pour the soup into bowls. Garnish with fresh-cracked pepper and nicely chopped chives for prettiness.

Impress you and 5 friends at your la-dee-da-dee parsnip party.

Back during the Great Depression food mostly came out of a can. A tinny version of Succotash using canned corn was choked down so regularly it coined the catchphrase “Suffering Succotash”. Nowadays with an abundance of fresh food we no longer need to suffer any boring fodder and we can enjoy virtually limitless variety. This pasta is so expletifly good that it may soon spur a new explurge “Sweet-ass Succotash!”

Pass that Succotash Pasta, sucka!

200g small shell pasta or orecchietti (little ears)

2 corn cobs

4 slices bacon, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 cup of white wine

½ cup fresh or frozen broad beans (fava, lima or edamame), shucked

1 cup sour cream

3 sprigs chives, finely chopped

good pinch of salt

nice crack of pepper

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

PROCEDURE

Bring a large pot of salty water to a boil.

Hold the ear of corn upright on the cutting board. Use your chef knife to slice straight down the sides of the corn to trim off all the corn kernels. They will be popping around like popcorn so be careful about the bouncing kernels.

After you trim off all the kernels remove all the corn milk by using the dull side of your knife to scrape down the length of the cob. The chunky milky stuff that comes out is the corn milk, or corn cream.

Cook the bacon in a frying pan over medium high heat until crispy. Remove crispy bacon with a slotted spoon so the fat stays in a pan and set aside. Keep the pan off the heat until the pasta water is boiling.

Dump the pasta in the boiling salty water. It should take 8 minutes to cook the pasta, so set a timer.

Get the pan with the bacon fat back on the stove over high heat and toss in the red pepper, cook until soft, 3 minutes.

To the red peppers, add the white wine, all the corn and broad beans. Bring it all to a rapid boil and let it bubble while the pasta cooks.

Drain the cooked pasta in a colander and immediately dump it back into the same large pot. Pour the corn sauce and all into the pot. Add the sour cream, a good pinch of salt, a crack of fresh pepper and the blue cheese. Stir it all around so it is nice and smooth.

Serve it up all steamy hot and garnish with chives and crispy bacon.

gets along with

bacon, broad beans, butter, chives, crab, cream, hot sauce, pepper, prawns, salt, sausages, scallops, squash, sweet peppers.

fresh pick

Pick corn that is tightly wrapped in fresh green husk, not dry and crumbly husk. Watch out for mold around the silk (stringy bits). The sugars will start to convert to starch within a few hours, so get as freshly picked as you can get for maximum sweetness, or better yet pick your own. Cook corn the day you buy it since the sugars are turning to starch by the hour and tomorrow you might have chalky cattle feed.

Finding organic corn is just shy of impossible but you can at least get it fresh and local.

Quickeat

Here is the best way to make proper creamed corn. Hold the corn vertically on the cutting board and slice straight down with a chef knife to cut off all the kernels. Then using the dull side of your knife scrape out all the corn milk. Place it in a blender and fill it half way up the kernels with milk. Blend until very smooth… then blend for 3 more minutes.

The mix should resemble a smooth milkshake add more milk if it’s too chunky.

Pour into a small pan, bring to a light boil over medium heat, stirring evenly and cook over medium until it reaches desired thickness, season well with salt and stir in a little butter for old-time-sakes.

For a little heart-tugging and good cooking check out Clara’s Great Depression Cooking.

tidbit

Go to the grocery store and nearly everything has been touched by genetically-modified corn either as feed for the animals we eat, food colouring, corn oil, industrial packaging or the dreaded hyper-refined corn syrup which sneaks added calories and sweetness into most processed foods.

Sweet and sassy Cassis

Cassis (French for Currants) is a dazzling vision of beauty when she’s sparkling at a poncy party decked out with clusters of opalescent white pearls, luminescent red rubies and deep black jewels. She is refined and sophisticated in the form of a jelly or syrup in a creamy dessert or a sparkling cocktail. While she can be light on her toes, this sassy vixen can also contend with the beastly heavy-footed game meats.

Cassis Delice

This recipe falls somewhere between a panna cotta and a Bavarois. So I went ahead and named it a Cassis Delice because it’s got a poncy French vibe and it’s delicious.

2 cups of whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks

½ cup water

1 packet gelatin

¼ cup black currant jelly or syrup

¼ cup icing sugar

Garnish (Choose one)

A drizzle of black currant syrup

A scoop of black currant jam

A shot of Cassis cassis as desired

Place the water in a small  bowl and sprinkle on the gelatin to soften. Meanwhile place the black currant jelly in a small pot and boil until it is liquid and bubbling. Pour the hot liquid black currant into the bowl with water and gelatin. Stir with a whisk, ensuring the gelatin is completely dissolved. Leave the mixture to cool down for 10 minutes in the fridge.

Now get a large bowl and a clean whisk. Whip the cream until the whipped cream is firm (not lumpy and chunky or you will be pretty close to making butter). Add the icing sugar and mix it all in.

Scoop some of the whipped cream into the bowl with the gelatin and whisk it together until smooth. Now return that mixture to the large bowl with the rest of the whipped cream.  Use a whisk to fold in the purple liquid until there are no streaks and the mixture is still light and fluffy.

Divide the mixture amongst 6 clear wine glasses or somesuch fancy serving vessel. Place in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight until the mousse sets up firm.

If you are serving to extravagantly poncy adults top it with Cassis liqueur, for a more respectable crowd try the black currant syrup, for breakfast top it with black currant jam.

gets along with

Bison, cream, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, duck, game meat, mango, orange, sweet fruit, soft creamy cheeses, venison.

fresh pick

These little sweet and sour berries are loaded with colour and flavour. Pick out large clusters of firm berries. Currants come in black, red or white. The darker berries pack a stronger flavour.

It’ll take you about an hour to fill up a 4L pail ($12) at Kayben Farms 5^th Annual Black Currant Harvest Festival on Saturday August 28. Check out kayben.com for other U-Pick times. Bring the kids, they have a crazy-cool Adventure Park. Enjoy Jo-Jo’s yummy black currant whims at the Café.

quickeat

Make your own currant syrup by rinsing 1 pound of currants. Bring currants  (stems and all) to a boil in a large pot with 2 cups water and 1 cup sugar. Mash it up really well using a potato masher to release the precious juices. Pop a lid on top and boil for 30 minutes. Strain the mess through a fine meshed sieve using a potato masher.

Chill the syrup and keep it in the fridge for a month or two.

Use the syrup to fancify French Toast, fortify dark beers and super-fly a float using sparkling water and a scoop of vanilla icecream.

tidbit

Black currant stains on clothing are there to stay. The only solution is to simmer the rest of the garment in a pot with black currant syrup. Rinse thoroughly and let dry before you style your new purple blue jeans.

We started at the Magrath showhome with Spinach Cigars. The highlight was certainly the 12 foot island in the showstopping kitchen.

Then we headed over to Laurel for creamy cauliflower and cheddar soup spiked with roasted grapes and toasted pinenuts. Works great on a hot or cold day.

For the main we ended up at the Ellerslie house for Braised Shortribs on soft polenta with an herb salad. No surprise there was a crowd waiting for this main.

And finally we wrapped things up at the Ambleside house where the sunshine brought out the crowds to sample the last course Citrus Panna Cotta. So here’s the last recipe…

This is like the ultimate grown up version of jello. It’s impressive and delicious and doesn’t take all that much effort, just a little pre-planning.

Citrus adds a really nice light fragrance to this wiggly lovely panna cotta (Italian milk jelly) to serve up on those hot summer nights. It kind of tastes a bit like fruit loops, just don’t tell that to your fancy guests.

Prepare them a couple hours ahead so the gelatin has time to set in the fridge, or make it the night before so it’s totally out of the way.

Citrus Panna Cotta

1½ cups 2% milk

1 cup cream

1 packet gelatin

zest of 1 orange

zest of 1 lemon

zest of 1 lime

½ cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Pour ½ cup of milk into a bowl, sprinkle in the gelatin, and mix with a fork to disperse the gelatin.

To zest the citrus, use a peeler to pull off long strips of the zest. This makes picking them out much easier later on.

Bring the remaining milk, cream, sugar and zest to a boil in a small pot. When the liquid has boiled and the sugar has dissolved turn off the heat. Cover for the pot and allow the flavours to infuse for at least 10 minutes.

Bring the milk back to a boil and pour directly into the bowl with the gelatin.

Whisk for 1 minute so the gelatin dissolves completely. Let it cool for 10 minutes, then divide it evenly into 8 clear glasses, leaving plenty of room for adding the pesto later. Place the glasses into the fridge and let them firm up for at least 2 hours. In the meantime you can mak e your pesto.

Mint and Honey Pesto

Hazelnuts have a beautiful fragrance, but are difficult to pulverize because they are so hard. Almonds are also a little tough. Both nuts will benefit from a quick toasting to make them easier to chop-chop and to enhance their flavour. Get almonds and hazelnuts without skin, which adds an unfavourable texture and colour. Serve on strawberries, melon, or citrus panna cotta.

4 cups packed fresh mint

1 cup toasted, blanched almonds or hazelnuts

juice of 1 orange

juice of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lime

¼ cup honey

Traditionally pestos are made using a mortar and pestle. A mortar is a large heavy bowl carved from marble, but can also be made from ceramic or cast iron. The pestle is a mashing device made of the same material as the bowl and used to pulverize the contents of the bowl. The words “pesto” and “pestle” derive from the same Latin root word that means to pound or crush.

Toss everything into your macerating device of choice and blend until you reach your desired consistency whether you like your pesto chunky or smooth.

To make larger batches in a fraction of the time try using your whiz-bang blender.

Freeze the leftovers in ice-cube trays covered in cling wrap for handy pesto hits whenever you need it.

To Serve

Get a firm panna cotta cold from the fridge and top it with pesto.

Main Course served on May 15th at the Ambleside showhome: 2803 Anderson Place, Edmonton, Alberta

The more you broaden your palate, the better you feel, so let’s have beans for every meal.

These beans are as at home on the range as they are in a fancy-pants restaurant. They most certainly must be enjoyed with great relish.

This dish goes beautifully with a nice bottle of crispy white wine and the good silverware… just don’t light too many candles.

INGREDIENTS

relish

2 onions, diced

vegetable oil for frying

2 Tbsp maple syrup

1 Tbsp balsamic

¼ cup toasted pumpkin seeds

¼ cup dried cranberries

½ bunch fresh parsley, finely chopped

salt to taste

beans

1 large can white beans (19 oz), drained

2 carrots, 2-inch lengths

2 stalks celery, 2-inch lengths

4 whole cloves of garlic

1 cup white wine

2 cups chicken stock

sprig of thyme

juice and zest of 1 lemon

4 spolumbo chicken sausages (or anything flavour you like)

Serve with chilled white wine, warm baguette and room temperature butter

PROCEDURE

To zest the lemon, use a good sharp peeler to pull off long strips of lemon zest (yellow part of the peel). Set aside for later.

Get a large pot over medium heat and let it get hot for 5 minutes. When it’s hot add the oil and then the carrots, celery and garlic. Sautee until the garlic becomes nice and brown and a little soft. Add the white wine and cook until the boozey smell evaporates. Add the chicken stock, beans, lemon zest and the sprig of time. This amount of chicken stock makes rather soupy beans, but you can cut it in half if you like them less soupy.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium and bubble away for 25-30 minutes.

While the beans are cooking make the onion relish.

Get a big honking frying pan over high heat and glug in a good glug of vegetable oil. Toss in the onions and keep a close eye on them, keep stirring and tossing so they get nice and evenly brown and careful not to burn them all on one side.  When the onions are gorgeous, soft and caramelized take them off the heat and add the balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, toasted pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries and freshly chopped parsley. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool.

To cook les wieners, poke holes through the skin using a fork to allow steam to escape then you can heat them up by grilling them on the barbecue, firing them into the oven or frying them in a frying pan. The cooking time will depend entirely on whether your sausage is raw or pre-cooked and on the size of the wiener. To check for doneness, just cut into it to see if it’s still raw inside. Cut the wieners into big chunks for serving.

Let the beans rest off the heat for 10 minutes before adding salt and lemon juice to taste.

To serve up les beans et les wieners, simply ladle up some of the soupy lovely beans into a big bowl, pile on a couple of pieces of grilled wieners and top it with a lovely little scoop of sweet onion relish. Enjoy with warm bread and cold butter. Some chilled white wine would be nice too.

soup

1 white onion, rough chopped

2 Tbsp butter

1 glass of white wine

1 L chicken stock

1 head of cauliflower, rough chopped

enough water to cover

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups sharp white cheddar cheese, grated

pinch of nutmeg

salt to taste

grape compote

20 red grapes

10 red grape tomatoes

olive oil

1 heaping Tbsp brown sugar

1 glass red wine

garnish

toasted pinenuts

PROCEDURE

Preheat your oven to 425˚F.

Place the tomatoes and grapes in a baking dish and toss with olive oil to coat. Blap it in the oven and roast until the tops of the tomatoes just become slightly burnt, about 25-30 minutes.

In a small pot combine the brown sugar and red wine, bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer until the sauce becomes thicker and sticky.

When the grapes are roasted, pour them directly into the thick syrup and toss to coat. Set aside to cool.

To toast pinenuts, you must be careful. You can either watch them for the 4-7 minutes it takes to toast them or you will risk burning these very expensive little nuts. Place the pinenuts on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast them keeping a close eye so they don’t burn. When toasted, transfer to a bowl and set aside for serving.

Get a large pot over medium low heat and toss in the chopped onion and butter. Sweat the onions gently over medium low heat until they become soft and translucent.

Pour in the white wine and turn up the heat to full blast. Now add the chicken stock and bring it all to a boil. Pile in the cauliflower and enough water so the cauliflower is completely submerged. Get it to a rip-roarin boil and bubble away until the cauliflower is cooked and very tender, about 30 minutes.

Using a hand blender (immersion blender) puree the soup until it is extremely smooth and velvety. Add the cream and while it is hot use a whisk to gently stir in the cheese so it melts evenly. Add the pinch of nutmeg and adjust the seasoning with salt if needed.

Reduce the heat now to very low and don’t allow the soup to boil again or it might break the smooth texture. Serve warm in a large shallow bowl with a lovely scoop of compote in the center and a sprinkling of pinenuts.

Serves 4-6 depending on the people.

Soup served on January 29 th at the Laurel showhome: 2176 32nd Street NW, Edmonton, Alberta (780)410-1914

Last week Julie (from Dinner with Julie) decided to host a Julie/Julia Dinner party for a handful of local food bloggers. We each brought something from Mastering the Art of French Cooking that we had prepared earlier. While we feasted Julia Child tutted about her kitchen as The French Chef reruns played in the background.

Here’s what we ate…

The menu

Vichyssoise 

Delectable creamy potato soup served cold and delicious

Moussaka

The most incredible molded eggplant and lamb dish that took no less than 2 days to prepare 

Pommes Parisien The synopsis version

Use a Parisien Scoop to scoop out little potato balls. Fry them in lots of butter (if you think you have too much, double it) over a medium-low heat until they get golden and lovely, then at the last minute turn the heat up and add lots of salt and shake em all around until they get lovely and crispy and dark golden and delicious.

Thanks for a fantastic dinner party Julie and for not suing me for stealing this picture from your blog.

Last week was Turkey Time down south in the US. To celebrate the Great Gobble, food-writer extraordinaire Michael Ruhlman (Ratio, Making of a Chef, French Laundry, Charcuterie, etc, etc) posted a very clever recipe for making stock with the turkey carcass, or chicken bones. I was really excited to get a chance to contribute to his blog because I’m a big fan and he wrote a fantastic review on the back of Kitchen Scraps. 

For anyone who has ever read Making of a Chef, it will come as no surprise to find Mr.Ruhlman playing with new stock ideas. He was enamoured by stock while attending the CIA, delving into the science, lore and craft of making stock. It is one of those simple culinary marvels that shows the true measure of a cook, it also happens to be something that, if done properly, is far greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Check out Micahel Ruhlman’s recipe for the liquid gold and enjoy the fun spins he puts on a classic preparation.

Instead of stove top, he cooks this stock in the oven, capitalising on the slow cook to avoid murky stock and to maximise the flavour…. also, curiously, there is no celery.

Incidentally, here is a podcast of Mr.Ruhlman that was just posted by the Culinary Institute of America “Insight from the Inside” podcast series.

It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in the dark… Evil Pumpkin Zombies!

EPZ are brought to life when an evil Halloween spirit enters a carved pumpkin and awakens an unnaturally evil appetite for candy. The pumpkins will roll around attacking anyone for their candy!

If you are threatened by an EPZ, you will need to destroy it or it will not stop until all your candy is eaten.

To ensure an EPZ is thoroughly destroyed or to prevent your pumpkin from becoming possessed here is a great soup recipe that will exorcize the evil spirits and give you something yummy to eat other than candy.

INGREDIENTS 

Pumpkin (any size)

drizzle of oil

sprinkle of salt

1 onion, diced

salt to taste

pesto

2 cloves of garlic

10 sage leaves

1 bunch of parsley

½ cup of olive oil (or pumpkin seed oil if you can find some)

2 cups of toasted pumpkin seeds (store-bought or homemade)

zest and juice of 1 lemon

salt to taste

PROCEDURE

SMASH your pumpkin into large chunks and place them in a large roasting pan. Use a baseball bat as needed or simply use your hands to feverishly tear it apart.

ROAST the pumpkin parts at 350˚F for an hour or until they are soft and golden around the edges. Put a cup of water in the pan to help things cook better.

PULVERIZE the pesto ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. Scrape down the sides if needed. Add more oil if it is too chunky. This pesto will keep in the fridge for a couple weeks and is really good in pasta, mashed potatoes and on roasted squash of any kind.

SCRAPE the roasted pumpkin meat away from the skin and place into a bowl.  Discard the skin.

FIRE up a large pot on the stove and sweat your onion in a little cooking oil. Cook until tender and translucent.

PLOP the pumpkin into the pot with the onions.

DROWN the ingredients with enough water to cover.  Bring to violent boil.

BLITZ the heck out of the soup with a hand blender until totally smooth. Taste it and add more salt to taste.

GOBBLE down a big bowl full topped with a scoop of pesto smack dab in the middle.

Congratulations ROB COTE, running back for the Calgary Stampeders

Wish I could say Rob was threatening people with his enormous size, but the truth is that he was a really great sport and his classic chili took the top prize. I’m sure it helps that it was his mom’s recipe…. I sure wouldn’t want to take on a mom in a chili cookoff!

If he ends up with the final win, you’ll be able to taste his winning chili at the Labour Day Classic battle of the titans when Calgary takes on Edmonton. Best of luck in the future rounds of the chili contest.