soup from scratch

I’ll be moving back to Columbia from Springfield in ten days, leaving me with the daunting task of packing up my apartment and — I think this one may actually be worse — finishing off as much food as I can from my over-stocked fridge. I made a pilgrimage to the grocery store on Monday for fresh fruits and vegetables, but otherwise my goal is to use up what I have on hand.

So as soon as I got back from work, I pulled out my trusty copy of How to Cook Everything for inspiration. If you don’t already know Mark Bittman, now is the time to familiarize yourself with his work. His simple, easy to follow recipes have been a jumping off point for so many of my favorite inventions. Tonight I wanted a recipe for tilapia, possibly with a fruit salsa (I have a bag of frozen fish fillets from Target that I’m trying to polish off — I’ve found these thaw well enough for use in most dishes). However, I got distracted while looking for an application for zucchini, which I had left over from last night’s summer pasta dish.

The recipe that caught my eye was for a corn, tomato and zucchini soup with basil. I was about to make for the store to buy some tomatoes when I reminded myself of two things — one, I’m not actually a huge fan of tomatoes and two, I was on a mission to use up what I had. I ended up improvising a fantastic clear soup chock-full of squash and corn.



summer squash and corn soup

4 c vegetable stock (I used Massel bouillon cubes)
1 medium potato, cubed
1 1/2 c fresh or frozen corn
1/2 small zucchini, diced
1/2 medium yellow squash, diced
1/2 small yellow onion, diced
handful spinach, stems removed (optional)
1 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp butter
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

serves 4

This ended up being an incredibly substantial soup, perhaps more so than I intended. I started the soup in my 2 quart saucepan and had to transfer it to the 5 quart sauté pan.

I started with the potato, which I cubed and tossed into my smallest Pyrex roasting pan. I drizzled with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper before popping the potato into the oven to roast. I imagine I could have boiled, steamed or even nuked it just as easily, but since it was a miracle I even found a potato in my messy cupboard I was going through the trouble of adding a potato, I wanted it to give the soup a nice hearty flavor.

Meanwhile, I brought 4 cups of water to a rolling boil and dissoved 4 Massel stock cubes. The best is homemade stock and the next best is canned broth, but if I have to use bouillon, I just make sure I use it in the right proportions. I prefer Marigold bouillon when available, but it’s difficult to find in the States. Massel, on the other hand, seems to be at almost every specialty food store and even some grocery stores. I use it instead of Better Than Bouillon when I don’t want even a hint of tomato taste in a dish. Once the stock was made, I dumped in the frozen corn to cook.

I sautéed the onion in about three tablespoons of olive oil, adding the zucchini and yellow squash once the onion was tender. I tend to add butter to soups because the fat adds flavor, but if you’re feeling extremely health conscious (you know, because this soup is SO bad for you to begin with), you can sauté directly in the butter and skip this step later. I sprinkled in some dried parsley before transferring the vegetables to the soup pot. That’s where I added the roasted potatoes, butter, spinach, salt and pepper, all to taste. I brought the soup to a boil for about a minute to cook the spinach, then left it to simmer until I was ready to eat (not very long in this case).

I cooked this soup completely from my cabinet without buying a single ingredient, which was what I intended to do today even if I didn’t prepare the intended dish. I ended up eating about a bowl and a half. The rest went into two Twist ‘n Loc storage containers. One when into the fridge for a quick lunch, the other went into the freezer to save for later.

cooking with infused oils

When I first make something I really love, I often crave that particular meal until I've had a chance to recreate it. That means I'm usually dusting off a new recipe before the ink starts drying. Silly? Probably. But my need to recreate has a plus side.

Tonight I decided to try my hand at a summer pasta dish Sarah and I crafted over the weekend. I use this language intentionally — we were both at the store throwing summer veggies into our basket, and together we decided how to toss everything together. The actual preparation, however? All Sarah. I was busy mixing up some white sangria.

Originally I was going to write about the dish in terms of the vegetables used — a bright medley complete with summer squash and nutrient-adding spinach — but to do so would have been to neglect the key ingredient: infused olive oil.



These are the three bottles of oil — lemon, basil and rosemary — that stay within easy reach on the top of my stove (their lowly cousin, Kroger brand extra virgin, is never far away either). I got them each for about $6 on sale at Target. There are some cooks who will tell you $25 for a bottle of extra virgin olive oil is not unreasonable. Not me. I’m more a “to hell with Italy, I have to make rent this month” kind of cook. I’ve gotten good results with all of these, though I imagine $6 is about the threshold. A cheaper bottle of lemon-flavored oil (an important distinction, I’m sure) did not yield pleasing results.

Of course, there’s a moral to this story, and it’s that these three bottles are at home in Columbia and I’m still biding my time in Springfield.

This is the basic recipe, though most of the quantities are approximate. The dish is relatively simple to make but can dirty up a number of pots and pans.

summer veg pasta with lemon and parmesan

2 c penne or ziti pasta (we used Tinkyada brown rice penne)
1 small yellow squash, cut
1 small zucchini, cut
1 medium red pepper, diced
1 c fresh spinach, stems removed
1/3 c onion, diced
1/2 c mushrooms, cut
1/2 c broccoli
lemon-infused olive oil
parsley
oregano
grated parmesan
salt and pepper to taste

serves 2-3

Sarah boiled the pasta, steaming the zucchini, squash and broccoli in a steamer pan. Then, she sautéed the mushrooms and onion, adding red pepper to the pan as the other veggies finished steaming. She cooked down the spinach, tossing everything together in the lemon olive oil with a bit of parsley and oregano. A sprinkling of parmesan and a touch of salt and pepper was all it took to bring all these flavors together.



I didn’t have any lemon-infused olive oil on hand when I decided to try my hand at recreating this dish, but I did have a decent extra virgin and a lemon. I substituted some linguine noodles I was trying to use up for the penne, and Sarah has my steamer pan, so I just threw the diced broccoli, yellow squash and zucchini into a Zip ‘n Steam bag and nuked for two and a half minutes. I squeezed the lemon over the sautéing veggies just before tossing with the pasta (I somehow forgot to add spinach).

The result? Not bad. I definitely preferred the freshly grated parmesan I topped my pasta with to the stuff we shook out of the green can, but the overall effect wasn’t as pleasing. One of the reasons why the dish worked so well the first time was because all the flavors blended. Part of that was simply a matter of getting a mouthful of pasta and veg on the same fork. It just wasn’t as easy with my fat linguine noodles. The Zip ‘n Steam bag, on the other hand, was a shortcut I would definitely use again.

But even with a real lemon, I couldn’t duplicate the flavor combination of the infused olive oil. There’s something to be said about cooking flavor directly into the food you’re making.

summer of sangria

It’s probably a little too late in the season to be making any sweeping declarations about sangria, but I can’t help myself. Inspired by this article in Wednesday’s food section of the SJR, Sarah and I decided to try our hand at making our own fruity concoction.

The first time I had sangria I was 17, packed into the back room of a bodega in Madrid with a dozen or so of my peers. The sangria — deep red and refreshing — really packed a punch, though I don’t think any of us guessed at the alcohol content until after we had downed several glasses. For most of us, underage American students spending their first night of a European tour in Spain, it was the first time we’d been legally able to drink. Of course we overindulged, teetering our way back to the hostel on unsteady legs.

A couple of weeks ago, I dragged Sarah home to Kansas City for my brother’s wedding. In true Moxley form, my father took us out for appetizers after the ceremony, ordering three pitchers of sangria to split between the eight or so of us waiting for the reception to start. Before that night, the last sangria I drank had come from a bottle labeled “Boone’s Farm” that for some reason paled in comparison to the drink I’d had in Spain. Needless to say, after traipsing through the woods two miles away from my apartment while under the influence, I had sworn off sangria. La Bodega’s signature sangria blanco (their secret appears to be brandy and orange liquer) was enough to change my mind.

white sangria

750 mL white wine (we used a $6 bottle of Beringer Pinot Grigio)
3/4 c pineapple orange juice
scant 1/4 c lemon juice
rum to taste
2 pineapple rounds and juice
handful cherries, pitted
juice of 1 Clementine, 2 Clementines for garnish
sugar to taste
ginger ale to taste

serves 4

Sangria is an incredibly flexible beverage. I went with the Beringer because it’s cheap enough to dilute with juice but crisp enough to have a nice fruity undertone. Sarah and I only added a couple of shots of rum (Bacardi 151) because it was all we had on hand. Next time, we’ll probably try flavored rum and brandy for a stronger punch.

We pitted our own Rainier cherries, which were slightly overripe and probably past the point where they would taste good on their own. Once we’d juiced our Clementine (again, we went with what was available — regular oranges probably would have been preferable, but when we went to the store, the naval oranges weren’t as fresh), we put the concoction in the fridge to let the flavors blend. After chilling for about an hour, we added sugar and ginger ale to taste.

What would I do differently next time? Sarah will be pleased to hear that besides ratcheting up the alcohol content, I’ll say no to diet soda. I think we could have cut how much sugar we used had we gone for full-flavor ginger ale.

This white sangria paired well with a light summer pasta dish. I would hold out for red sangria if you’re planning to pair it with tapas.