SLURP...

SLURP…

I love to eat, so taught myself to cook. It gives me great joy to work in my kitchen. To ‘chop-chop’ as my sister says. To gather and prepare items for a dish, long loved or new to me, makes me feel happy. My mate has always been encouraging and has been here for the good and the bad… when we were first married he ate to live, I taught him to live to eat, I think one can still do that in moderation. Most of our friends are ‘foodies’ so our gatherings or excursions are usually centered on a meal.

My bookshelves are lined with cookbooks, some well worn, and others like new. I recently culled my collection, gave away at least twenty, still there are way too many. Mostly I make our favorite recipes, occasionally trying something new, something enticing from the pages of the latest issue of Food and Wine, or perhaps something Bobby Flay has thrown together on one of his many shows.

This time of year I like making soup and chowders.

Whole Food’s Beef-Barley Soup is a favorite.

• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 pound beef brisket, London broil, stew meat, or chuck roast, cut in small cubes
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1/2 pound small mushrooms, left whole (optional)
• 6 cups water or beef stock
• 1/2 cup uncooked pearled barley
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large carrots or 1 large rutabaga, cut in large chunks
• 3 ribs celery
• parsley for garnish

Trim fat from meat. Heat oil in a large pot and brown meat on all sides. Pour off excess grease. Add onions and mushrooms and sauté until onions are golden. Add water or stock, barley and seasonings. Bring to a boil and simmer 1 1/2 hours. Add carrots and celery and simmer 30 minutes longer or until done, adding more water if necessary. Serve garnished with a sprig of fresh parsley.
(I chop the mushrooms and I use beef broth, not water)

I love a good Mulligatawny, recipes vary from one cookbook to the next. One popular recipe is from the Soup Nazi (Who most of us heard about on the old Seinfeld show.) You can find the recipe online at Recipe Zaar.

A slimmed down, but very flavorful recipe comes from the Soup Peddler in Austin. The recipe isn’t offered online, you have to purchase his book, which I did at a cooking class at Central Market here in Houston.
The book is available at Amazon and well worth it if you like making soup.

My family has always made New England clam chowder using canned chopped clams. (In the fifties my mother often made chowder using Razor clams she had dug herself.) I recently found a superior canned clam, Bar Harbor’s Whole Maine Cherrystone Clams, just fabulous for chowder. They also offer bottled clam juice and other products.

Somewhere along the line I acquired a Scallop chowder recipe we especially like.

Scallop Chowder
12 Scallops
Juice of 1 lemon
½ pint of fish stock (I use clam juice)
1 large onion
6 oz. bacon
4 med. potatoes
1 carrot
1 green pepper (optional)
2 sticks of celery
1 pint of milk
Salt, pepper and juice of 1 orange.

Sprinkle the scallops with the lemon juice, allow to stand 15 minutes. Cut each scallop into four chunks, put into saucepan with fish stock, bring to a simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, and remove from heat. Peel the onion and slice thin. Chop bacon and put into a second pan, cooking to render the fat, remove bacon to a paper towel. Add the sliced onion, sauté until soft, then add the peeled and diced carrot and potatoes and chopped celery Add the milk to the vegetables along with the bacon, simmer until tender, then stir in the scallops and fish stock to make the chowder. Squeeze the orange juice into the chowder before serving. Sprinkle with paprika. If you like thick chowder, combine 1 oz. butter with 1 TBSP. flour and stir into the chowder and let simmer a minute or two.

In Houston we love the Tortilla Soup at Houston’s. No matter how much I whine, they refuse to give me the recipe. Many folks have posted their versions online, not the same! So once every few weeks we trot over to Houston’s on Kirby who serve the soup on Thursday or Houston’s on Westheimer who serve it onTuesday.

Carrabba’s on Kirby have fabulous soups. The cup is a bowl, the bowl is a vat! My favorite is Mama’s Chicken Soup.

For those of you who like to read about food, check out American Food Writing edited by Molly O'Neill.
Great essays and classic recipes. One favorite is an essay by James Beard from Delights and Prejudices. The book really is a history of food in America. Sometimes hard to find, I bought mine at Powell's in Portland, Or.












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