Good noms reminisces about Soviet Russia

It snowed again in our not-so-wintry land of Mary, and Tu and I made soup. What sort of soup, you ask? Why the sort of soup I grew up eating as a wee lass. It's called borscht, or any number of alternate spellings, and can be (and has been) made vegetarian by omission of meat and substitution of vegetable broth/bouillon.

Ingredients:

• MARROW BONES (I yelled it because this is the basis of delicious soup. If you don't want to eat meat in your soup but don't want to make it vegetarian, you must use bones. Trust me.)
• Beets. 2 large or 3 small.
• Potatoes. 3 medium.
• Cabbage. 1/4 to 1/3 head, depending on size.
• Onion. 1 whole.
• Carrots. 2-3.
• Meat (optional) (stew beef or chuck) 1/2 lb - cut into stew-pieces.
• Olive oil for cooking.
• Peppercorns.
• Bay leaves. (3)
  
• Salt/peppers.

Toppings/serving suggestion.

• Sour cream.
• Clove of garlic.
• Really heavy and dark rye bread.

Bring a large pot of water with the bones in it to a boil (here you may notice I'm using my lovely Christmas LeCreuset, affectionately dubbed as LePot, 5 qt). Peel and halve the beets.

When the pot comes to a boil, you will see white foam come to the surface. Scoop it off. It is bad. It will make your soup taste bitter. Commit the look/consistency to memory, for the next time you decide to call someone a scumbag. After a few minutes (10-15) the scum production will slow down, add the beets. Chop up carrots and onions (I also like to leave the skins on on the carrots, not the onions though). Arrange in clever shape on your plate (optional).
When the beets are soft, take them out, add the potatoes that have been quartered (with skin on), meat, peppercorns and bay leaf. Sautee the onions and carrots in a bit of olive oil. You may season it with salt/pepper. Process the beets (basically shred them by hand or in food processor). Slice the cabbage really thin (think cole slaw/sauerkraut). Put all of above mentioned ingredients back into the pot. Turn to medium low, cover, do as you please for about a half hour.

This is important so pay attention. To serve - get out your fur hat (optional, but recommended). Pour hot soup into the bowl (add salt/pepper to taste), top with a dollop of sour cream. Eat with a clove of garlic, and a slice of dense, dark rye, taking alternating bites. Feel Russki.

Winter Stew

While I was on holiday in the Northeast, I had my two and a half weeks of winter. Then I returned to Southern California where I walked around in my shirt sleeves after dark and thought about how happy I was to be back. But while I was East, I made a very wintery meal, which I will now share with you, to help you get through all those long, dark, cold days that you may or may not have ahead.

YOU WILL NEED:

4 white or yellow onions

6 or so fair sized red-skin potatoes

2 cloves of garlic

1 parsnip

1 turnip

1 yam

1 pound of carrots

1 large steak

Oregano, thyme, black pepper, tarragon and bay leaf to season.

Olive oil, to cook in.

Begin by chopping your onions and pressing your garlic. In this case, I chose to use a garlic

press instead of just chopping it, because I wanted it to infuse into the broth that I was making.

Chop two of your onions into into small pieces. Set the other two aside. Press both cloves of

garlic. Fry these two things in olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot.

Next, you will need to cut up your meat.

Once you have done this, add it, and more oil, to your pot.

Fry it until all the meat appears cooked.

Then add six to eight cups of water and a teaspoon of salt. You have magically created beef broth, free of all the extra crap and packaging usually associated with beef broth!

Let it come to a boil as you chop your vegetables.

You will need to peel and cut the turnip, parsnip and yam. All vegetables should be cut to about the size of a quartered, small potato. You should leave the skins on the potatoes and carrots.

The skins add flavor and nutrients to your food. You might want to cut up your carrots into smaller, coin sized rings. That's what I do.

Add the veggies to the pot, and then season it well with Oregano, black pepper, two bay leaves, thyme and tarragon. Don't over do it, but don't under do it.

Then get it simmering and leave it there for a while, uncovered. With soups and stews, I have the following rule of thumb: if you want it to thicken, uncover it. If you want it to keep its moisture, cover it. Stews should thicken out.

Then go do something else for about an hour. I recommend Mario Kart Double Dash.

Once you've totally won against your siblings and become the queen of your household once again, or if you did something else, about an hour later, the soup will be ready. You should check it in between every couple of races... I mean, every fifteen minutes or so, to make sure

nothing is sticking or burning. If it is, reduce the heat.

When the soup is finished, the yam will have cooked into the broth and all the rest of the vegetables will be mushy and tender. The meat, in my case, was tender enough to cut with a

spoon.

Now, I like to eat garlic bread with stew, personally. Garlic bread is easy to make. Its very similar to the recipe for garlic bread stuffing, but here it is again, just in case:

You will need:

About a half a stick of butter

4 cloves of garlic

Oregano and basil, to season

Thick bread, sliced.

Arrange the bread slices on a cookie sheet. Preheat the oven to about 375. Then melt the butter in the microwave so it is a liquid. Use a garlic press, or cut the garlic by hand into small pieces, and add all of it to the liquified butter. Season it. Stir it up.

If you have a little brush, you can brush it on the bread. If not, you can sort of pour it on with a spoon.

Bake for about five to ten minutes, keeping a weather eye, to make sure the bread gets to be your desired amount of crunchy without burning.

Dip the garlic bread in the soup. Mmmmmmm.

Penance (without pictures): Garlic Bread Stuffing

I have been a bad blogger indeed. My failure is made less noticeable by the other wonderful women that I share this blog with and their ability to do what they are supposed to do. But I will make it up to you. I will translate "I will update good noms every Wednesday, without fail" into Latin and write it in cursive 500 times!

Or, I could give you a recipe for garlic bread stuffing that made everyone happy and my young neighbor who won't eat vegetables eat celery without complaining.

Actually, I like that idea better.

Unfortunately, I will have to add in the pictures for this when I get back to California, since I left my camera cord there.

YOU WILL NEED:

• 1 roasting bird (chicken, duck or duckling, turkey, goose, pheasant, quail et cetera).
• About half a loaf of ciabatta, or similar, bread. A little stale is OK.
• 1 large cooking onion
• 2 stalks of celery
• 3 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• oregano, basil (fresh is always the best) salt, black pepper and cheyenne pepper (to taste)
• The juice of half a lemon

To start, heat your oven to 400 degrees (F). Have your bird prepared: defrosted, cleaned out and sitting in whatever it is you opt to roast a bird in. Here's a helpful hint that I picked up along the way: if you get a bird that was butchered in a slaughter house, they may put the giblets in a plastic bag and shove it inside the bird. You should take those out. I heard that somewhere.

Chop your onions and celery first, then start cooking them in olive oil in your largest of cooking pans. I use a wok for this. Your house will fill with a delicious aroma. Make it more delicious by chopping up the garlic into nice, cajun sized pieces, which I define as being about the size of funfetti cupcake sprinkles (or a little larger, if you want to keep mosquitos from biting!) and adding that to the mix. You may need to add more oil to keep things from sticking. Be smart. Cook this until it is soft and all of it is ready to eat. The celery may still be a little stiff. This is good. Add more oil so that the mixture is a bit saturated with it (but not, you know, floating in it. We want to walk away from this meal).

Next, tear up the bread into crouton sized pieces and throw them into the pan. Cook these pieces in the onion, celery and garlic oil. Make sure to get the bread nice and toasty and to soak up the other flavors that are in the pan. At this point, you should add your herbs (but not the salt, pepper and cheyenne, they go directly on the bird).

Set this aside to cool a bit before you put it in the bird. In the mean time, prepare the bird to cook. Besides stuffing it, before putting a bird into the oven to roast I do the following:

• I squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the whole thing
• I rub salt, pepper and cheyenne into all the skin and
• I place a couple of pats of butter on it, so that this will melt and cook into it in the oven. I know, this one isn't particularly healthy, but I love butter.

After you have done those things, you are ready to stuff the bird. Use a large spoon, or, if you are daring, your hands, to shove all your delicious garlic bread into the bird's cavity. It will overflow it if it is a small bird, like mine was. I arranged the rest of it around the bird in the pan. I do not cover birds that I roast because I like them to get very done and I never find them to be dry. My mother covers hers in a tent of tin foil and they come out well, but not golden and lovely as mine. So make your choice there :D

The time it will take you to cook your bird will depend upon what kind of bird it is. For a chicken, as I prepared with this recipe, it took me about an hour and it served about four, two of whom were teenage boys. Always make sure that your poultry is properly cooked and the juices run clear before serving. If the bread starts to get dark before the bird is done, scoop out the stuffing that is outside the bird and cover it until the meal.

Mia cupola. Forgive me.