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Wednesday, April 06, 2005

a couple of really well-timed recipes

Here it is the END of winter and I'm posting soup recipes. It's all Kristen's fault. She wanted me to email them to her but I felt low on actual content today, so I thought I'd just post them here. Plus the world in general is not fat enough yet, so this clam chowder one needs to get spread around a little more. YUM.

Monterey Clam Chowder
(my brother found this recipe after we'd been on a trip to Monterey, getting clam chowder samples at every restaurant on the Wharf. THANK YOU BROTHER, it is wonderful. And I probably really needed those EXTRA FIVE POUNDS PER BOWL.)

  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 1 potato, diced
  • 1 stalk of celery, diced
  • 1/2 lb minced bacon
  • 1/4 lb butter
  • 3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
  • 1 pt clam juice
  • 1 1/2 c flour
  • 1 pt milk
  • 1 pt heavy whipping cream (when I make it I use just a quart of half-and-half and a pint of nonfat milk -- not because of calories but because it's cheaper and nonfat milk is what we keep on hand. It comes out fine this way, actually maybe a little easier to eat cause it's not SO overpoweringly thick and rich. YMMV.)
  • 1 pt half-and-half
  • 1/2 t black pepper
  • 1/2 lb chopped clams (fresh, frozen or canned) (2 or 3 of the 6-oz cans)
  • 1/2 t clam base (optional -- you can get this at Smart and Final but I've never used it. It makes a mellow clam chowder without it. Might be stronger with it, but Monterey clam chowder generally has a milder clam flavor than New England clam chowder anyway.)

Sauté vegetables and garlic in bacon and butter in a 5 quart sauce pot over medium heat until vegetables are tender but not brown. Add flour to make a roux. Cook for two minutes, allowing flour to cook while stirring occasionally. Add clam juice, milk, half-and-half, and cream. Stir with a whisk. Add pepper, clams and clam base. Cook over low-medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent chowder from scorching, for two hours or until chowder is brought to desired thickness. (took WAY less than 2 hours for me. More like 30-40 minutes.)

Once you have the vegetables sautéed, you can put the whole thing in a crock-pot for several hours if you'd like.


And here's one for minestrone. I read that word phonetically till I was heading toward junior high. I had heard of minestrone soup; it just never occurred to me that it and the mine-strone I saw in Campbell's cans in the store were the same thing. I did the same with Yosemite, although I was cured of that one much younger. My five-year-old self would see hitchhikers carrying signs that said "Yosemite" and wonder -- what's this Yose-mite place? Hello, Rachel, YOU LIVE RIGHT OUTSIDE IT. Do I need to tell you about "Chevrolet"? Probably not.

SHUT UP AND GET TO THE RECIPE ALREADY RACHEL.

Thank you, I needed that.

OK, here it is. Warning, it takes like eight hours to make if you don't soak the beans overnight, five or six hours if you do. It's not something you can just whip up for dinner. I got this recipe in Cultural Foods class in high school, which was kind of an odd combination of the history of the discovery of and immigration to the US, and home ec. You'd have to try it to understand, but I don't think they offer it anymore. SHUT UP AGAIN RACHEL.

Minestrone

Soak 1 pound of small white beans (navy beans) in a couple of quarts of water, either overnight, or by simmering them for 2 minutes and then letting them sit in the pan for 2 hours.

Then melt 3T butter and 1/4 c oil in a heavy 5-quart saucepan. (I use less at a time but I do probably end up using this whole amount. I'm sure you could make the soup without the sautéing, too, but I never have yet.) Sauté the following one at a time, 2 minutes each:

  • 1 c chopped onion
  • 1 c diced carrot
  • 1 c chopped celery
  • 2 c diced zucchini
  • 1 c diced green beans
  • 3 c shredded cabbage
  • 1/2 bunch chopped spinach (I've always left this out. Not because we don't like spinach, just because, um, I never have it on hand and generally forget to buy it.)
Add vegetables back to the pan, and add:

  • 1 lb cubed beef steak or stew meat
  • the drained beans (reserve the liquid)
  • 6 c weak beef broth (I used 2 cans broth and 1 can water)
  • 1 can tomatoes
  • 4T tomato paste (I just add the whole 6oz can, have no idea how many T that is)
  • 1/2 c chopped parsley (I use maybe 3 T of dried parsley)

  • 3 cloves minced garlic (why don't they have you sauté this? I'll have to try it sometime)
  • 1 T basil
  • 1 T salt
  • 1/4 t pepper
  • 1 c red wine (I always feel like Such A Grownup buying wine at the store. I only ever buy it for cooking; can't stand the taste of it. Because I'm a baby. I don't like black coffee either. Or dark chocolate.)
Cook all this for 4-5 hours, adding bean liquid (or you can have pitched out the bean liquid after step one, and just add water, like me) as necessary, stirring occasionally. In the last half-hour add about a cup of pasta -- recipe says broken spaghetti but I just use whatever suits my fancy that time -- rotini, farfalle, conchigliette, you could probably use salad macaroni -- live dangerously. ;)
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Posted by Rachel on April 6, 2005 01:28 PM in I dunno, I thought it was funny... | recipes

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