A Treat Any Day

After returning from Europe in August, the sights and smells of amazing street food on narrow, crowded, picturesque, busy streets is etched in my memory.  It's hard to replicate that experience in most places around the 'burgh, but I have to admit, I think I've almost done it.  I'm not much of a coffee drinker, preferring tea as my caffeine of choice.  But I have a weakness for bitter chocolate, and something about the combination of expresso and chocolate stabs unmercifully at that weakness, and creates something akin to coffee desire.  Not just any coffee, as it must be deep, rich, flavorful expresso.  La Prima Expresso has got it in spades.  My first sip of their iced moka (they insist on you ordering in Italian), was swoon-worthy.   So, it didn't end there.  I was back within a week, treating my sister.  We sat on the street, sipping our moka's, and nibbling a most delectable pastry.   It was an Almond Mele.  What's a mele, you ask?  Well, it looked  a bit like a turnover.  And though I wouldn't normally order almond anything, this seemed the perfect match for this cup 'o joe.  And oh, it was.


A bit of old Europe, right in the Strip District.  Close your eyes, take a sip, a little nibble, and you are right there.  




"Take a breather with a cup of coffee and a mele, a fruit-filled pastry, at La Prima Espresso Company (205 21st Street; 412-565-7070), where the old men sitting at the outdoor tables look like they’ve been sipping espresso and playing cards for eternity."  http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/travel/06hours.html 

Take Two: Tomato Soup with a Thai twist

She must have read my mind.  No, I have not had enough tomato soup, yet.  In fact, I'm thinking I could have it every day for the next month, and still be okay about it.  I have to admit, one of the main reasons that I have been writing this blog is a bit selfish.   It's forcing me to write down a recipe.  My problem has always been that I never do that.   Once I make something, it is unlikely to appear on the table again.  At least in the same format.  People have learned not to ask for a favorite dish.  Sometimes I forget how I made it.  Other times, I'll be cooking away and find I'm lacking some crucial ingredient, so I just substitute freely.  But when something really works, I regret not being one to write it down.  This blog is helping with that.  Maybe it is helping you too, to try something new.  I'm waiting to hear from you.  Perhaps you have a jaw-dropping tomato soup recipe up your sleeve.....do you?  Send it along please!  The month ahead is long.

Me?  I'm always ready to try new things.  So, as the cold rain/snow mix is falling here,  I chose to hole up inside, and take time to check out a few favorite food blogs.  Luckily, I stumbled on the Luisa Weiss post, only to find her writing about Tomato Soup!   Off I went, to the stove again.  What could it hurt?  Besides, I do love red curry.  I don't often cook with it, but when I find myself having dinner alone, that's when I like to whip out the trusty red paste, stored deep on a shelf in the refrigerator, waiting to see the light of day again.

She was right.  The soup come together very quickly, and is so easy to make.  It is a completely different taste than the one I posted last week, and well worth a try.  The heat from the curry sits at a different place on the tongue, yet warms up the toes just as well.  Yet another hit on the tomato soup parade.

The Tomato Soup Promise

I promised I would figure out how to make this tomato soup.  One taste, and I was smitten.  Of course, just looking at the picture is enough to capture your heart, isn't it?  Who can resist the setting....a cute little cast iron soup bowl, a fiery red plate, echoing the color of the soup, a top notch belgian tripel beer, and that swirl, that spiraling swirl of cream.  So, that day in August, sitting in a Dutch bruincafe, in Oosthuizen, Netherlands, I issued a challenge to myself.  Make this tomato soup from scratch, and figure out it's secrets.

The Dutch love their tomato soup.  Every sit-down restaurant that we picked had a version of it on the menu, as ubiquitous as French Onion Soup seems to be in the states.  And, to be fair, each version was delicious.  But, this particular one was a personal favorite.  My first thought was to find a great dutch recipe online and try to replicate it.  I failed.  Not one recipe that I found seemed to unlock the secrets of this amazing bowl of soup.  Missing were the elements that would add complexity, and that was essential.  So, I went back to what I know.

I've made scratch tomato soup before.  I use a recipe that I clipped off the back of a package of frozen rolls.  It is easily made, and oh-so-much-better than Campbell's.  But I knew I had to change up the recipe a bit.  After returning from Holland, the first batch I tried involved fresh tomatoes from the garden and roasting.  After filling a cookie sheet with cut up heirloom tomatoes, an onion, and a few cloves of garlic, I tossed it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and let it roast at 4oo degrees for about 40 minutes.  This became the basis of a really great batch of tomato soup.  But alas, the heirlooms were not sustainable, and would not take me into soup season.  What to do?!  Create a modification with canned tomatoes!  And by the way, when putting this together, don't be bashful with the seasonings.  The spices elevate the soup from merely good, to pretty amazing.

When I made this version last week with the toasted pimento cheese spread sandwiches, it was quite a combination.  Though I'd still like to sneak into the bruincafe's kitchen, and gather a few trade secrets, this will do the trick on those chilly autumn days.  However, if you ever find yourself traveling in North Holland, look this place up.  All you need to order is beer, this soup, and the Chevre Chaud Salad (mentioned in our travel blog), and you will be good to go.

Dutch Influenced Tomato Soup


1 diced onion
1 diced celery stalk
1 diced carrot
2 TBSP butter
1/4 tsp ground cloves or several whole cloves (more to taste)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (more to taste)
2 bay leaves
1  28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes (preferrably San Marzano)
1  14 oz can tomato sauce
2 TBSP brown sugar
2 cups chicken or beef stock
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
handful of fresh basil leaves (can substitute 1 tsp dried basil)
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the first 4 ingredients in a dutch oven till softened, about 5 minutes.  Add cloves, cayenne and bay leaves and stir for one more minute.  Add tomatoes, sugar and stock. Reduce heat to medium low and put on a lid.  Let cook for 20-30 minutes.  Remove bay leaves (and whole cloves).  Transfer to blender and puree, or use immersion blender.  Put back in pot and add milk and cream.  (you can adjust thickness by adding more or less).  Stir in basil leaves, and salt and pepper to taste.