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.

Yummy Pimento Cheese Spread

Did you find yourself a peck of fresh red peppers at the farm market last weekend?    I hope you did!  Such a deal, I found a peck for five dollars, with each one more perfect than the next.  So, I'm betting that you roasted and marinated them when you got home, using last week's post.  Possibly by now, you are tired of eating them on bread with parmesan cheese, but have some leftover (is this really possible??).  But, if so, here is what you want to do now.....

Travel down south and you'll find that they love their pimento cheese spread, while  we in the north really know nothing of it.  But having been a southerner for one year of my life (grad school at N.C. State ), I'm in tune with southern cuisine.  My ears perk up when I hear favorite dishes being mentioned.  I have unusual cravings from time to time.  And quite often, my homemade iced tea gets an extra jolt of sugar for the "sweet tea" lover in me.  But, I have never had pimento cheese spread.  It was time for this to change.  And, my leftover marinated red peppers (after making and canning 7 jars this weekend), gave me a great idea!  They are  surprisingly pimento-like.  Actually, they are so much better.

The big bonus, and this really is a big bonus now that we are hitting soup season around here, is that the spread makes a lovely toasted cheese sandwich.  Imagine the joy of a piping hot pot of tomato soup alongside this vision of loveliness.  (While you're imagining, I'm going to run over to the stove, as it is rainy, gray, cold and windy here!)  And the spread recipe makes enough for quite a few sandwiches, so invite a few people over to help you enjoy it.  But, fair warning, you may want to wait for the tomato soup post next week.

Gussied-Up Southern-Style Pimento Cheese Spread


8 ounces extra sharp white cheddar cheese - grated
8 ounces sharp orange cheddar cheese - grated
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3/4 cup marinated roasted red peppers (or pimentos)
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 or 2 dill pickles - chopped up


Pulse together in food processor lightly, to retain identity of ingredients.  Smear on your favorite sandwich bread for toasted cheese, or serve with crackers, raw veggies, baguette slices, etc.

P. S.  Want to know a great tip?  When making grilled cheese (or any other grilled sandwich), a light and quick coat of mayo on the surface of the side of the bread to be grilled will give you perfect results, and is MUCH easier than butter to handle.  Just be sure to be skimpy with it.

Roasting and Marinating Red Peppers

The very first time that I ever had home-roasted red peppers, we were at my aunt's house. She had set out a small bowl of them before dinner, with some italian bread. Being famished, we dug into it, and were immediately taken aback. "What are these?", "OMG!", "How did you make these?", were the things I remember uttering between bites. She patiently explained the process, but also gave the disclaimer, "they can be a bit tedious".

Hmmmmmm......tedious and I don't usually get along too well. But these, maybe these would be worth it.

I mean, aside from the fact that red bell peppers made it to the "World's Healthiest Food" listing, they are both delicious and useful in a whole bunch of ways. I'm actually a big fan of raw red pepper slices (especially when dipped into a curried veggie dip). But, I would have to say that my favorite way to eat bell peppers by far, is now by roasting them.

And they are so worth it. Although I don't get around to making it very often, this time of year it is hard to resist. A quick visit to any farmer's market finds large, heavy, deep scarlet bell peppers in abundance, and I think, "take them home and DO IT!" If you find yourself in a similar situation, take some time out of your busy day to make these. You won't be sorry.

To start out, you need to blister and roast the peppers under high heat....a grill or broiler. I usually throw mine on the grill when I have other things being cooked. You can virtually forget about them, and just remember to run out and turn them occcasionally, till all sides char up to a blackened state (about 20-30 minutes). Once the peppers have softened, and it is sufficiently darkened, rush it into a bowl and put a quick lid on it. Then, go ahead and eat your dinner (you know, the one you had put on the grill with the peppers). After dinner, the peppers should be cool enough to handle.

So far, pretty easy huh? But this is the tedious part. Carefully peel off blackened skin and discard, as well as the stem and core of the pepper, and the seeds and white membranes inside. But, you need to do this while hovering overtop of the bowl, so that you can catch all of the drips of the sweet pepper juice....this forms the base of your marinade.

Once you have accomplished this part, you are home free. Now slice up the fleshy soft parts of the pepper that remain. Mix them right into the pepper juice with some a couple of glugs of good olive oil (the cloudier and greener the better!). Sprinkle a high quality balsamic vinegar into the mix, and season with tiny amounts of salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

And for the very important last step, eat it, by spooning it onto crusty italian bread with a shard of well aged italian cheese (parmigiano reggianno, pecorino romano, asiago, etc). You can also keep it under a layer of olive oil in the fridge for about 10 days, but it probably won't last that long. And right after I took this picture?

I ate it.

The End of Peaches

Hear ye, hear ye, the end of peach season is upon us. From the fertile fields of Pennsylvania, the luscious, unctious, ought-be-illegal-it's-so-good, crop of 2009 has just dropped. Time is ticking. If you see PA peaches still at your favorite farm market, scoop them up. Quickly. Like we just did. Thanks to the raid on our local grower, we found ourselves with a half bushel of beautiful blushing gems. The plan: Home Canned Vanilla Peaches.

By the way, we have two peach trees growing here, planted by us. Neither seems particularly happy. Peaches appear from the blossoms in late spring, and start to swell, almost teasing us. We have not treated the trees, and it shows. This year, one peach got very near eating size, and to protect it from birds and insects, I cut a piece of nylon stocking and wrapped it as it hung gracefully from a branch. Sadly, the raccoon that lives nearby has been endowed with opposable thumbs, and made quick work of the carefully wrapped snack. So this year, no homegrown peaches for us. Maybe next year will be better. We have a lot to learn.

And that would include canning. I am a rookie canner, and will likely stay that way. You see, I see canning as a large scale operation. I fail to see how a lone person could accomplish all of the vagaries of the canning process by themselves. If you locked me in the kitchen and put the task in front of me, you might still find me there three days later, up to my eyeballs in peels and lids. So, when two friends eagerly volunteered to join in the peach party, it was great news.

I'm also of the mind that with all of the work involved in home canning, I'll stick to the value-added product. Something pickled, or herbed, or complex in some exotic way. Something you wouldn't mind paying a little more for, if you could find it in the local high end grocery. That's how I decided on Vanilla Peaches. The idea is to put a sliced vanilla bean inside the jar with the peaches and sugar solution, then process it. The infusion of sweet, heady vanilla into those gorgeous peaches is already haunting me. The three of us spent a good deal of sweat equity, a small fortune in vanilla beans, and netted 20 quarts of love.

Now, the hard part. How to keep our hands OFF the peaches until winter arrives, and the taste of peaches has long been gone.......so that we can truly appreciate the investment spent. Don't be surprised if we hoard them a bit, and instead serve up some fine Del Monte product when you visit. I'm sure you would understand. But, to guarantee a jar of your own, do you want to sign up for the canning party next year?

Home Canned Vanilla Peaches

16 Pennsylvania grown freestone peaches

6 cups water

3 1/2 cups sugar

2 vanilla beans

2 lemons

4 wide-mouthed, quart jars/lids/rings

1. Sterilize Jars, Lids, Rings.

2. Mix together water and sugar and bring to a boil for 1 minute. Cool slightly. Put into a pourable container.

3. Squeeze the juice of 1/2 of Lemon into each quart jar.

4. Cut vanilla beans in half. Then make slit vertically to expose seeds. Place one half into each jar.

5. Blanch peaches in boiling water for 1 minute, place in cold water bath. Cut in half, peel, remove pit and all parts of red fibrous core. Stack peach halves into jar, packing well. Stop when you are within an inch of the top.

6. Fill jars to within 1/2 inch with the sugar solution. Run a knife inside the jar to loosen air pockets.

7. Dip clean towel into boiling water and wipe the lip of the jar. Place lid and ring on jar and finger tighten.

8. Process in boiling water bath for 30 minutes. Cool, then check seal. Refrigerate those that do not seal properly.

The Infamous Pickled Beet

Since this blog's origin as "The Pickled Beet", I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the beet crop, followed by the pickling of that crop. Luckily, its been a great year for beets in my garden. In my haste, I rushed out and pulled them all up in one day, and called my mom. Help!!!

My love for pickled beets can be attributed to my grandma. Oh yes, I do like beets in all sorts of different preparations, even just freshly cooked with a tab of butter, salt and pepper. However, my heart belongs to the pickled variety. When Easter rolls around, pickled beets and eggs are a requirement in my book. Grandma and I used to make them together, with her telling me what to add in between lots of story telling and laughing, tasting and adjusting our handiwork, and then sitting down to enjoy them at the table. Not everyone in the family agreed with our refined tastes, but mom, grandma and I loved them.

Her method involved canned beets. She used their juice to form the base of our pickling liquid, which was a pretty straight up concoction of sugar, vinegar and the canned beet juice. She always said to add the eggs just a few hours before serving. "Otherwise, they get like rubber", she would explain.

I love them her way, really I do. But, one day at the now defunct Ye Olde Silver Fox restaurant, I was served their homemade pickled beets on my salad. They were good. Really good. Sweet and tart, yes, but also hints of spice. So, I have set out to improve on grandma's recipe. This year, I started with fresh garden beets, roasted in their skins. Then a brine, bringing together not just sugar and vinegar, but herbs and spices, and a touch of lemon. Yes, I'm changing her recipe. But I really don't think she'd mind. She was always up for new things, and her spirit of adventure lives on in all of us.

I wish grandma were here to share in the bounty this year. My mom and I spent 2 fun days on the this batch. The first day picking, washing, trimming, and roasting the beets, then mixing up the brine. Day two was devoted to canning. All told, we ended up with 12 pint jars of pickled beets, to open up slowly through the winter. We will save a precious few jars for around Easter time, when memories of times with grandma will be shared as we sit down together and dig in.

Grandma's Slightly Modified Pickled Beets

10-12 medium sized beets

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

2 cups vinegar

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp cinnamon

Bay Leaf

Lemon Peel strips from 1/2 of Lemon

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1. Place clean beets in baking pan, covered with foil. Bake at 375, for at least an hour, until beets are fork tender.

2. Mix together remaining ingredients in saucepan. Bring to boil. Allow to boil for 15 minutes.

3. Once beets have cooled enough to handle, peel. Cut into slices or cubes and pack into clean and sterile canning jars.

4. Ladle in hot pickling juice. Leave 1/4" of head space. Seal.

5. Place in boiling water bath for 30 minutes.