A few weeks ago, my friend Karen Beth asked me to find her a recipe for a creamy tomato-basil soup without any cream. Or half-and-half. Or butter. Something with the flavor but not all the fat. And, preferably meatless, so no chicken stock.

OK. So. At first, I played around with just reducing the high-fat dairy or replacing some of it a healthier alternative, like Greek yogurt. But then I stumbled onto this Creamless Creamy Tomato Soup from Cook’s Illustrated. It’s like a very bare-bones Pappa Al Pomidoro, a Tuscan tomato soup thickened with bread. You make a very basic tomato soup, add three torn slices of white bread, bring it to a boil, and then either transfer the soup to a blender (in stages) or process it in the pot with an immersion blender. The bread thickens the soup and takes some away some of the tomato bite without making the soup dull.

Once you process the soup, you can strain it back into the pot to make it even smoother (if you so desire), and then add vegetable broth and brandy (completely optional). This recipe makes quite a bit of soup, so I like to make the basic tomato and then add the herbs (usually basil or chives) to each bowl for some variety. But if you taste the soup and you’re still missing the cream, stir in a spoonful. You’ll still be getting less fat than if you added the typical amount of cream to the entire pot. Baby steps, baby steps.

Read More…

I wasn’t raised eating venison, but Jeff’s dad and granddad are both hunters, so when I was offered deer for the first time, I guess you could say I was … game. The meat had been marinated and grilled and looked a lot like a grilled tenderloin. Very lean. So, I gave it a try, and it was good! I had a second helping.

Turns out, I’m not the only newcomer to the venison fold. This month’s “Field & Stream” is dedicated to “America’s Meat” and its newfound appeal to locavores and others looking for inexpensive, lean meat that’s “free of the pharmacological stew” that plagues some commercial livestock. The issue features venison recipes from chefs like Bobby Flay, John Currence, John Besh and Paul Kahan.

But, when Jeff’s dad gave us several pounds of deer meat to take home, we knew EXACTLY what we wanted to make with it: the Venison Lasagna from Hank Shaw’s blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

Read More…

Once you’ve had three Thanksgiving meals in three different cities, you enter a zone where your next meal needs to be the complete and total opposite of turkey and dressing. A light palette cleanser, perhaps? Maybe a crisp, refreshing sorbet?

Oh, HELL no.

When you’re serious about hitting the reset button on your palette and your appetite, you’ve really got to go with something like a Philly Cheesesteak. Something packed with beef and onions and peppers and, yes, Cheez Whiz. DON’T YOU JUDGE ME. I’m not a huge fan of processed foods, either, but an authentic cheesesteak requires an ample slathering of the orange stuff. ‘Tis the season. When in Rome. Oh, just do it.

Read More…

Cranberry sauce. It’s pretty, but I’ve never wanted to waste the precious real estate of my Thanksgiving plate on it. Until today, my only use for fresh cranberries was decorative. Pour them into a bowl or vase? Sure! Pour them down my gullet? Hell, no!

But then I saw this recipe for Mushroom Quesadillas with Cranberry-Pecan Salsa. Cranberry salsa! It’s a tiny revelation, like tasting strawberries with balsamic vinegar for the first time. Sweet, sour, fruity and crunchy. A perfect foil for the blast of umami that is the mushroom filling – wild and commercial mushrooms sautéed with butter, chopped onion, minced garlic, Worcestershire sauce and white wine – as well as the richness of the Monterey jack and goat cheese swaddled in each tortilla.

So, why am I sharing this now instead of waiting for Meatless Monday? Because most Worcestershire sauces contain anchovies. So, if keeping the recipe vegetarian is important to you, check the label. If not, just use what you have. It’s behind the soy sauce.

Read More…

Jeff would happily eat roast chicken every week, so I’m always looking for new recipes.

This Herb Roast Chicken is from “The River Cottage Meat Book,” the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook of the Year for 2008. When Jeff first bought the book, I was sore afraid we’d have a fridge full of offal and he’d take up butchering as a hobby, but then I started flipping through the book myself, and it’s a surprisingly good read. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is exactly the kind of guy you’d want coaching you through the finer points of meat – a chef and food writer, brilliant, funny, passionate and down-to-earth.

His recipe for roast chicken is simple. There’s no trussing the bird or even patting it dry. No stuffing the cavity. Just slather on the herb butter, roast and baste. Once the cooked bird has rested, you carve it in the pan so that the pieces fall into the buttery pan juices. And I couldn’t exaggerate how delicious those buttery pieces are. A simple, rustic recipe that sings with flavor. A roast chicken I could probably eat once a week.

Read More…

“Our meal is free to any members of Division 194. We are with you till hell freezes, and when it does, we will furnish blankets to keep you warm.” – Bennie and Clovis Martin, owners of Martin Brothers’ Coffee Stand and Restaurant, birthplace of the po’ boy

While everyone else counts down to Turkey Day, the clock on the New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival website is marking the seconds until Sunday, Nov. 22. The day historians, chefs, musicians, artists, craftsmen, volunteers and fans will take to the streets to celebrate the poor boy (or po’ boy), New Orleans’ most famous sandwich. A crisp baguette split and barely hanging on to piles of fried seafood or roast beef and gravy, freshly shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes and mayonnaise, remoulade or Creole mustard.

It’s time to save a culinary treasure from being lost in the swelling sea of torpedo-sized fast-food sandwiches. And if you don’t live near New Orleans, saving the po’ boy means making one.

Read More…

This is a recipe with possibilities.

Made as written, it will give you a pan full of poblanos stuffed with black beans, cornmeal, pepper jack, onions and cumin in a spicy tomato sauce. But think about how many changes you could make to that filling. Instead of cornmeal, you could use cooked rice or cheese grits. You could substitute pintos for the black beans, habanero cheddar for the pepper jack. Add spinach, corn and mushrooms. Change up the spices. Toss in some cilantro.

Once the poblanos are out of the oven, you can pile on even more flavor with sour cream, freshly chopped cilantro or scallions and lime zest. Or a little guacamole. It’s hard to get enough guacamole into your diet.

Read More…

The first time I tried Shrimp and Grits, well nigh many years ago, I was at a party at a Mardi Gras warehouse in New Orleans. Just an hour or so from getting my drink on, donning an electric blue boa and barging into a roped-off Green Room, where I would stand face-to-face with Academy Award-Winning Director Oliver Stone and call him a “damn Hollywood type” who needed to come out and “party with the people.”

Since alcohol just puts me to sleep, I blame the Shrimp and Grits. Shrimp cooked in a “gravy” flavored with bacon, onion, bell pepper and scallions and then spooned onto a mound of peppery cheese grits. It’s like a party on a plate. And, even though it’s a traditional Southern dish, it was exotic to a landlocked Tennessean like me. To find Southerners with enough shrimp to eat them for breakfast, you have to move along the coast, especially to South Carolina, where fishermen first started bringing surplus shrimp home to eat with their grits.

When Mom asked me about the trip, I neglected to mention the cocktails, the boa or bullying Oliver Stone. But I spread the gospel of those Shrimp and Grits. Now, we don’t have a family holiday meal without them. I wish I could say the same about the boas.  Read More…

So, Soup Season is kicking in, and if you love taters like I love taters, you’ll be crazy in love with this Roasted Potato Leek Soup with Crispy Shallots, one of this month’s Barefoot Bloggers recipes by Ina Garten (code name: Barefoot Contessa).

You won’t believe how much flavor is infused into every half-cup serving. The soup’s foundation is a combination of potatoes, leeks and arugula roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper. Then comes the next layer of flavor: white wine (or apple cider) and vegetable stock.

Most cooks would stop here with a perfectly respectable soup, but when have we ever been respectable? Onward, Ina! Read More…

People have asked how I get Jeff to go meatless on Mondays.

The truth is, I don’t.

I look for recipes that can work for both of us, like pastas and pizzas, omelets and stir-frys, panini and quesadillas. The latest addition is this Butternut Squash Casserole. My meatless half is warm butternut squash boiled with a few handfuls of fresh spinach and baked with buttery onions, buttermilk, eggs, bread crumbs, cheddar, thyme and toasted pumpkin seeds. Filling, but not heavy. For Jeff’s half, I skip the spinach and seeds and add a layer of hot Italian sausage.

One tip: If you’re making a meal you know your dining partner loves, like pasta, you can supplement their plate with a healthy meat. HOWEVER, if you’re introducing something fairly new to them, like butternut squash, you might want to sweeten the deal with a little meat candy (aka sausage and bacon).

Bacon beats nagging any day.

Read More…