Spicy Sofrito and Black Bean Soup

Thinking back on my childhood, I think I pinpoint my now sister-in-law's entry into our family as the moment where our culinary world expanded. I refer to both an exposure to new foods and flavors and to the culture around sharing food. Growing up, my mother and my sister-in-law's parents made almost every meal from scratch. My guess it was both family tradition and economically driven. It's much cheaper to feed your family home cooked meals than pre-made ones (well, it was. Now I'm not sure if that is still the case). During college my sister-in-law would get a craving for something my Mom would make and tell my brother that they needed to buy celery so that they could make "white people food." It was and still is funny because so many of our meals growing up really did start with a base of onions, celery, ground beef, and salt and pepper. My sister-in-law's family, being Puerto Rican, started most dishes with sofrito, adobo, oregano, cumin, and a smattering of other seasonings. Despite eating a lot of Puerto Rican food over the years and watching both my sister-in-law and her parents cook, I still haven't been able to capture the flavors properly in my own house.

When it came to dinner time, we always sat down as a family to eat, as I believe my sister-in-law's family did as well. In our home, someone would serve up food for each person, giving them the amount they wanted. If we wanted seconds, we served ourselves. In my sister-in-law's family, someone serves the food, but typically gives you more than you ask for. When your plate nears empty, someone offers you more. My sister-in-law told me that one of the first times she ate dinner at our home, she left hungry because while she wanted more food, she was never offered any more and she didn't feel comfortable serving herself more even while the rest of us grabbed seconds. Over the years, we have shared many meals and while our tendencies in how we gather and share food may not have changed much, we have become more accustomed to our differences, small as they may be.

As we all grow and explore the world around us, we have been exposed to more styles of cooking and have incorporated those into our lives. My brother and sister-in-law lived in Japan for a couple years and brought back a passion for the Japanese style of cooking. Growing up, we almost never ate fish because we lived in Wisconsin and nobody in my family went fishing. After they returned from Japan, the family started eating fish with more regularity and occasionally we will make miso soup, ginger chicken, or tonkatsu. I lived in China, where a friend and her mother taught myself and a couple other foreigners how to make baozi. For the last couple years, my family has made baozi for our Christmas Eve dinner. This time intensive meal goes quickly when everyone is chipping in to help roll the dough and form the buns. My other sister-in-law, wife of my younger brother, is a vegetarian which has introduced more non-meat options to our family gatherings. When you grow up with every meal being based on a meat and starch, learning to cook delicious vegetarian meals definitely has a learning curve.

As I drove to the grocery store tonight pondering what to cook for this week, I had a craving for Puerto Rican beans. But, me being me and me not really having mastered Puerto Rican food, I made up my own style of sofrito. Below is the recipe for the sofrito and the black bean soup.

Spicy Sofrito

2 medium tomatoes, cored and quartered
1 bell pepper, cored and quartered
1 head of garlic, peeled
8 small shallots, peeled
1 can chipotle peppers in adobo
2 cherry peppers, stems removed and halved
2 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch cilantro

Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Place in jars and either refrigerate or freeze.

Black Bean Soup

1 c spicy sofrito
1 1/2 tbsp tomato sauce
1 small jar pimentos with juice
2 tbsp slices green olives with juice
2-4 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
adobo to taste
3 28 oz cans of low sodium black beans
2 cans of water
2 tsp chicken better than bullion

Place spicy sofrito, tomato sauce, pimentos with juice, green olives with juice, oregano, cumin, and adobo (sprinkle back and forth across the bottom of the pan twice) in the bottom of a large stock pot. Turn heat to medium-high and cook until fragrant. Add the black beans, water, and chicken bullion. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-high and cook at a low boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and carefully use an immersion blender to blend smooth. Serve hot.

All Apologies

Things have been a little crazy in my life lately. Well, not crazy busy, just crazy in a draining sort of way. My pups recently ruptured a disk in his spine. Oh yea, my dog went beyond normal dog problems to major surgery. I was an absolute wreck for a few days. There were all sort of crazy scenarios going through my head, the worst being "what if they can't fix him and I have to put him down." I now know that when he actually does die, I'll need to take at least a week of vacation so that people at work aren't subjected to my persistent sobbing. It will not be fun. Luckily, they were able to fix him. And, while he'll be spending a long two months in his kennel all the time while his disk scars over even though he feels just fine and has no idea why I keep telling him he can't jump on anything or walk up and down the stairs on his own, he should eventually recover the strength and nerve response in his hind legs. I can only imagine what I'll be like at the end of all this. He's already driving me nuts barking at everyone outside and trying to run around. He needs exercise. I think the animal hospital should throw in free dogging swimming sessions so that he can work out his energy.

Anyways, back to the real purpose of this blog. Food! The CSA is ramping up. I didn't write down everything I received the last few shares, but let's just say there have been green beans, carrots galore, napa cabbage, potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, kale, herbs, fresh cut flowers, and so on. It's been delicious. I have also purchased some local, healthy meats (the maple sausage was delicious), eggs, and organic blueberries (with cream, to die for). I recently made a great salad: a giant mound of greens, bacon, boiled egg, and a warm maple-mustard-bacon grease dressing. So delicious. I would provide a recipe, but can't tell you the exact measurements for the dressing. It was more like, okay, I have some warm bacon grease in that pan; whisk in a giant scoop of maple-mustard; whisk in some rice vinegar, pour into a bowl to be spooned over salad.

Also, I've shared the Chilled Ginger-Carrot Soup and the Curried Quinoa with Vegetables. Well, a friend came over for dinner recently and I made both for our meal. It was the perfect combination. We also drank Vin D'Alsace Pinot Blanc 2007 with it. Sometimes meals are a complete bust (like the salt overload meal I made for one friend once, what a disaster), but sometimes they are exquisite. This was the latter. You must try it (but maybe don't add quite as much ginger as I did. Spicy!).

Last night I made up a layered vegetable dish that was absolutely wonderful, though a bit salty. I'm going to try reducing the salt for you guys, but you may want to be careful when salting the vegetables for weeping. I think that's what pushed this one over the top. But, salting the vegetables is essential to reducing the amount of water in your dish.

Baked and Layered Eggplant, Zucchini, and Tomato

2 Asian eggplants, ends trimmed and sliced thin vertically
3 small zucchini, ends trimmed and sliced thin vertically
salt
2 tbsp basil olive oil
1 medium onion chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 c fresh oregano leaves
1/4 lb thinly sliced prosciutto
3 tbsp chopped kalamata olives
2 medium tomatoes, cored and sliced thin
fresh mozzarella slices
2 tbsp grated Parmesan

Preheat over to 375 degrees.
Place eggplant and zucchini slices on a cooling rack over your sink and salt. Allow to sit. Once water has collected on one side, flip and salt again.
While those are weeping, heat olive oil is a heavy skillet over medium heat.
When oil is hot, add onion and garlic and cook until onion is transparent.
Add canned tomatoes and oregano and cook until most of the liquid is cooked off, remove from heat.
Rinse eggplant and zucchini well, then press between sheets of paper towel to remove excess moisture. (Lean down on your hands, but not so hard as to squash the vegetables.)
Pour a little olive oil in the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch cake pan and spread evenly.
Lay eggplant down in pan to create a layer.
Put a layer of prosciutto over the eggplant.
Layer the zucchini slices over the prosciutto.
Sprinkle the olives over the zucchini.
Layer tomato slices over the olives.
Evenly spread cooked tomato sauce over fresh tomatoes.
Layer mozzarella slices over sauce.
Sprinkle with Parmesan.
If there is any leftover prosciutto, chopped and sprinkle over the top.
Put in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Cover with foil if cheese is browning too much for your taste.
Slice and serve warm.

Rockin' Homemade Pizza

I have come to learn that you can learn good recipes from even the most unexpected sources. Recently I discovered that my younger brother has become quite a good cook. I don’t think he gets into quite as much experimentation as I do, but he cooks everyday. (I think it’s cool that both of my brothers have become the main cooks of their relationships, rather than falling into the gender roles that would put the “burden” of cooking on their significant others). He shared a recipe for Thai Chicken Pizza with the family, and I must say it’s pretty tasty. Our only disappointment in making it was our inability to find a decent crust.

Actually, a decent homemade pizza crust has been the holy grail of my family’s cooking adventures; it was always out of reach and sought for. As it turns out, my younger brother had found a great pizza crust recipe and I have it in my possession now. I will now add the disclaimer that my family likes thin, cracker-like crusts. That way, the toppings take the front seat in the flavor-mobile and the crust doesn’t sit in your stomach like a lump of clay.

With the new crust recipe in hand, I embarked on the adventure of making a great pizza. I winged the sauce recipe, knowing that too much of a good thing (oregano) can make for a bitter sauce, that I like sauce that is just a touch sweet and with a slight sting, and that onions and whole tomatoes were a must. We also decided to slightly cook the pepperoni in a skillet before placing on the pizza. This allowed the pepperoni to release some of its oil and increased the likelihood that it would crisp on the pizza, despite the short baking time. I venture to say that the resulting pizza was practically perfect in every way.

Rockin’ Homemade Pizza

1 pizza crust for a 9x13 inch jellyroll pan
pizza sauce (below)
½ c sliced black olives
1 ½ c shredded mozzarella cheese
enough pepperoni to cover pizza to taste

Sauce:
¼ c olive oil
½ medium onion, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 rounded teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 rounded tablespoon oregano
1 c portabella mushrooms, finely diced
16 oz canned whole tomatoes, with juice
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar

Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat until hot.
Add olive oil.
When oil is hot, add onion and sauté until soft and slightly golden.
Add garlic, red pepper, and oregano and cook until fragrant.
Add portabella mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they have shrunk to half their original size.
Add tomatoes, salt, and sugar and cook, stirring, until reduced to a good sauce consistency.
*You don’t want the sauce to watery, or it will make your crust soggy.

Crust:
1 ¾ c flour
½ tsp salt
¾ c water
¼ tsp sugar
1 tbsp yeast

Mix the flour and salt in a bowl and set aside.
Heat the water in a microwaveable dish for 2 to 3 minutes, until hot but not boiling.
Add sugar to the water and stir until dissolved.
Add yeast to the water mixture, stir, and let sit for 8 minutes.
Pour ½ of the water mixture into the flour and stir.
Add remaining water mixture and stir until just combined (you can use your hands to finish the mixing).

To prepare the pepperoni:
Starting with a cold cast iron pan, add pepperoni in a single layer to the pan.
Turn burner to medium heat.
Once the pepperoni has bubbled up, remove from pan.
If you still have more pepperoni to prep, add another single layer and cook until bubbled up.
Repeat until all pepperoni has been precooked.
Drain pepperoni on paper towel until ready to use.

Pizza assembly:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
Oil a 9x13 inch jellyroll pan and place pizza dough in the center.
Using your fingertips or a small rolling pin, gently press or roll the dough to fit the pan.
Pre-bake the crust for 4 to 5 minutes.
Remove crust from the oven and spread with pizza sauce.
Add olives, cheese, and top with pepperoni slices.
Place bake in the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and slide the pizza out of the pan onto a cutting board.
Cut into pieces and serve.