Spring Soup

By Brianne Harrison

The 70 degree days were glorious and made it easy to forget that we’re just barely into spring, which means the occasional shower and cooler weather. For me, there’s nothing better on a chilly, wet day than a nice hot bowl of soup. The recipe below is my take on kale and white bean soup. I ran out of kale and substituted a zucchini I found in the fridge, and tossed in some sausage I had in the freezer. The results were warming and delicious:

Spring Sausage Soup
½ lb turkey or chicken sausage, casings removed
1 zucchini, diced
Clove of garlic, minced
1 can white (navy) beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups chicken stock
olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Put a medium sized soup pot over medium heat and add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom. When heated, crumble the sausage into the pot and cook, stirring, until the sausage is browned evenly. Remove sausage to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

2. Pour off any excess grease from the sausage and replace the pot over the heat. Add the zucchini and garlic and sauté briefly, for about 2 minutes, just until the zucchini starts to brown slightly.

3. Return the sausage to the pot and add the chicken stock. Bring the soup to a boil. Add the beans, and cook for about three minutes. Season to taste. Spoon into bowls and serve with crusty whole-grain bread.

Cook’s note: This is a highly adaptable recipe. You can replace the zucchini with chopped spinach or kale (just omit the sautéing step if you use these greens), or make this vegetarian by removing the sausage, adding more beans, and replacing the chicken stock with vegetable. Let your imagination run wild!

Healthy Roundup:
Turkey or chicken sausage has far fewer calories and less fat than pork sausage, but the same amount of protein. It’s now available at most grocery stores.

Beans, as most of us know, are high in protein and cholesterol-lowering fiber and low in fat. The high fiber content helps keep your blood sugar stable after the meal, so you feel fuller longer. They’re also a good source of folate, manganese, vitamin B1, phosphorus, copper, magnesium, and iron.

Zucchini is noted as an excellent source of manganese and vitamin C, and a very good source of magnesium, vitamin A, fiber, potassium, folate, copper riboflavin, and phosphorus. Many of these nutrients have been shown to help prevent atherosclerosis and diabetic heart disease, and the magnesium can help reduce high blood pressure and the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Well Preserved

image courtesy of randomhouse.com

By Pat Tanner

My mother instilled in me two fears that to this day I am unable to shake: terror of pressure cookers (explosions) and home canning (botulism). So it was with some trepidation that I cracked open Eugenia Bone’s new book, “Well-Preserved” (Clarkson Potter 2009).

I began to relax when it became clear that Ms. Bone conducted painstaking research on the latest technological improvements. The first 45 pages explicate the exacting but simple facts and provide detailed how-to instructions for each technique. Plus, she brings preserving into the 21^st century by going beyond water-bath canning and pickling to also include freezing, preserving in oil, curing and smoking, and pressure canning. She uses this variety of techniques to preserve not just fruits and vegetables, but also meat, poultry, fish, beans, nuts, and fungi.

Bone acknowledges that modern home cooks have limited time and space both for preserving and for preparing daily meals. She makes a good case that preserving a wide variety of products in small batches - which she does in her space-challenged Manhattan rental – is not all that time consuming and that the resultant variety of products allows her to actually spend less time preparing interesting dinners all year long.

Each recipe for preserving a particular product – say, cherries in wine – is followed by savory and sweet recipes that incorporate that product (e.g., cherry tenderloin, seared duck breast with cherries, cherry dessert soup with mascarpone).

Even if you choose to substitute store-bought preserves for homemade, dishes such as chicken thighs with green olive tapenade and shrimp with three-citrus marmalade are wonderful. But because Ms. Bone makes preservation seem so doable, so practical, and so cost-effective, you will want to make your own

Even I - scaredy-cat that I am - am contemplating buying a pressure canner to try my hand at preserving top-quality local tuna in oil.

Eat Your Vegetables

By Judith Garfield

Lately I have been trying to eat healthy(er).

This means less white (sugar, flour), more bright (fruits and vegetables). I love eating healthily, but it means I must…wait for it…cook. My husband makes delicious meals; however, healthy is not a big priority for him. Even if a recipe does not include a lot of butter he will add it. This is also a man whose staples include Wonder Bread and peanut butter, and only the kind that Annette Funicello used to sell. He’s a loyal Mouseketeer. And he gets very cranky if his ice cream is without a whip: Dream, Cool or Redi.

When I really feel the need for a flavorful, low-fat vegetarian meal, it’s up to me. So I was very happy my good friend M. came over last week, looked at my hugely overgrown garden and said, “Judy, time to make the ratatouille.” My husband snickered, but could not stop saying the word in his best (i.e.) annoying French accent. For those of you unfamiliar with the word, the phonetic pronunciation is Rat-a-too-ee. Have fun saying it over and over to whoever is pretending not to hear you.

I missed Ratatouille, the animated Disney film about Remy, the rat who wants to be a chef. I heard it was charming, but after living thirty years in Manhattan the last thing I wanted to see in my kitchen was a rat.

This is a dish that lends itself to improvisation, and there are hundreds of recipes you can find. It’s a perfect dish for mid to late summer when tomatoes, eggplant, and squash are in season. It’s a one pot or skillet meal, cooks in less than thirty minutes, and contains not one white ingredient.

Ratatouille

In a skillet, heat olive oil, garlic, and a sliced onion until it is transparent. Add the following diced ingredients:

1 Eggplant

1 yellow squash

a container of sliced mushrooms

1 red pepper

4 tomatoes (fresh if you have them or one 14-ounce can diced)

small jar of pitted calamato olives (drained and cut in half)

Cover and simmer till everything is tender. Season with salt and pepper and lots of oregano. Red pepper flakes if you like it hot. Garnish with fresh basil and grated parmesan cheese.

Voila¢….Gratatouille!