Hot & Sour Soup

Tonight I made the Hot & Sour Soup on p. 8. Unfortunately, it wasn't very hot or sour. I sound like a broken record, I know, I know, but where is the flavor?



This is surprising to me because I was raised on chicken and boiled potatoes, and the only spices my mother ever used were salt and pepper, so it's not like I grew up on hot and spicy food. And after living most of my adult life in Santa Fe, I learned that when it comes to spicy food, by New Mexico standards, I'm a real wimp. But honestly, most of the recipes I've tried from this cookbook are just okay, bordering on bland. All that said, Molly has sold a lot more cookbooks than I have, so it must just be me.

I know I could try doctoring her recipes to suit my taste, but I want to try her actual recipes as she thinks they should be made. I think I'll stick with her brownies, which I LOVE.

p.s.--
I will try a few of her other soups, especially if it stays soup-weather around here, but if I don't like them, I promise to be brief. I'm starting to feel like a real naysayer. Seems like I'm the only one who doesn't care for most of the recipes, and I don't want to make this blog a downer for everyone. I really like doing this!

Next Cookbook--The Foster's Market Cookbook

Most of the cookbooks I own are in my storage unit here on the island. As some of you know, I live in a small cottage at Friday Harbor Labs that doesn't have room for anything I don't truly need. One of the cookbooks I kept with me when we moved here is The Foster's Market Cookbook: Favorite Recipes for Morning, Noon, and Night. It includes several cake recipes that I love to make, including a Four-Layer Blueberry Gingerbread Cake with Mocha Cream and a Buttermilk Cake with Fresh Strawberries and Cream.

I hadn't prepared anything other than cakes from this cookbook for a long time, but I recently started making my way through some of the recipes I hadn't yet tried. A couple of weeks ago, I brought the Lentil, Spinach, and Feta Salad with Sour Cherry Vinaigrette to a barbecue and came home with a completely empty bowl. The next week, the same thing happened with the Sesame Noodles with Baby Greens and Cucumbers. After several people asked me for recipes, I decided to suggest the source as our next cookbook.

The book features recipes from its namesake, a restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In the introduction, Sara Foster talks about using high quality, in-season produce at her restaurants because "Food at its peak doesn't need much done to it to taste great. Simplicity is key: I believe in enhancing flavors, not masking them." I'm hopeful that Foster's recipes will provide some great opportunities to highlight the amazing produce available at the farmer's market and in our gardens right now. Foster notes that while the recipes she's included in the cookbook are carefully crafted, they are certainly "not sacred." She encourages readers to use her recipes as a springboard: "Let personal taste and what's available at the farm stand - or in the cupboard - inspire you." I know that none of us needs permission to get creative with recipes, but I love the the sentiment. I hope you find some new favorites in Foster's Market throughout the next couple of months.

Carrot Cake

I couldn't decide what to bring to a potluck barbecue at South Beach, so I flipped through Moosewood looking for something new to try. Much to Mike's disapproval, I settled on the carrot cake, which he doesn't consider dessert. But it looked easy to make and easy to transport, so that was that. More importantly, though, I was hoping it would be easy to foist off on others since the recipe claimed that it served 12 to 16 (which turned out to be quite an understatement).

When mixing the batter, I generously mounded my teaspoons of cinnamon and allspice. I also opted to add shredded coconut to the mixture. I smoothed the very thick batter into a 9 by 13 pan and hoped that I hadn't accidentally added too much flour. It took much longer than 35 minutes to bake; the middle was quite soupy at 35 minutes, so I just kept adding five minutes until it had cooked for nearly an hour.

The recipe didn't include a frosting or topping, and it seemed sort of naked and incomplete, so I found this Ginger-Cream Cheese Icing recipe on Epicurious to mix up for the top. It wasn't super thick -- if I'd had more cream cheese, I would have used it to thicken the frosting up a bit. The sweet-gingery flavor complemented the spiced cake nicely. People seemed to enjoy the cake, and, as Mike was carrying it back to the car, someone stopped him and asked for "just one more piece" before he took the remainder back home.

Moosewood Fudge Brownies - oh yeah!

Finally, a recipe I will make again. On a lark I made the Moosewood Fudge Brownies (p. 213) after dinner tonight. I've never before made brownies with brown sugar, and with a whopping 5 eggs I figured they'd be pretty cake-like, which is how I like my brownies. What's great is that they bake for only 30 minutes (recipe calls for 25 but mine weren't done till 30), and you test for doneness like a cake -- by inserting a knife in the middle and if it comes out clean, voila! Never have done that with brownies before, either. And to top it all off, you cut them while they're hot, then let them cool for only 10 mintues. Now that's a bonus. So now my kids only have to wait 10 minutes after they come out of the oven to dig in. We're all happy about that. Yum. A keeper.

Curried Squash & Mushroom Soup

I love to make soup, so on this chilly Juneuary day, I decided to start working my way through Molly's soups. I was encouraged by Suzanne saying she has liked several of Molly's soups from this or other cookbooks. I chose the Curried Squash & Mushroom Soup on p. 15 because my husband would eat a shoe if it were flavored with curry, so I figured it would be an easy sell. But, here I go again, there's just not enough flavor to this soup for me, or maybe I should say there's too much flavor, but it's all orange.

The recipe calls for a whole cup of o.j., which I had misgivings about considering you only use 2 1/2 c. water, and that's your liquids. Yep, it's really orangey. I've spent the last half hour adding more and more cayenne, which I never do, 3 tsp. curry powder, several dashes of hot sauce, and lots more salt. I think it's okay, but my husband won't be asking for seconds. Thankfully I'm serving it with a salad and salmon, so it's not the main course.

Here's what I think: this recipe can't decide if it's supposed to be sweet or savory, so it's neither. But I know people who really like orange and this would probably be a lovely soup for them. Me, I love oranges, but eaten out of hand, not on my steak, not infused into my chicken, and not overwhelming my curry soup. So, onward . . . I think I'll try the Hot & Sour next.

Samosas-- the original recipe

I decided to try the Samosas using the actual ingredients called for in the cookbook. It was disappointing to say the least! I am bummed since I made these as a dinner offering for our friends Terese and Brian and new baby girl. I am surprised that they were so blah! The only thing that saved them was the dipping sauce (which isn't in my early copy of the cookbook.) I did run out of stuffing since I was making a double recipe, so opened a jar of spaghetti sauce, added peas and some cheese and pre-cooked frozen hamburger. They were much better than the original recipe. So I suggest that the recipe be zipped up a bit, maybe adding mustard powder rather than mustard seeds.

Brazilian Black Bean Soup

When I tell someone how much I love a soup I'm eating, I often learn that the person found the recipe in Moosewood or another one of Mollie Katzen's cookbooks. Since I've enjoyed so many of her soups already, I decided I needed to try a soup recipe, and I went with the Brazilian Black Bean Soup.

I made a couple of changes to the recipe, including chopping up extra carrots and peppers because I like each spoonful of soup to have a variety veggies in it. I also sauteed the onions and garlic for quite awhile before I added the carrots because caramelized onions make me happy. We don't have great tomatoes yet, so I drained a can of diced tomatoes and used them instead.

As I was serving dinner, I realized I didn't have ANY of the suggested toppings, so we used cheddar cheese and green onions. I was hoping my kids would eat the soup, so I didn't use much cayenne pepper; Mike and I splashed in some Tabasco Sauce to liven it up a bit. Cilantro would have been nice -- I will buy some to serve with the leftover soup. A bowl of soup with a salad and a slice of watermelon left us plenty of room for chocolate cake and homemade ice cream.