Asparagus Soup

Asparagus Soup:
1 Lb Asparagus
2 Tb Butter
2 Tb Flour
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Water
Parmesan, Lemon Juice, Salt, Pepper, anything else you wanna chuck in.

Cut up Asparagus and boil until tender. Drain.
Melt butter in the pot, add flour. Cook until smells nuttalicious.
Add milk and water and whisk quickly to dissolve roux.
Add cooked asparagus, buzz it, add delicious flavorings of your choosing, slurp!

Tomalito

I had been meaning to do this recipe for a while. Whenever I go to Chevys, I HAVE to order something that comes with Tomalito - or Corn Pudding. I always eat it last and in teeny, tiny fork fulls because it's torturously fantastic, but they give you about a tablespoon of it. Meanies. So now I have a pan full!



Ingredients:
5 Tb Buttah, softened
1/4 Cup Masarepa or Harina Masa or Masa Harina... if anyone knows the actual name, please share.
1/3 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Water
1 Cup Corn, buzzed to mush
1/2 Cup Corn, let to live another day.
1/2 Cup Corn Meal
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Salt
2 Tb plus 1 tsp Milk. Stupid amount. Just do it.

Preheat oven to 250.

Smoosh the butter, masarepa, and sugar together until it's fluffy. Blend the water and mushy corn together, add to the mixture. Add everything else, stir together and pour into a small baking dish.

Create a water bath by filling a large roasting pan with about an inch of water. Cover the smaller baking dish with aluminum foil, put it in the bath, and put the whole thing in the oven. Rubber ducky optional. Cook for 1 1/2 hours, or until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean. Gobble it up.

Successful! Leek and Potato Soup

Forget the last one happened. Call it intelligence, call it talent, or call it my new Le Creuset Dutch Oven, but I figured out Leek and Potato soup. It's actually a really simple formula, and kinda makes me feel dumb for not figuring it out the first time.



Ingredients:
Leeks
Potatoes
Heavy Cream
Salt to taste

The formula is:
1 cup solids to 1 cup liquid to 1 Tb Heavy Cream

Therefor, if you have like a potato and a leek, you would do 1/2 cup Potato, 1/2 cup Leek, 1 cup water, 1 Tb Heavy Cream.

Or, if you're feeding a huge Italian family, you would use 50 cups Potato, 50 cups Leek, 100 cups Water, and 100 Tb Heavy Cream. Or just go to a restaurant because no one has a pot that big.

Cut up and clean veggies, put them in a pot with water. Boil until mushy gushy in your tushy. Buzz it with an emersion blender or in a food processer or a food mill or between your teeth if you're EXTREME. Add cream and salt to taste.

Leek and Potato Soup

According to Julie Powell, this is the "simplest" recipe to make in Julia's book, but "simple" isn't the same as "easy." Now, when I first read this, I thought she was just trying to sound philosophical. But she was right. Witness me mess up a three ingredient soup.



Now to my credit, her directions say "2 quarts of water." Who thinks in quarts? I then ran to Barnes and Noble and read another of her books that fixes that measurement and calls it 6 cups. Uhm. Thanks Julia. There will be a retry on this one.

Ingredients:
2 Lbs Potatoes
2 Lbs Leeks
6 Cups Water
6 Tb Cream
Salt to taste... or the salt from my disappointed tears.

Peel and cut up potatoes, cut up and clean leeks. Throw everything in a pot and boil until soft. Buzz it with an immersion blender, or in a food processor or food mill. Add some cream, season with salt. Hopefully enjoy it more than I did.

Or if you're Steve, suggest adding bacon and cheddar cheese and make Jenny cry.

Arepas

This is by far the easiest and most rewarding recipe ever. And it comes free on the back of the bag!

PS - After venturing down the Hispanic Foods aisle at Shoprite, I was feeling dangerous and bought some cayenne pepper. I then proceeded to make the spiciest Arroz con Pollo in the history of... well, my mouth at least. And this is bad considering up until now, I had lived on bland Jew food, and black pepper out of a grinder was the devil. But I ate it. I will like spicy food, someday!



Ingredients:
1 Cup Masarepa (I used white, they also have yellow. I don't know the difference.)
1 Cup (ish) Water
1/2 Cup Mozzerella Cheese (or whatever you want. The Masarepa is a pretty plain palette to play with)
1 Tsp (ish) Salt

Mix everything together and fry it in a nifty pan until goldeny brown and the cheese is melty.

Seitan Teriyaki

Warning: This is, by far, the least organized video I have made. I was completely unprepared. Usually when I cook (even for myself, not just on blogs), I read the recipe enough times that its semi-memorized and I can focus on cooking instead of reading the recipe. But alas, alack, this time I did not.

So, without further ado, here is Seitan Teriyaki, with my guest hippie, Cheryl! (Yes, there are two vegetarian hippies in my life. More cow for me.)



For those who could not follow that (which is probably everyone except for Cheryl and I) here is the recipe.

Sauce:
1/2 Cup Soy Sauce
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup plus 1 Tb Rice Vinegar
1/4 Cup Water
1 inch Ginger, grated
Zest and Juice of 1/2 Orange

Other stuff:
8 Oz Seitan
10 ish stalks Broccolini
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
Sesame Oil (to cook in)

Combine saucey things and put on the stove to boil for about 20 minutes. Stir fry the Seitan in Sesame Oil and set aside. Stir fry the Broccolini and Garlic. Put everything back together and TADA! Seitan Teriyaki. Serve with rice, if that tickles you. It tickled me.

See? Not so hard. Most stir fries are like that - cook things, add sauce, eat.

PS - Original recipe was found at Vegan Yum Yum