Lebanese Vegetable Soup

My sister and her son in Palo Alto recently introduced me to a delicious and hearty Lebanese Vegetable Soup that she picked up from the deli at her local Whole Foods Market. I scoured the internet and happily found several recipes online, including one from the famed Sunday’s at Moosewood Restaurant cookbook. Below is my rendition, gobbled down by my husband, much to my surprise. Serve this to your vegetarian friends, as chickpeas are great for protein! If cooking's not your thing, check out your local Whole Foods Market, which may or may not have it on its hot foods line. Mine didn't. But that just meant I got to learn how to cook a new soup!

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
3 medium carrots, chopped (2 1/2 cups)
1-2 stalks celery, chopped (1-1/2 cups)
I bay leaf
3-4 twigs fresh thyme
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
2-4 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 - 2 cups sweet potatoes cut in 1/2" cubes
Sea salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1 qt vegetable stock
1 28-oz can Italian plum tomatoes (pomodori pelati), broken up with fingers and hard core removed
10 artichoke hearts cut into eighths (2 cans ), liquid drained and saved
2 cups canned or cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained

Optional seasonings
Dash of Maggi seasoning
1-2 tsp of sugar
Shot or two of white wine

Heat olive oil in a large stock pot. Add onions, carrots and celery and sauté only onions are translucent (7-10 minutes). Add coriander, bay leaf and thyme; stir to coat vegetables. Add sweet potato, tomatoes and their liquid, and drained liquid from the artichoke hearts. Season with 2 ample pinches of sea salt and pepper to taste. Bring soup to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are tender. Add chickpeas and vegetable stock, and bring to a new simmer. Add artichoke pieces, and simmer for 3 minutes so the flavors can meld. Before serving, adjust with additional salt and pepper and optional seasonings (above). Also remove bay leaf and thyme twigs. 

*If you prefer a thick soup, after sweet potatoes are tender, remove bay and thyme, then blend with an immersion stick blender; then proceed with recipe.

Café Beaujolais Cherry Clafouti

Thank you, Margaret S. Fox!

 

After going on and on in an earlier post about clafoutis and Café Beaujolais, where I had my first love at first bite, here at last is the Café Beaujolais recipe for clafouti, excerpted from founder/chef Margaret S. Fox’s cookbook Morning Food.  It requires little skill, mostly fresh fruit and a little patience while you wait to sink your teeth into it. I made a clafouti this morning using fresh raspberries, and oh my!

Clafoutis are traditional French desserts. My version has been adapted from a recipe published by Gaston LeNotre, then famous French patissier. Although they are especially good with cherries, they can be prepared with various kinds of fruit, including an assortment of leftovers, if that is whay you happen to have: apples, strawberries, pears, whatever. Anything but bananas or canned fruit cocktail, please. Canned fruit cocktail clafouti would set Franco-American relations back forty years.
 
1 egg
6 Tbsp white sugar
3 Tbsp white flour
6 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
1-1/3 cups pitted cherries
3 Tbsp melted butter (warn, not hot)
 
Preheat the oven to 400°.
In a bowl, beat the egg and sugar with a whisk until the mixture whitens. Stir in the flour and cream. Beat until completely smooth. Pour half of the batter over the cherries in a medium-sized bowl and fold together gently.
 
Spread the cherry mixture evenly over the bottom of a buttered 8-inch pie pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, beat the butter into the remaining batter, then pour this over the half-baked cherry batter. Replace in oven and bake for another 15 minutes, or unitl golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

*Note: I’ve used a stick blender with a whisk attachment. The blender’s accompanying marked cup makes it easy to divide and pour the batter.

Apple Clafoutis