Showing posts with label basil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label basil. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Tomato Soup with Meatballs

A few days ago, my hubby forwarded me a link in an email to a recipe from Mark's Daily Apple. Usually when I say "What would you like for dinner?" I get "Oh I don't know, whatever" as the response. So when I got the email, I knew it must have sounded good to him. And I'm always down to try something new. Today I'll be taking a look at Mr. Sisson's yummy recipe, and including my own little tweaks here and there. And I was recently informed that this soup is a winner. Hubby not only said he loved it, but he went back for seconds and kept eating the meatballs as I made them. So it must be good...

This is the original recipe. And rather than cut and paste it here, I suggest checking it out over there first. His recipe is perfectly good. I have no issues with it. Other than I don't have oregano and I like my tomato soup creamy. To combat those two things, I added a few things to an otherwise great recipe.

For the soup, you will need:

1 medium onion, sliced
1 shallot, sliced
2 cloves of garlic or 2 tsp of crushed garlic
2tbsp butter or coconut oil (or your choice of fat)
2 to 3 sprigs of fresh basil
1 sprig of fresh parsley (flat or curly, I used flat from my garden)
7 whole tomatoes
1c water
1c coconut milk (from a carton, the canned stuff will be a bit thick)
2-3 tbsp tomato paste (I used the other half of the can from the shrimp recipe)
1tsp salt
1tsp Worchestershire sauce
ground pepper to taste

Put your sliced onions and shallots into the bottom of a stock pot with your butter or fat of choice. I like to use butter. It's a family tradition. And it makes things taste creamier to me. Whether that's real or the placebo effect, who knows. But still, my vote is for butter. Cook them for about 5-10 minutes, like Mr. Sisson suggests. You want them to be fully cooked. In the many cooking lessons I learned from my family, I was taught that adding tomatoes to a soup would stop the cooking process of other vegetables, an important consideration when making chowder in a ginormous drum in the garage. That's how we roll in Western New York. Again, maybe an old wives' tale, but I wasn't about to put it to the test with this freaking amazing soup. When the onions/shallots are almost done, add the garlic. My garlic always burns, so I put it in last. 
Then add your basil, parsley and whole tomatoes. Mark's recipe uses canned tomatoes, which rocks. I'm all for making things easier and quicker. But I bought the tomatoes before reading his recipe, so I used fresh ones. Then add your water. Put the lid on the pot and let this cook down for 30 minutes or so on medium heat. In the last ten minutes, add your coconut milk, salt, Worchestershire sauce and ground pepper. You could probably throw the spices in at the beginning, but whatevs. It's your soup. Make it your way. Add other spices or not as you choose.

Now, after the tomatoes break down, shedding their skins and turning less vibrant in color, your soup is pretty much done. Put it through a blender or food processor in batches and return it to the pot to simmer, or put it in tupperware for the freezer when it cools.

The best part of this soup is probably the meatball. Little bite sized chunks of flavored meat. AND this probably is the one and only recipe I've made in forever that could potentially be kosher friendly. You could use just ground sirloin, ground chicken or turkey... pretty much any other meat other than pork. And that's really saying something, because I literally make EVERYTHING with pork or pork products (or shellfish, all of which are so not kosher...). So, for my Jewish friend(s), bon appetit!

For the meatballs, you will need:

1 sliced shallot
3tsp crushed garlic or 3-4 cloves minced
2tsp coconut oil
1lb ground pork (optional!)
1lb ground sirloin (you can use regular ground beef, but I'd suggest ground sirloin if you can get it)
1tsp Worchestershire sauce
1tsp salt
ground pepper
1tsp fennel seed, chopped roughly or ground to powder
1/4c chopped basil
2 eggs

Fry the shallots and garlic (at the same time if you can stand and watch it so the garlic doesn't burn) in the coconut oil (or fat of your choice). Cook until the shallots are translucent. Then, when that mixture is completely cooled, put all the ingredients together into a big bowl. Mush them around with your hands, kneading it like dough or squeezing it like it insulted your mother, making sure to incorporate everything. I love eating with my hands and playing with my food, so this part is pure heaven for me... Now, when everything is mixed up nice and good, make tiny bite sized meatballs. Like smaller than you think you should make them. You can't really make them too small, I guess. You're meant to scoop one up with a spoonful of soup, so they shouldn't require multiple bites to eat them. Anyway, if you make them ginormous, good on ya. Again, it's your damn soup. Make them however you want and own it. Fry those baby meatballs in a pan until they're browned on the outside. I found you don't need extra fat because the pork fat pretty much keeps everything coated. If you use ground chicken or turkey or a lean meat, you may need some fat of choice to fry them. I wouldn't suggest olive oil. I think it's gross to cook with. But if you like it, knock yourself out.

Now, put some meatballs in your soup. Take fancy pictures for the internet. Then tear into that bowl like you've never eaten. And voila, you have a fantastic soup that is surprisingly refreshing even in 80 degree heat. 

You could also chill the soup, and put the hot meatballs in it, like a gazpacho (talk about an awesome word). There are any number of ways you can take these recipes and make them your own. Like it spicy? Add ground chili powder, red pepper flakes, chopped up peppers of your choice, to pretty much any part of this recipe and BAM that sh*t is on fire. I am a big wuss and cannot eat spicy things. My husband could probably use sriracha toothpaste and be a happy camper. So season it to make yourself happy. The ingredients above are like the Pirate's Code: they're really just guidelines.









Saturday, April 27, 2013

Shrimp in Garlic, Bacon, Mushroom Tomato Sauce

I love wilted greens. For some reason, something about slightly limp lettuce warmed by some kind of sauteed meat in a sauce appeals to me. I think it's a texture thing. I also love shrimp. So it would only make perfect sense in my head to put these two things together. Check out this recipe for something quick and refreshing as the weather gets warmer (or stays exactly the same here in Hawaii).

The lower left corner is my homemade bacon!
And tomato paste and coconut milk are not pictured.
The lemon just showed up there, uninvited.
You will need:
1/4c. chopped up bacon, or some other meat like steak or a pork chop (not cooked)*

3/4c. chopped up mushrooms (also tiny squares)
1tbsp butter (more if using non-fatty meat like steak)
Three sprigs of fresh basil
1.5 tsp crushed garlic, or 2-3 cloves finely minced
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1lb. shrimp, shelled and cut into chunks
3tbsp (roughly half a can) tomato paste
1/2c coconut milk (in a can or in a carton, but none of this "lite" junk)
fresh greens or other vegetables like zucchini noodles

*If you use steak or pork, make sure you get a fairly marbled or fatty cut, leaner cuts will dry out and become too chewy. Try a porterhouse steak or a pork shoulder blade steak.

Take your chopped up bacon and put it in a pan over medium heat. When the bacon is about half way cooked and on its way to being nice and crispy, put in the mushrooms and the butter. Mushrooms seem to suck up a ton of oil when they cook, so rather than have your pan dry, add the oil. If you are some kind of lunatic and you don't like butter (especially the good stuff from Kerry Gold, they probably give their cows Guinness over there too, luckiest damn cows), you can use coconut oil instead.

When everybody is crispy in the pan, add half the basil. As you can see in this picture, I have some crazy basil plants, and I haven't harvested them like I should. Technically you should trim the basil before it flowers. All of the energy and flavor stored in the plant goes into making it bloom rather than producing green and flavorful leaves. So technically, these basil leaves will be kind of bland. I don't use basil often enough to warrant doing this, so I just use the flowers like I would basil leaves, and voila. Defreakinglicious. Add the garlic and ground pepper and continue to toss around the pan.

Throw the shrimp into the mix. This is starting to get good. Fast.

Now you can add the coconut milk and tomato paste. Turn the heat down low, whisking in the tomato paste so it begins to thicken the coconut milk and make a sauce. Simmer this for five minutes or until your sauce is thick enough to make you the happiest person ever. I'm easily amused so it only took five minutes.

Put some lettuce on a plate and spoon your mixture over it. The heat of the sauce will wilt the lettuce but keep it crunchy. A great mix of flavors and textures, this dish is probably the best thing I've made in a long time. And it's ridiculously easy. Sometimes I amaze myself. And I already know I'm pretty awesome.

**UPDATE I checked on my pickles. I didn't weigh them down, and they molded. Overnight. So, make sure you keep your cucumbers sunk, or they will be moldy, and you will throw them away lest you get food poisoning.**