Brussel Sprouts!

When thinking about tasty sides to serve with dinner, I'm pretty sure most people think of brussel sprouts, right? Yeah, neither do I. In fact, I can't say I really ever tasted any that I liked until now. This is an über-simple tasty way to prepare these healthy, what I now consider to be under-appreciated, veggies. So simple, I'm not even going to list measurements; just wing it!

Brussel Sprouts

brussel sprouts (duh)
butter
salt
pepper
fresh grated parmesan

Prepare the brussel sprouts. When picking out your brussel sprouts at the store, I was advised to look for the smaller ones whose leaves are still pretty tightly packed, as these will have a fresher, less pungent flavor. To prepare the brussel sprouts, remove the outer leaves so that you are left with leaves laying tight - ideally you'd like them to stay together when you cook. Trim the stems to clean it up, but leave enough to hold the leaves on. Then cut each in half, lengthwise.

Cook em. Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a frying pan over medium-low heat. Add some salt and pepper to taste. Once the butter is hot, lay each brussel sprout half cut side down in the pan in a single layer, and cover. Cook like this for a few minutes (up to about 5). Essentially you are looking for the outer leaves to turn a bright green and for the cut side to be nicely browned in the butter. I then flip them over and stir them in the butter gently to get good coverage.

Serve! The brussel sprouts are ready for eating now! Serve them up, sprinkle with a little freshly grated parmesan cheese, and enjoy!

Fresh, small brussel sprouts

Trimmed and sliced

Placed cut side down in butter 

Flip when leaves are bright, and bottoms are browned

Topped with parmesan, and ready to eat

Cream of Carrot Soup

This is a pretty simple recipe for making a carrot soup that is perfect for a cold rainy day. Because it is such a mild soup, it is pretty easy to add in another flavor or some heat without messing the whole thing up. Starting with a basic cream of carrot soup recipe, I added in a roasted hatch chili pepper to provide the kick I was looking for. Let it rain, let it snow, and let's go make some soup!

Cream of Carrot Soup

6 large carrots, coarsely chopped
1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 chili pepper (I used a hatch chili)4-6 cloves of garlic, halved
2 cups chicken stock
2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp pasilla chili powder (or you can substitute ground cumin)
salt and cracked pepper to taste

Roast chili pepper. When cooking with a gas stove, I like to just roast the pepper over a burner until the skin is nicely charred. Then I use a knife to scrape off all the char, and chop up the cooked pepper (trying to avoid most of the seeds). 

Cook vegetables. Add the carrots, onion, chili, garlic, and chicken stock to a large pot and bring to a boil. Cook until carrots are soft when pierced with a fork, 10-15 minutes.

Blend. Either using an immersion blender (much easier) or a conventional blender, puree the vegetables and stock until you have a pretty smooth consistency. 

Reduce. Combine with the cream and pasilla powder, and simmer until reduced by about one fourth. Season to taste with salt, and serve with cracked pepper. 

Makes about 4 servings.

The goods

Roasting the chili

Cook the veggies

Garnish with pepper

Spargelsuppe

Two years ago this month, I took a trip to Europe with two friends (Connie and Doug) to attend our friends' wedding (Alex and Monika). When the three of us first arrived in Berlin, we went looking for a place to eat and stumbled upon an empty restaurant after quite a lot of walking. Apparently, this time of year is the season for white asparagus, and it seems like every restaurant in Germany was serving some form of it as their "special". This particular establishment was serving it in soup form - the most common, by far - under the name Spargelsuppe (literally Asparagus Soup.. mind-blowing, I know). Anyway, I think that Connie, Doug and I agreed that this ended up being the best version of Spargelsuppe we had on the trip, so I attempted to re-create the flavor. So far, this is the closest recipe I've come up with:

Spargelsuppe

1 lb white asparagus, peeled (like a carrot) and chopped into 1-inch pieces, tops discarded

1 small yellow onion, chopped

1 cup cream

1 cup stock (I prefer chicken, but vegetable would probably work fine)

1/4 cup white wine

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp finely chopped sage

1 tsp sugar

dash of fresh ground nutmeg

salt, pepper

Peel, chop, and cook the asparagus. It is important to peel white asparagus because it has a layer of fibrous "skin" that is tough to chew. Generally speaking, a once-over with a carrot peeler will do. Bring 3 1/2 cups of salted water to a boil. Add the chopped asparagus pieces and sugar, and boil, partially covered, until tender - about 20 minutes. 

Warm the cream and broth. While the asparagus is cooking, combine the cream, stock, onion, and sage in another saucepan, and warm over medium-low heat. Try not to let it boil - we just want it warmed up enough to cook and soften the onion a bit. 

Blend cream mixture. Once the asparagus has finished cooking, scoop out about half of the pieces, and add them to the cream mixture. Using an immersion blender, blend the cream mixture until smooth. 

Combine. Once the cream mixture is blended, combine with the asparagus water and remaining pieces and add the wine, juice of half a lemon, a dash of fresh ground nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk everything together and warm over medium heat until most of the foam on top has left (blending the cream usually produces a bit of foam on top, so I found that heating the soup, stirring periodically, until the foam is mostly gone is a good amount of time for this step).

Garnish. For a quick garnish on top, I fried up the extra sage leaves in some butter. They added a tasty little crisp to the soup. 

If all goes well, you'll be left with a surprisingly crisp, light soup that's perfect for a cool spring or summer evening. 

Makes 3-4 servings, depending on your appetite.