Counter to what you may believe about this quasi-southern city, DC has some bitter winter weather up its sleeve. This is shaping up to be the first really cold week here in Washington, and like clockwork, I’ve got swollen glands, a stuffy nose, and a feeling I still haven’t seen the worst of this bug. Thankfully, I also have my slow cooker on the counter, a big jar of black beans, my trusty slow-cooker, and a hankering for something thick, hot, and comforting. Black bean soup is on the menu.

Apparently, I’m on a southwestern kick. Last week, we made Texas chili so good, I went to twitter asking why none of you had told me about it earlier. This week, we’re recovering from the beef-fest with a fully vegetarian black bean soup that’s no less flavorful, enlisting chipotle chilies, adobo sauce, cocoa, and molasses. It’s easy to make – very easy – and quite delicious.

Ok, but let’s be honest. What really puts this soup over the top is the chipotles in adobo sauce, which in my case was homemade by my friend Cathy, aka Mrs. Wheelbarrow. She smoked her own chipotles; she made her own adobo sauce; and to a very lucky few, she bequeathed a jar of the results. I tell you, the stuff is delicious. Fancy homemade version aside, the canned ones are delicious, too. They’re what make this soup sing.

(...)
Read the rest of Adobo Black Bean Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Can soup be controversial? I think maybe it can.

I’ve served this soup at probably ten dinner parties over the past couple years. D sets the first bowl down on the table and announces, “tomato soup.” Guests slurp their first spoonfuls, and the crows start coming. “This is amazing.” “Best tomato soup ever.” “I need the recipe.” Music to any cook’s ears; it’s no winder I keep making this soup.

It wasn’t always this way, though. I blame the blue cheese.

(...)
Read the rest of Michael Symon’s Tomato Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

A couple weeks ago, D and I went to my parents’ house to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I’ve talked about my mom a bunch on this site, and I know I’ve said before that she’s responsible for any and all of my good cooking instincts (and none of the bad ones). She’s an experimenter in the kitchen, always tinkering with recipes until they’re just perfect. And she’s got an uncanny ability to pick out ingredients by smell and taste. Just last night, over dinner at the wonderful Rasika (a belated birthday present from us kids), we tasted the baingan bartha (our favorite type of curry: slow-roasted eggplant with tomato and plenty of smoke), and when I asked if she thought she could replicate it at home, she said maybe not, because her garam masala has less nutmeg than Rasika’s. Understand, for a moment, that garam masala is a blend of several spices, and that it’s only one ingredient of the many in baingan bartha – and yet, she was able to pull nutmeg out of the stack. I don’t know how she does it.

But I digress. You see, never have my mother’s tinkering and testing talents been put to better use than in the roasted corn and tomatillo soup she made for her birthday dinner. It was the first course of way too many, but I couldn’t stop myself: I had three bowls of soup. It was deeply smokey but also sweet from summer corn, rounded out with pungent ginger and bright lime juice. She served it with a tomato swirl-in that is both entirely optional and entirely delicious. It was the best bowl of soup I’ve had in a long, long time.

(...)
Read the rest of Roasted Corn and Tomatillo Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Initially posted on The Jew and the Carrot: www.jcarrot.org.

Walk into any Jewish household on a Friday night, and you’ll have an instant window into that family’s food legacy. The Syrian table is piled high with ka’aks, zucchinis and eggplants stuffed with lamb and beef, beautiful molded rice with blanched almonds, and my favorite, lahmacun, those wonderful flatbreads topped with tamarind-and-tomato drenched ground meat. The Eastern Europeans have lokshen and cabbage, noodle kugel, gefilte fish, and of course, cholent. But come over to my house, and you might be confused: we’ll start with, say, a Moroccan soup called harira. The pièce de résistance, if I’m lucky, is huachinango a la Veracruzana, my favorite preparation of red snapper in a Mexican tomato sauce with onions, olives, currants, hot peppers, and cinnamon. A side of the Indian eggplant curry baingan bartha might round out the meal, and for dessert, my mother’s homemade chocolate croissants. If you’re following along, that makes one American Jew, born and raised in Washington, DC, with relatives from across Eastern Europe, who, along with her mother, is building a cooking legacy on Indian curry, Mexican fish, Moroccan soup, and French pastry.

I don’t come from a strong cooking tradition. It’s possible my great grandmothers slaved over some top-notch borscht, or — in the case of the piece of my family that’s been in the US for seven generations — some excellent apple pie. But I wouldn’t know. My grandmother, who grew up in Chicago, didn’t cook much at all. My Bubby, who grew up in New York and has spent most of her life in Richmond, VA, used to make an excellent Thanksgiving dinner, but her cooking didn’t have a particular perspective or core list of key ingredients.

Color me jealous: I’ve always wanted to come from one of those families with a strong culinary tradition. I’ve longed for native staples – the sorts of ingredients you always have on hand in multiple forms and in massive quantities, that find their way into everything: the Italians’ olive oil and tomatoes; the Indians’ garlic, ginger, and chilies; and so on.

So we weren’t bequeathed a strong culinary heritage by our relatives or our culture; that hasn’t stopped us from building our own. My mother has spent years accruing knowledge of different cultures’ cuisines, acquiring a taste for spice, learning to achieve that balance of spicy, sour, salty, and sweet that makes food — of any origin — great. And ever since I learned to cook, I’ve been trying to follow in her footsteps. Yes, we’re creating our own culinary legacy. Our legacy uses lemon in copious quantities; it doesn’t skimp on the chile; it favors things with pools of zesty tomato-based sauces to be sopped up with good bread; and it always includes something sweet to finish things off.

But there’s more. We love olives, capers, and anchovies, individually or all together in a tapenade that’d make a cook in Provence swoon. And we love Indian flavors; we’ve spent many a meal tasting curries two, three, four times in a row, to decipher their ingredients one by one. As I served an Indian-spiced chilled mango soup to my guests on Friday night — its pale orange surface flecked with black mustard seeds and buoying a dollop of spicy green chutney — I felt connected to a cooking heritage. The people may not be my own people, but the legacy of Indian cooking — the boldness with flavors, the embrace of real, sweat-inducing spice, the mixing of hot and cold together in the same dish — is one I have come to love, and to take as my own. Not being born into a strong cooking tradition may be a blessing in disguise, after all.

Gujarati Mango Soup with Green Chutney
Adapted from a recipe in Amanda Hesser’s The New York Times Essential Cookbook

After initially making this soup, I was concerned it would be cloying, even in small doses. I’d added some lime juice, but it still tasted quite sweet. On a whim, I made this green chutney (below), and its fresh, green heat complements the soup perfectly.

2 tablespoons chickpea flour
1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 cup plain whole milk yogurt (Greek is best)
3 cups canned mango pulp or mashed fresh mango pulp (1 mango yields between 3/4 and 1 cup of pulp)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar (may need more if using fresh mangos)
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped (I used all the seeds. If you prefer less spice, omit seeds and membrane)
2 tablespoons peanut or corn oil
Generous pinch ground asafoetida
1/2 teaspoon whole brown mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
2 whole hot dried red chilies
1/8 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds
10 fresh curry leaves (optional)
Juice of 1 lime

Put the chickpea flour, turmeric, and ground cumin in a bowl. Fill a measuring cup with 1/2 cup of water, and add a couple tablespoons to the flour mixture, stirring carefully until the flour is a smooth paste with no clumps.

Add more water very slowly, ensuring an even consistency as you stir.

Once enough water has been added that the chickpea flour has been fully incorporated into the liquid with no lumps, add the rest of the water and stir to combine. Whisk in yogurt, mango, and 2 more cups water. Add salt, sugar, and fresh chilies. Mix well.

Put oil in a heavy-bottomed medium pot over medium heat. When oil is very hot, add the asafoetida, and then — in quick succession — the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, dried chilies, fenugreek seeds, and curry leaves (if using). Have a splatter screen on hand: the mustard seeds will pop almost immediately after being added.

As soon as you have added the above ingredients, remove from heat and add mango mixture. Stir to combine, return to medium heat, and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring. Then remove from heat, cover, and allow to steep for 30 minutes.

At this point, you can either reheat the soup to serve warm, or do as I did, and refrigerate it to be served cold. Either way, strain the soup through a coarse sieve, then spoon some of the smaller seeds from the strainer back into the soup. Immediately before serving, stir the lime juice into the soup.

Serve soup in small bowls, with a spoonful of the chutney in each.

Spicy Green Chutney
Adapted from a recipe by Madhur Jaffrey

2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice (lime is preferable)
1 small tomato, diced
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 fresh hot green chilies, such as bird’s eye or jalapeno (can start with 2 and add to taste)
2/3 cup fresh chopped cilantro
1/3 cup fresh chopped mint
1/2 cup grated coconut, fresh or frozen and defrosted

This chutney can be made rustic in a mortar and pestle, or smooth in a blender.

Combine 3 tablespoons water, lime juice, tomatoes, salt, and chilies. Mash or blend until combined or smooth.

Add cilantro and mint; mash together or blend until smooth.

Finally, add coconut and blend or mix more, until chutney is fully mixed or completely smooth. Serve cold.

Chutney will keep in the refrigerator for a few days, but will keep for months in the freezer.

Many of the ingredients in each of these recipes are available online at Kalustyans.com.

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Ok y’all, I’m a bit late posting this, and you’ll have to forgive me. But then – and I mean immediately; do not pass go, do not wait for September to drift into fall – you must get off the couch and make this soup.

Just last week, the dog days of summer seemed a permanent fixture. Now, as I’m walking to the farmers’ market, I find myself rubbing my hands together, picking up that pace a bit, and reaching for….a cardigan. Fall’s crept up on me again. Every year, I bemoan the end of tomatoes and nectarines, my shortsighted lack of urgency in eating as many of those beautiful beefsteaks and heirlooms as possible. Now I’m making a mad dash for those tomatoes, eating a peach after lunch every day and one in the evening as well, trying to cram as much of the rapidly depleting summer produce down my craw as time will allow.

My fridge is only so large; not, apparently, large enough; those 5 pounds of peaches that I bought last week have softened, ripened, and softened some more. Last night, I came home to some peaches practically begging to be eaten. Ditto the beautiful red tomatoes, which, seemingly suddenly, after a short stay on my counter (never store tomatoes in the fridge; it ruins them), were near-overripe.

I didn’t have quite enough tomatoes to make a sauce-making project worthwhile. As for the peaches, in the past week, I’d made two cakes and a crostada with them and some nectarines. I needed a change of pace.

(...)
Read the rest of Peach Tomato Gazpacho

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

No food-friendly home is without its strange culinary rituals, and mine is no exception. Just ask a recent house guest, who during her 3-day stay caught me in the kitchen before 7 am in wet hair and a bathrobe on two separate occasions, cooking not eggs and toast as the normal people do, but strawberry-chili jam and walnut chocolate chip cookies. I like making elaborate things early in the morning; I’m a total weirdo.

Take another odd ritual in chez NDP: when summer rolls around, I start awkwardly hoarding empty yogurt tubs, filling them as quickly as possible with all sorts of cold summer soups: white gazpacho and chilled corn soup and more. Why I can’t use tupperware like the rest of earthlings, I don’t know. All I know is that cold soup ladled from recycled yogurt tubs on a hot and humid summer day makes me grin big.

(...)
Read the rest of Cucumber-Avocado Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

First, dear readers, a housekeeping item. The spot of press that I’ve gotten over the past couple months was truly unexpected; I’ve spent a couple years in this here little corner of the web, so when people started to take notice, I wasn’t quite prepared. But as of yesterday, I’ve got a shiny new press page that shares links to places where NDP has gotten publicity, so that a) I don’t forget about where the blog has been profiled — I’m a bit forgetful — and b) I can share the good news with you, my wonderful readers and chearleaders. Thanks in advance for checking it out!

Now onward and upward, because I’ve been meaning to tell you about this soup for months.

Frozen corn isn’t exactly a staple in this house. We’ve got corn on the cob coming out of our ears (hehe), a freezer door full of six or seven different kinds of polenta, fancy heirloom hominy, and copious amounts of popcorn. But frozen corn rarely makes it through the door.

All that’s changed, though. In the past couple months, I’ve made variations on this soup at least four times. It’s a simple concept, really. Shallots are sauteed in butter (game over), corn and broth are added with plenty of good spices, and after a long 10 minutes on the stove, the soup is cooled, blended, and finished with buttermilk. Done.

But oh, you know me. I’m not one to leave a recipe alone. I’ve always got to tinker. So I tried adding coconut milk instead of buttermilk, for a Thai-inspired version. Then I added half coconut milk and half buttermilk (the perfect balance, if you ask me). I tried it with chicken broth and vegetable broth; I even tried it with plain water. (Not bad at all.) All said and done, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with this soup. The weather hasn’t even turned miserably hot, and already, it’s a staple.

But by the way, don’t wait for summer to make this, because truly truly, it’s great both hot and cold. No excuses: make this one now.

(...)
Read the rest of A Corn Soup for Summer or Winter

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Is it Monday? I’m pretty sure it’s Monday. The last two weeks have been a blur of sniffles, tissues, and gallons (I mean it) of chai. I came down with a cold just around the start of the month. Chalk it up to a late recovery from August’s crunch time at work. I took a couple of days on the couch to recover, and when it started to fade, I headed back to the office. But the cold wasn’t finished yet, and by trying to rush it, I only invited it to extend its stay. Sure enough, it hung around, bringing a sinus infection to the party, and before I knew it, two weeks passed. Well now I’m better, but in anticipation of the many unwelcome colds sure to pay visits this summer, I’ll share a godsend of a recipe with you. It’s for a soup so simple, yet so restorative, that I probably wouldn’t have made it through the past half-month without it.

One morning when I was feeling unusually chipper, I shelled some fresh cranberry beans and threw them in a pot. I added a couple teaspoons of olive oil, half an onion chopped, 2 whole cloves of garlic, water, and, about 20 minutes in, a big bunch of sorrel leaves (NOT the stems, which, I learned the hard way, separate into sharp spindles that are incredibly NOT fun to eat, especially when glands are swollen. Ouch.) I let the whole thing boil away for 25 minutes total; by then, the beans were pretty soft but not mushy, the sorrel was fully cooked, and the broth was incredibly fragrant and a bit tart from the sorrel.

(...)
Read the rest of Soup of Fresh Shelling Beans and Sorrel

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Please welcome my friend Jeremy, who was bold enough to suggest guest-posting on my blog and kind enough to follow through. He brought over a jar of this gazpacho and when I dunked a spoon in for a taste, I ended up finishing half the jar. It’s the perfect summer soup, and I’m thrilled to be featuring it on NDP.

The height of summer means the height of tomato season, and in our house that means gazpacho season. Now, this means different things to different people. Some are partial to a soup that could easily be mistaken for salsa. Others are all about the cucumbers or the bell peppers. I’ve even heard people refer to a perfectly lovely watermelon soup as gazpacho, though I’d like to think any self-respecting Spaniard would scoff at this. For my money — and we’ll get to how it doesn’t need to be a lot of money in a minute — this easy-to-make gazpacho is the way to go. My spouse and I came upon the basis for this recipe (from Epicurious) some years ago, and over time we’ve adapted it and turned it into a staple of our summertime repertoire.

All in you’re talking about 15 minutes of work for a gazpacho that puts the tomatoes right where they belong: front and center. It’s substantial enough with a hunk of fresh baguette to make for a great mid-week meal just sitting at the coffee table. It’s refined enough, topped with fresh chives, to lead off a small dinner party. And it’s casual enough to serve spoonless in teacups or shot glasses for larger gatherings. It’s just about a perfect summer soup, which is why we perpetually have a big jar of it in the fridge until tomatoes go out of season. And did I mention it’ll keep for close to a week?
(...)
Read the rest of Andalusian Gazpacho

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Winter has no better antidote than a hearty bowl of soup. On nights when all I want to do is cuddle under a blanket with tea, I often fill a bowl with soup and slurp it instead of chai. The choice there is easy: soup warms your insides and double-serves as dinner.

I’ve been intently focused on perfecting my soup technique. As you can probably tell, I’ve been eating a mostly vegetarian diet lately, and when you don’t have meat or poultry broth to work with, building layers of flavor becomes much more important. I’ve found that my best soups are the ones where I really think hard about flavor combinations before starting, and where I ensure that every layer of flavor gets substantial attention, so that it can make as full a contribution to the overall flavor as possible.
(...)
Read the rest of Building a Flavorful Vegetarian Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Have I told you about Rancho Gordo? Having read too many articles about the joys of dried beans, I teamed up with my officemate and we ordered a shipment. Now, under my counter, I’ve got a healthy supply of them, including rio zape, tepari, mayocoba, garbanzo, and borlotti.

I’ve always loved beans. (It’s tough not to when you grow up in a vegetarian house.) And I won’t lie: nothing beats the convenience of canned beans. If you won’t take it from me, take it from Adam: I couldn’t agree more that in a pinch, canned kidney bean chili or canned garbanzo bean hummus tastes just great. But canned beans are on the mushy side, and they taste like salt. If I can spare the time and manage the advance prep, it’s wonderful to bite into toothsome beans for dinner — and nothing beats controlling your own seasoning.

Like I said, dried beans can’t be made in a flash. They need to be soaked overnight, rinsed, and then simmered for at least a couple hours to achieve optimum texture. If you can manage the time, though, you’ll see that dried beans have better texture and distinctive flavor, even when prepared uber-simply. Last night’s dinner is a case in point.

Yesterday was a super cold day; I knew I’d want something warm and comforting for dinner, but I didn’t want to use any meat products, so my frozen beef-broth cubes were out of the question. I’d put some beans in soaking water that morning, so that was a start. My normal inclination would be to dump the kitchen sink in a pot and hope it turned out well, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the value of restraint when seasoning food. Sometimes, the simplest dishes are the tastiest. How would my beans taste if instead of seasoning them with beef broth and 20 spices, I used water and 5? I decided that now was the time to try a minimalist bean dish.

On my way home, I did a quick mental-survey of my kitchen and remembered a lonely sweet potato in the bowl on the dining room table. As soon as I got home, I turned the oven to 350, wrapped the sweet potato (skin on) in old foil and tossed it in. I’d leave it there until the beans were done; by then, it’d be nice and caramelized, with a custard-like texture.

Meanwhile, I took 1 cup of soaked tepari beans (small, like cannellini) out of the fridge, drained them, and rinsed them a couple times. In a medium pot, I sauteed 2 chopped shallots in 2 Tbsp. of olive oil. To that, I added 1/2 tsp. coriander seeds, 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp. aleppo pepper (chili flakes would work), a pinch of saffron, and 1 bay leaf. I stirred all this around for a couple minutes, then added the beans, stirred to coat with the seasoning, and added 3 cups of water. I turned the heat down to medium-low, and left the beans to simmer, covered, for about 2 hours, adding more water as necessary. In two hours’ time, the spices mingled, and the beans released some of their own flavor as well. There was plenty of extra liquid, which formed a lovely pot liquor scented with coriander, smoked paprika, and, well…beans. I poured some into a bowl, added half of the sweet potato with its wonderful caramel-brown skin, got myself a spoon, curled up on the couch, and went to heaven. Amazing.

Beans in Broth with Caramelized Sweet Potato

(As I said, this recipe is simple, but truly amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I failed to take a picture of the finished dish. You’ll have to let your imagination kick in here.)

1 sweet potato
1 cup tepari or other small white beans
2 shallots, chopped
1/2 tsp. aleppo pepper
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. coriander seeds
pinch saffron threads
1 bay leaf
3 cups water

Wrap sweet potato, skin-on, in foil and toss in the oven. Turn on to 350 or 400 degrees (we’re flexible), and just let it rip. Give it at least an hour; the longer, the better. I left mine in for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and it was as soft as custard.

Pre-soak beans overnight or for at least 3 hours in water that covers them by at least an inch.
Drain and rinse; set aside.

In medium pot, saute 2 chopped shallots in 2 Tbsp. of olive oil. Add 1/2 tsp. coriander seeds, 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp. aleppo pepper (chili flakes would work), and 1 bay leaf. Stir to incorporate, then add the beans, stirred to coat with the seasoning, and add 3 cups of water. Turn the heat down to medium-low, and leave the beans to simmer, covered, for about 2 hours, adding more water as necessary.

When beans are fork-tender but not mushy, pour a serving into a bowl with some of the bean broth, and add half the cooked sweet potato. If desired, top with grated parmesan cheese (though I didn’t).

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

I’m taking time out from my regularly-scheduled programming to tell you about an awesome new business being launched in the DC area: it’s called Soupergirl, and (if you couldn’t guess) it’s a soup business! A friend of mine, Sara Polon, not to be at all confused with Sarah Palin (who will NOT be our next VP, thank you very much!!) launched Soupergirl this Thursday, and starting ever-so-soon, you can get fresh, delicious soups delivered to a location nearby!

(...)
Read the rest of Soupergirl

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Keeping kosher has its fair share of… challenges. Never have I cooked a meat dish that has any sort of dairy product, be it cream or even butter. When I make meat for dinner, dessert can’t have butter in it. I don’t use shortening, which makes things rather difficult. Butter aside, one great sacrifice of kosher cooking is not being able to use pancetta. Now I can’t say for sure that it’s actually a sacrifice — after all, I’ve never actually had pancetta — but I think it’s safe to say that it’s one of the most oft-used flavorings for vegetables, soups, and stews of all kinds.

When I came across a beautiful cauliflower at the farmers market a couple weeks ago, I knew I’d be experimenting with cauliflower soup recipes. I came home and began poking around my cookbooks and recipe sites in search of promising combinations, but almost every recipe I found called for some form of pig. And I can understand why: pancetta, bacon and the like provide the perfect smoky, meaty background flavor against which the mild, creamy, fresh-tasting cauliflower really shines. I started to feel a bit handicapped — as though no amount of searching would product an all-vegetarian recipe that would have real flavor.
(...)
Read the rest of Cauliflower Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

I rarely title my posts with anything but the name of the recipe I’m posting — but this particular recipe is fabulous, and if I told you what it was called, I might scare you. Let’s just say it’s not your ordinary gaspacho. First off, it’s white. As you might have guessed, cucumbers are definitely at play here, and they lend a wonderful fruity freshness that’s key in offsetting…the other ingredients. Also in the mix are almonds that have been blanched, toasted, and ground, as well as rustic bread that’s been soaked in water and blended to thicken the soup. And that other ingredient, you ask? Buttermilk. Don’t freak out.

(...)
Read the rest of Not Your Ordinary Gazpacho

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

From the archives — just in time to use up those zucchinis.

What else can I say? It seems almost silly to even call this a recipe. Simplicity aside, it’s a fantastic way to get rid of the zucchini that’s taking over your garden. (I actually have no experience with this — having no garden in my small DC apartment — but I hear the rumors.)

It’s also the perfect antidote to a hot summer day: cook it at night — it takes like 30 minutes, tops — and store in the fridge for when you’re too darn lazy to cook but want to taste summer.
(...)
Read the rest of No-brainer Zucchini Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Summer doesn’t take its time in DC. Blink, and before you know it, it’s dripping down your back, glowing on your face, sticking the jeans you shouldn’t have worn today to the back of your legs. Yep, awesome. In prepping for Washington’s summer-o-sweat, I’ve been reminding myself to breathe deeply and contemplating ways to limit stove and oven use. But you can only eat so many salads before the sheer sight of baby greens makes you scream. The solution? Make now, eat later, chill in-between.

(...)
Read the rest of Chilled Leek and Pea Soup with Mint

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

It’s already December and I still haven’t posted a freezable soup recipe? Can’t be.

My nose is red and my paws are frosty these days. If only it were possible to have the kettle whistling by the time I walked in the door, so that I could instantly hold a piping hot mug of chai after weathering the cold. Until someone invents that kettle, there’s frozen soup. There’re few things easier than popping a soup-filled ziploc out of the freezer and nuking your dinner on a cold winter night. Start to finish, it only takes 4 minutes, and the results are just as good, if not better, than freshly made soup. The ingredients have had time to mingle with each other a bit more, so frozen soups often taste flavor-saturated than their fresh siblings. Top the soup with some homemade croutons and you’re good to go!(...)
Read the rest of Carrot Soup

© rivka for Not Derby Pie, 2007. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: