Roasted Tomato Vegetable Soup

It has been a while since I have posted here. I am still cooking like a fiend but I just haven't been able to update the blog. I bought a half bushel of roma tomatoes from the local farmer's market. It was great to be able to get locally grown romas. When I usually buy them I figure they are likely from southern Ontario. Over half of the tomatoes went to a batch of BBQ sauce, but that is another blog post.

The recipe has a serving of protein but is a little light on calories to make a full lunch. I suggest adding some grilled shrimp or braised wild boar as pictured here. I found the 3 jalapenos made it a bit more spicy than I was hoping for.

Ingredients	Calories	Fat	Carbs	Protein
3.6kg roma tomatoes	648	7	141	32
1 bulb garlic	45	0.1	10	2
4 sprigs rosemary	9	0.4	1	0.2
1 large onion (670g)	281	0.5	68	6
3 ribs celery (215g)	30	0.4	7	2
3 carrots (285g)	117	0.7	27	3
3 jalapenos	36	0.2	9	2
2 tbsp oil	248	28
1 litre chicken stock	346	12	34	24
salt and pepper to taste

Total Calories: 1759, Fat 49g, Carbs, 297, Protein: 70 Yield 10, 2 cup servings Per Serving: Calories: 176, Fat: 4.9, Carbs: 29.7, Protein: 7

Pre-heat the oven to 400F

Wash and slice the tomatoes in half and place in a baking sheet sliced side up. Finely chop the rosemary and garlic and sprinkle over the sliced tomatoes. Roast the tomatoes for 45 minutes.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven and allow to cool. Move the tomatoes to a bowl and deglaze the pan with water.

Dice the onion, celery, carrot, jalapenos, salt and pepper. Add the oil to your soup pot and put on medium heat. Add the diced vegetables and sweat until they start to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Process the tomatoes and deglazing liquid in a blender. Add to the soup pot. Add the chicken stock. Bring to a boil and let simmer for a few minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Pasilla Spiced Pea Soup

This is an attempt to make use of the dried peppers I ordered earlier this year. Part of that order were some pasilla peppers.

Pasilla chillies are a milder pepper with a scoville rating of 1000-4000. Popular in Mexican cuisine. When fresh they are called chiaca. Although they are almost always encountered dried; in this state, it is referred to as a pasilla. The pasilla has a dark brown color and a smoky flavor. This is milder than the jalepeno pepper at 2500-8000. There is a good wiki page of pepper ratings here

Ingredients	Calories	Fat (g)	Sodium (mg)	Carbs (g)	Protein (g)
457g dried Yellow Peas	1577	12	55	277	101
2 med. Onion (202g)	85	0.2	6	20	2
2 med. Carrots (140g)	57	0.3	97	13	1
2 Celery Stalks (97g)	14	0.2	78	3	0.7
1 garlic bulb (37g)	55	0.2	6	12	2
2 pork hocks (yeild: 727g)	1818	124	7125	7	153
2 tbsp oil	240	28	0	0	0
5 dried pasilla chillies (45g)	146	3	41	31	5
1/2 tsp salt	0	0	190	0	0
Pepper to taste
1/4 c dried oregano	37	1	2	8	1
2 tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp dried parsley
12 Bay Leaves
4 roasted red peppers	57	0.4	4	13.6	1.9
Totals	4086	169.3	7604	384.6	267.6
Per 12, 2c servings	340	14.1	633	32	22.3

The day before roast the red peppers, put in a sealed container to steam and then remove the skins & seeds and chop.
Also put the dried peas in a bowl and cover with water.

Dice the onion, celery and carrot. Finely dice the garlic or pass through a garlic press. 

In a your soup pot on medium heat add the oil, vegetables and garlic and the 1/2 tsp salt and pepper. Sweat the veggies with the lid ajar. When the vegetable begin to stick add the pork hocks, drained peas and enough water to cover. Add the bay leaves, oregano and pasilla peppers. Bring to a boil and simmer for 90 minutes or until the peas are cooked.

When the peas are cooked remove the pork hock and let cool. Remove the meat from the hocks. Dice the meat and add back to the pot.

Remove the bay leaves.


Remove the pasilla peppers and place in a blender. Removing the stems from the peppers. Add some of the cooking liquid or some water to the blender. Whiz up the peppers until smooth and add back to the pot.

Add the roasted red pepper and the oregano, parsley and thyme. Top up with water if needed. Bring to a boil again and serve.

Thoughts

• It did come out a bit spicy. If you don't like spice then cut back on the peppers. 
• I am surprised by the amount of sodium. Next time I would use only one pork hock. This would cut back dramatically on the amount of sodium.This would have cut back a bit on the protein but it still would have enough.
• The flavour seemed a bit thin. I should have used a home made chicken stock instead of water. I did have some store bought broth but it is also high in sodium. I guess I have to get off my lazy ass and make my own stock. Always better than commercial stock.
• After having another serving I can tell that the peas are not fully cooked. This is likely due to the salt in the pork hock. Another reason to use only one.

Enjoy!

Cola Braised Turkey Wings

One of the local grocery stores has been selling turkey wings split. I just couldn't resist - pterodactyl wings, Fred Flinstone here I come. Anyway the price was good so I loaded up on them.

I tried them a few times on the grill. I thought they would cook similar to a chicken leg with the back attached. The were a bit tough off the grill. Tougher than when I have a roasted turkey.

I thought they would lend themselves to a slower cooking method. I also had some regular coke laying around. No one here drinks the stuff. The coke it should lend itself to some Asian seasonings.

Ingredients
2 turkey wing parts, 1 flat & 1 drumette
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 celery, diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 inch piece of ginger, grated
Chinese 5 spice blend
1 can coke
1/2 cup red wine
1/4  cup soy sauce
1 tbsp oil
Salt & Pepper


Season the wing pieces with salt & pepper and the 5 spice.
In a pot large enough to hold everything add the oil and heat on medium-high. Sear the turkey wings as best you can. They are very uneven and don't sear well. Remove and set aside.

Add the onion, carrot, celery, ginger and garlic to the pot and cook until the veggies are soft.

Return the turkey wings to the pot and add the coke, red wine and soy sauce. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours or more.

After 2 hours remove the turkey wings and place on a grill pan. Strain the braising liquid through a sieve and return the liquid to the pot. Bring the liquid to a boil and reduce. Meanwhile place the turkey wings under the broiler to crisp the skin. About 10-15 minutes per side.

Enjoy!

After the broiler. A little too crisp maybe?

Served with fried cabbage and pan roasted potatoes, sauce on the side

Chorizo Spiced Pork & Bean Soup

A nice spicy soup, very hearty with lots of protein to fill you up. Something to do with some raw pork I had.

Item	Calories	Protein
407g navy beans	1384	93.6
500g raw pork meat	568	112.3
4 tbsp chorizo spice mix
25g oil	225
4 leaks	390	9.6
4 cloves of garlic	28	1.2
2 tbsp dried thyme	15	0.5
2 L chicken broth	133	13.3
2 L water
600g red potato	534	13.8
12 bay leaves
salt & pepper
TOTAL	3465	248

Yeild 10, 2 cup servings.
Per Serving Calories: 346, Protein: 24.8


Dice the pork and combine with chorizo spice mix. Refrigerate over night.

Cover the beans with water and let sit over night.

Cut the leaks in half and  slice thin. Keep some of the leak tops for cooking with the beans

Combine the beans with the water add some of the leak tops and bay leaves. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender. Remove the onion and bay leaves and reserve the water & beans.

Saute the pork in the oil in a soup pot on medium heat. Remove and set aside. Add the leaks with some salt & pepper. Sweat the leaks & garlic while trying to scrape off any bits that stuck to the bottom.

Add the meat back with the beans along with the water they were cooked in. Add the potato and chicken broth. Simmer until the potatoes are tender

Maple Marinated Grilled Pickeral

This recipe was inspired by a discussion on the Food Network community forum about trying to reproduce the Loblaws Maple BBQ salmon.

I picked up some pickeral. I know it's not salmon but that is what I felt like having.The recipe is sized for four pickeral filets but I only had two. So I made the whole spice mix and used only half of it to make the marinade. I also used Cubeb pepper but you can easily substitute black pepper

1 tbsp cubeb peppercorns
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp hickory smoked salt
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp soy sauce
½ cup maple syrup
2-4 pickeral filets (~4kg)


Combine the pepper, mustard seed smoked salt and granulated garlic in a spice grinder. Process in the grinder to a powder. Combine with the powdered onion and smoke paprika.

The spice mixture can be stored in a sealed container.

Combine the spices with the soy sauce and maple suryp.

Maple Marinade - Ready to go!

Coat the fish with the marinade and place the fish with the marinade in a plastic bag and refrigerate for 4 hours or over night.

Filets Coated with Marinate

Grill the fish over high heat about 4 minutes per side. I grilled the flesh side down first and then flipped the skin side down.

Finished dish

Here is it served with green beans and some pan fried potatoes with green onion.

Something in the marinade was over powering. Possibly the smoked salt. There was no sense of the maple syrup. So I will have to continue to improve the marinade.

Mashed Potato Cassarole

This is something I came up with for a pot luck dinner. I was and still am desperate to use up the bushel and a half of potatoes I bought last fall. Now that the weather has started to warm up they are beginning to sprout. I only need a few to seed the garden.

I originally mixed the bacon in with the potatoes but I found the bacon got lost in the rest of the potato. So, I suggest the bacon be kept to the side and served with the cassarole

The amount of potato is realy what ever it takes to fill the pan.

Potatoes to fill the pan

Item	Calories	Protein
500g bacon, cooked yeilds 125g	689	46.3
2.3kg potato with skins	1774	46.5
2c cheddar, 235g	1018	62.6
1c asiago, 97g	346	24.3
1/2c parmesan, 48g	188	17.2
500ml sour cream, 14%mf	833	16.6
1 tbsp peppercorn
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp granulated garlic

Total for dish: 4848 calories, 213.5g protein
Per 12 servings: 404 calories, 17.79g protein

1. Cook bacon until crisp and set aside

2. Cut the potato into pieces and boil in salted water until done

Boiled Potatoes

3. Grind the peppercorns, salt and garlic in a spice mill/coffee grinder.

4. In a stand mixer begin mashing the potato. Add the sour cream, 1/3-1/2 of the cheeses and the salt/pepper/garlic mixture. Continue mashing until all the ingredients have combined.

5. Spread the potato mixture into your baking pan and top with the remaining cheeses.

6. Bake at 375F for 45 minute to melt and brown the cheese.

Serve with the reserved bacon on the side.

Chicken & Lentil Soup

Just a quick soup for after a visit to the dentist. I tossed it together with what I had on hand

1 onion
2 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 tsp chili flakes
¾ cups of Black Beluga Lentils
4 cup water
1 litre chicken stock
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tbsp oil
½ tsp garlic powder
250 g raw shrimp
pepper
salt

1. add the lentils and water to a pot. Bring to a boil  and let simmer for 30 minutes

2. chop the onion, carrot, celery and chili flakes. Add to the soup pot with the oil and cook until the vegetable are soft.

3. Add the chicken stock, garlic, poultry seasoning and the cooked lentils and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the shrimp. Let stand for 5 minutes and serve

It does go well with some crackers.