The Cooking Critic

When a person subsists on soup and ice cream alone, do you gain weight or lose? It’s an important questions, folks, and I’d like to answer it for you. I’ve been conducting this experiment and using myself as the guinea pig. The soups have been plentiful—just scroll down and see. The ice cream has come in pints and consisted of Hagen-Daaz Strawberry (so-so, I love their vanilla, but the corner market was out) and Ben & Jerry’s Mint Cookies and Cream (the best ice cream on earth.) Besides the soup and ice cream, a scale would be useful. I, sadly, don’t have one, so eyeing myself in the mirror will have to substitute. Hmmm, so, I look the same weight to me. My pants fit the same too. My conclusion: I’m the exact same weight. So I guess the ice cream and soup cancelled each other out. I should say I did exercise a bit—I wasn’t completely incapacitated. But my exercise consisted of walking three miles at a pace that may be best described as “leisurely,” although I eventually worked my way up to “nearly brisk” as I got less sick those last couple of  days.

Oh yeah, so the Chicken Soup with Celery and Lemon. It combines two of the best sick people ingredients ever: chicken broth and lemon juice. You know what else tastes good? Celery leaves. I’m serious. And I just discovered 1 part lemon juice to 2 parts honey is a soothing, homemade cough syrup! And it tastes far better than Robitussin. I have the whooping cough, by the way, or maybe TB, which Maggie claims I gave to her. Actually, I think I just have a cold, but I find drama is best when you’re sick. What do you have, if you don’t have people’s sympathy?

Adjustments: I put this in the “(Relatively) Easy” category despite some debate. It’s easy when you already have cooked chicken on hand, like I did, and you don’t have to cook it 45 minutes in the broth. Also, rather than making a bouquet garni, I just let the herbs float around in the broth completely unsupervised since I didn’t have any kitchen string on me. And, as always, unsalted butter was replaced by salted.

Assessment: Brothy, soothing, citrusy. Perfect for when you’re feeling under the weather, but I’m curious to see what I think of it on a well day.

Patti Dixon, friend of my mother’s and all-round great lady, first introduced me to Tomato-Dill Soup. Tomato-Dill and I (as I call him now for short) hit it off right away. In fact, I was so intrigued by Tomato-Dill, that I nearly risked not meeting all the other delicious characters that were a part of this particular progressive dinner. I went back for thirds of this soup—no joke—and this was during the appetizer segment of the evening, so there was still a lot of food to go. Luckily, the servings were small, and I didn’t spoil my dinner. But at that moment I didn’t care. I was willing to throw out the window everything my mother ever told me about spoiling my appetite to be with Tomato-Dill. I felt that strongly.

A couple years later, Tomato-Dill and I are still on speaking terms but have never been able to recreate that same magic that was there on our first encounter. I blame myself. I’m easily distracted by other soups; I didn’t make an honest attempt to nurture my relationship with Tomato-Dill; and when I created the soup from scratch myself, it just didn’t taste as good as Patti’s, quite frankly.

I’m not sure what Patti does to her soups, but I suspect it involves witchcraft. My mother claims it involves sweet onions instead of brown or white. This could be the case too.

Adjustments: Since I had fresh thyme around, I used a tablespoon of it instead of the teaspoon of dried it called for. (I assume it’s calling for dried. When a recipe doesn’t specify, that’s usually the case, right?) But that’s the standard conversion: 1 tablespoon of fresh herbs equals 1 teaspoon of its dried counterpart. Also, I put in way more than 1 tsp of sugar. Forgot how much, but just do it to taste.

Assessment: This makes a lot of soup, and it’s a bisque, by the way. I thought about giving some to Adam, vegetarian and neighbor, but then it started raining, and I wasn’t about to walk down the street in the rain. Then I got sick and this led to the natural conclusion that I should hoard all the soup to myself and eat it for every meal, which I did. It might not have tasted as sublime as when Patti made it, but it still tasted good and felt excellent on a sore throat. Reunited at last!

So the Thyme-Syrah Fish left me with this packet of extra thyme. What’s a girl to do except try the recipe suggested on the box? So Chicken Breast with Fresh Thyme Cream Sauce for dinner it was. I’m not sure how I managed to forget what a pain plucking thyme is, but I did. This deceptive recipe only has a few ingredients (chicken, flour, butter, garlic, sherry, chicken broth, cream and thyme) but still managed to make me late for meeting someone for drinks. Does anybody out there have a better method to get those thyme leaves off the stem other than to run your forefinger and thumb down the herb to make the little leaves pop off? When I measured the leaves and saw I only had a tablespoon, I couldn’t help thinking “Is that all?” Luckily ITunes started playing “This Bird Can Sing” at that moment and buoyed me through the next half tablespoon.

Adjustments: Only full-salt chicken broth instead of reduced salt broth. Oh and I used thinly sliced chicken breasts, which helped speed up the cooking process.

Assessment: Despite my complaints, the dish did taste quite nice, though creamier than I would have liked. I could end up making it again if I happen to have a bunch of thyme and time on me–(I tried to figure out another way to avoid that corny statement and just couldn’t think of anything.) If I were to make it again, I might add less cream or not reduce the chicken broth/sherry mixture as much as I did. A second person helping with the thyme might cut down on the prep time and make the dish seem more worthwhile.  But even as I write this, I just can’t bring myself to take the time to type in the recipe.  That says a lot.

Say what you want about the Junior League, but don’t knock their recipe books. The Junior League of Murfreesboro, Tennessee fame has put together a fine book that I cook from regularly, Open House: A Culinary Tour. My latest cooking endeavor at their recommendation: Roasted Vegetables and Pasta, which suited me since I’m always looking for something new to do with eggplant. And all the vegetables (zucchini, mushrooms, carrots) made me feel healthy. I thought their marinade was ingenious, just onion soup mix, fresh thyme leaves and olive oil. It created some pretty flavorful veggies.

Adjustments: My only adjustment I wouldn’t recommend; I write it up as a warning of what not to do. To save time, I bought pre-sliced mushrooms instead of whole ones as suggested, which you’re instructed to cut in half. The sliced ones shriveled up to almost nothing during the roasting process, so don’t be lured by the ease of pre-sliced mushrooms. In the case, follow the directions.

Assessment: Pretty easy to execute, but chopping the veggies takes a while, and you have to time the various components well (toasting pine nuts, roasting vegetables, boiling pasta.) I like their suggestion to try it with chicken, though I didn’t. All in all, it wasn’t the most amazing dish I’ve ever had–I won’t dream about it or anything–but I could end up making it again. A friend who got a tupperware full of it and ate it the next day called it “delicious.”

I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t reduce the amounts called for in reductions because it leaves you working with too little. Case in point: Pan-Roasted Artic Char (a fish) with Thyme-Syrah Wine Sauce from Fresh Herb Cooking by Linda Dannenberg. It’s both super-classy and completely feasible to make in a reasonable amount of time. I cut the recipe in half, since I was cooking for two and not four, but at the very end the reduction separated into wine clumps and oil. Sounds unappetizing, but it wasn’t half bad. The small bits of the thyme-flavored wine were actually quite tasty, and I imagine it would have tasted (and looked) lovely had I made the sauce correctly. I just cooked up some green beans and tossed them in some butter as a side. Actually, Brian did that, I’ll give credit where credit is due.

I tried to figure out why sauces separate sometimes–I’ve had this happen once before with an icing involving browned butter. It tastes amazing when you do it right but turns into a total mess otherwise. I thought it might have been from overheating. A chef-type I know suggested volume issues. I dunno. Any knowledge on this phenomenom appreciated.

Adjustments: 1 black peppercorn (since that’s what I have) in place of the white peppercorns (which are milder). And the suggested salmon if you couldn’t find Arctic char.

Assessment: I’m assuming I’m to blame for this one not turning out absolutely perfect. I’ll give it an enthusiastic “good!”