Prime Cuts

This is a simple yet complex pureed soup that I consider a mature version of the common broccoli cheddar soup.  There are a few subtle key elements that make this soup incredibly good, such as the addition of a few potatoes for body, a touch of heavy cream at the end for smoothness, and the quick hot roasting of the cauliflower which will add a nutty aroma and taste.

It is best if you puree this soup with a standard blender, rather than an immersion type blender.  The end result will be a much smoother texture.  It is best to use a well-aged parmesan and grate it to a fine powder on the smallest size of your box grater.  Doing so will ensure that the cheese melts quickly and evenly into the soup.  I find that even people who do not care for cauliflower still really enjoy this soup; it is very warming and great served during the cold winter months.

Joe’s Roasted Cauliflower and Parmesan Soup

Ingredients

2 Heads Cauliflower, leaves and inner core removed
3 Russet Potatoes, peeled and roughly diced
1 Large White Onion, roughly diced
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
2 L Homemade Chicken Stock, (Low sodium store bought stock will work fine)
1 ½ Cup Parmesan Cheese, grated into a fine powder
½ Cup Heavy Cream
Vegetable Oil
Kosher Salt & Freshly Ground Black Pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Cut the cauliflower along the natural branch structure, into roughly 2” pieces, coat thoroughly with vegetable oil, and place on a baking sheet in an even layer, season liberally with kosher salt.
2. In a preheated 375 degree oven, roast the seasoned cauliflower for 10-15 minutes, or until you just begin to see some browning on the edges.
3. In a large stock pot, lightly sauté the onion and garlic just until soft, add the potatoes and chicken stock, and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the roasted cauliflower, continue to cool until the potatoes are tender and the cauliflower is beginning to fall apart.
5. Working in small batches, blend some of the solids and some of the stock until smooth and even textured,  do so until you have blended all the solids, if there is stock leftover that’s ok, if the soup seems thicker than you would like, add some of the reserved stock back to it.
6. With the pureed mixture in a stockpot, bring back to a simmer, add the heavy cream, and cook until simmering again, turn off the heat and add the parmesan cheese, wisk to ensure that the parmesan is evenly distributed and melted.
7. Finally season with salt and pepper to taste, I prefer to use freshly ground black pepper, but if you are looking for a uniform solid color, use white pepper, however be careful as white pepper can be rather strong and overpowering if used too heavily.
8. There are many good ways to garnish this soup, personally for a bit of crunch and texture I like to top with some warmed, crumbled bacon and finely sliced scallion.

Enjoy!

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Photo Credit: Gordon

Read enough of the things that I write around Prime Cuts, and you’ll notice something. I have a preternatural obsession with comfort foods. I love their warmth. Their smells. The memories which they evoke. I love a chi-chi fa-fa dinner as much as the next guy, but I’ll take comfy cooking over that stuff any day.

One of the things that conjures up the best feelings for me is my mom’s cheese fondue.

When we were living abroad (when I was but a baby), we spent a short time in Lucerne, Switzerland. While there, my parents frequented a small restaurant that overlooked the lake and which served delicious wines, raclette and incredible cheese fondue. They spent so much time there, in fact, that they befriended the owner, who was kind enough to share his recipe. My mom’s been making it every winter since.

I remember how excited I’d get upon discovering that it was “fondue night”. There’d be a forest of tall, French baguettes and a host of otherworldly cheeses, whose names seemed exotic and adventurous. The house would come alive with laughter and the smells of simmering garlic, warm bread and cheesy goodness. There was something wonderful about everyone gathering around the pot of hot, bubbling cheese and twirling pieces of bread around in it. It was the ultimate conversation starter (early-adoption of social media).

When I was about 19 and was home from college, I wanted to make the fondue for my friends. And thus, the torch was passed. Now, I make it for my family and friends (and, of course, my mom and dad, when they visit) and still revel in the rich, warm goodness of it all.

Today, I’m going to share the recipe with you. It’s not something that you can make often, but on a cold day (which are certainly not in short supply right now), it’s a meal that can’t be beaten. I hope you and your family enjoy it as much as mine does.

Case Family Cheese Fondue

Ingredients

2 cups dry white wine (Chablis is a good choice)
2 large cloves of garlic, smashed
2 pounds Emmenthal Swiss cheese, grated
1 pound Gruyere cheese, grated
1/2 pound Appenzeller cheese (if you can find it), grated
1/2 cup Kirschwasser
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 French baguettes, cut into cubes

Preparation

In your fondue pot, over a medium-high flame, combine the wine and the cloves of garlic. Once the wine has come to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about three minutes. Remove the garlic. Add the cheeses, one handful at a time and stir until it’s melted. In a measuring cup, add the cornstarch to the Kirschwasser and stir to combine. Once all of the cheese is in the pot (and it’ll be very liquidey) and melted, add the Kirschwasser mixture and stir until the cheese has thickened.

Transfer the pot to your fondue flame. Skewer cubes of French bread on fondue forks and dip into the cheese.

Eat & enjoy!

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Winter. There are some out there who love its cold frostiness. Some who revel in the frozen brilliance of snow, ice and unflinching blue skies. Others, myself included, find Winter something to escape. They employ any means possible to avoid the clutches of Jack Frost’s frigid grasp, coming as close to hibernation as possible while waiting for the first signs of Spring to show their cheery faces.

No matter your feelings about Winter, though, it’s likely you’ll need to warm up at some point before it’s through.

For me, the best way to do that, my favorite way to thwart Old Man Winter’s attempts to turn me into a human snow cone, is to make a bubbling kettle of soup.

Soup. The greatest defense against Winter’s arsenal.

Whether it’s something creamy — smooth, sweet butternut squash laced with traces of cinnamon — or something more traditional like old-fashioned Chicken Noodle, there’s nothing like soup to warm you, to make you feel comforted, to give you the power to look Winter dead in the face and say, “Bring. It. On.”

My personal favorite is a hearty beef soup, brimming with vegetables and bolstered by the nutritional power of lentils. For me, there’s nothing that makes me feel better. It’s the food that comforts me. The one that is like snuggling under a warm blanket or slipping on a comfy pair of PJs. It’s the thing that warms me from the inside out.

Wonderfully Warm Winter Beef Soup with Lentils

Ingredients

A couple “glugs” of olive oil (regular is fine, save the Extra Virgin for something else)
2 pounds of your favorite boneless beef roast (a good pot roast is a solid choice), cut into bite-sized cubes
Kosher salt & freshly-ground black pepper (to taste)
1 large yellow onion, chopped (Maui or some other sweet onion is great here)
1 head celery hearts, diced
2 or 3 large carrots, peeled and diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning (this mix usually contains oregano, thyme & basil, among other things)
3 1/2 (32 oz.) cartons of low-sodium beef broth
2 (14 oz.) cans diced tomatoes WITH the juice
2 cups (usually one bag) of lentils, rinsed
**Melissa’s super-secret “magic” ingredient

Preparation

In a large stockpot over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Season the cubes of beef with salt and pepper (I’ve found it best to be liberal with the pepper, but sparing with salt, but that’s just my personal preference). Add the beef to the pot and cook until nicely browned. Remove the meat and place in a bowl, leaving the juices behind in the pot. Add the onions, celery and carrots and cook until softened, about 8-10 minutes. Put the beef (and any juices in the bowl) back into the pot. Add the broth and canned tomatoes. Bring the soup just to a boil, then reduce the head and let it bubble away at a low simmer for about an hour. Add the lentils, and continue to cook for another hour or so.

**Up in the list of ingredients, I mentioned my “super-secret” ingredient. And it’s this: if you use wedges of Parmesan or Romano cheeses, what do you do once you’ve grated it all and gotten down to the rind? Throw it out? Well, stop that! Save those pieces of goodness in a Ziploc bag in your freezer. When you make this soup, toss one of the rinds into the pot as it bubbles away. The result will be an indefinable nutty goodness that your dinner guests won’t quite be able to put their fingers on. It’ll give the soup that certain “je ne çest quoi”.

When you’re ready to eat, ladle the hot soup into bowls and serve with thick slices of warm, crusty bread.

You’ll be sated. You’ll be happy. You’ll be warmed from the inside out.

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Photo by: stevendepolo

Comfort. That’s what’s on my mind as I sit 28,000 feet above … somewhere. This month, I’m doing what could be considered a fairly insane amount of travel. Take off, land, take off again. While visiting new places can be exciting, and though I love the job for which I go gallavanting across the country, hours and days spent on airplanes and in unfamiliar hotels make me long for the comforts of home. The comfort of my own bed, my own pillow, the sound of my kids giggling when they’re just waking up in the morning.

Near the top of the list of these homey comforts are the foods that, no matter how tired, beleaguered or stressed I become, always put a smile on my face, always make me feel good. For me, there are lots of yummy things that fall into this category: grilled cheese sandwiches with steaming hot tomato soup, freshly-baked bread, the stew that bubbled atop my mom’s stove in Winter.

For my money, though, there’s one meal that beats out everything else on this list of warm, satisfying delights, the one that really says “Home” to me: classic Italian sausage, peppers and onions. Just the thought of it is enough to get my mouth watering. Steaming hot, rich, and just a little spicy & sweet, this is one meal that never fails to warm me through and through. Served with warm, crusty bread and an ice-cold beer, this one’s sure to become a comfort to you, as well.

Ingredients

1 pound sweet Italian turkey sausage (the “real” stuff works great, too)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 red bell peppers, sliced
2 Vidalia onions, sliced (Maui onions, if you can get them, are great for this, too)
Kosher salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Fresh garlic (3-4 cloves, chopped)
1 cup Marsala wine (this is sometimes hard to locate and can, in a pinch, be substituted with Madeira)
1 can (15 oz.) diced or crushed tomatoes
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Fresh basil, roughly chopped
A warm loaf of fresh, crusty Italian bread

Preparation

In a large, deep saucepan or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over a medium-high flame. Working in batches, cook the turkey sausages until they are golden brown. Once cooked, remove them from the pan and allow to cool.

Add the onions, peppers, salt and pepper to the hot pan, making sure to scrape up the good, browned bits left behind by the sausages. Cook until the peppers are softened and the onions are golden. Add the basil, oregano & garlic and cook about 5 minutes more. Add the tomato paste & Marsala, stir well. Follow with the tomatoes & red pepper flakes, stirring to combine. Cut each sausage into chunks; about 4 pieces per sausage. Add to the pepper & onion mixture and cook until the sauce is nice and thick, about 30 minutes. *Something worth noting here is that the longer this happy melange cooks, the better it’ll get.

My favorite way to serve this is in deep bowls, alongside thick slices of fresh Italian bread (gotta have something for sopping up the good stuff). If you prefer, get some good-quality sub rolls, making sure to hollow them out just a little; this really does make a sensational sandwich. All you need after that is to pop the top off a frosty, cold beer, and you’re ready to be transported someplace otherworldly.

The comforts of home. They’re different for everyone, but their effects are the same. No matter where we go, no matter how far we travel, these are the things that restore us, that reassure us. Take comfort in that.

Melissa DelGaudio is the principal of Honeybee Consulting, a social media consulting firm based just outside of Washington, DC. She can be found on Twitter @startabuzz. She enjoys her comfort foods while wrapped in one of her 12 monogrammed Snuggies.

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Photo by: helios jinn