Gluten and Dairy Free Cream of Mushroom

Hello.

I'm reposting this piece from last year. The soup is amazing, and I think everyone should make this for Thanksgiving!

There was a long time (until about 10 years ago) that I didn't care for soup much. I've always loved split pea with ham and New England clam chowder, but other soups just seemed thin and boring to me. In the recent past, though, I realized that soups, curries and stews are all based on the same principles, making me try thicker soups with lots of layers of flavor. A whole new world opened to me. And, of course Asian noodle soups are a favorite of mine now, so I can say I'm a soup lover through and through.

I came across a gluten and dairy free cream of mushroom soup (via my friend Thanya whose sister-in-law is an expert of all things allergen-friendly). And, this year, I added bacon to it, so now, it's perfect.

There are a lot of steps, considering that a traditional cream of mushroom soup doesn't involve three steps to thicken it. And, of course, I love cooking my mushrooms in butter, but that doesn't really fit into my diet right now. By using bacon fat, I was able to bring back some of the depth that butter gives the mushrooms (and of course, anything with bacon is better).

So consider this a nudge to make a wonderful and satisfying cream of mushroom soup for your friends and family this holiday season!

Gluten and Dairy Free Cream of Mushroom Soup

adapted from original recipe: Cybele Pascal, Allergen-Free Cuisine, 10.8.2010

serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

• 3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 small shallots finely minced
• 1 ½ lb. mushrooms, chopped (I use a mix of white mushrooms and Chantrelles)
• 1 sprig of fresh thyme or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 Tablespoons tapioca starch/flour
• 2 ½ cups chicken broth
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon porcini salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 2 Tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
• ½ cup rice milk
• 1/2 pound black forest bacon, cooked and diced

Method:

• Over high medium -heat, heat olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot, large enough to accommodate all ingredients.
• At this point, I also add in a bit of the grease from the bacon (used for garnish at the end). It give the mushrooms a nice richness.
• Add porcini salt, shallots and mushrooms, stir often, cook for 3 minutes.
• Lower heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes until golden brown.
• Stirring well to coat mushrooms, add in thyme and tapioca starch/flour.
• Reduce heat to low. Scraping the bottom of the pan to get all the tapioca and mushrooms incorporated, cook for about 5 minutes.
• Making sure that all clumps are broken up, add 2 cups of the chicken broth, salt and pepper.
• Stir well, increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
• Boil remaining 1/2 cup chicken stock and add quick-cook tapioca to the stock. Mix gently.
• Add chicken stock/quick-cook tapioca mixture to the pot.
• Keep the heat on a low simmer, stirring often to help the quick-cook tapioca dissolve. It's ready when the tapioca is completely clear.
• Add rice milk.
• Pulse in food processor (or use a hand blender or a blender) until desired texture is reached. I keep mine kind of chunky, but you can blend it all the way to smooth.
• Serve in bowls with diced bacon on top.

Perfect for Warm Weather: Slow Cooker Coq au Vin

Stews and soups seem odd for spring and summer cooking. If I can throw everything into a slow cooker at the start of a beautiful day, head outside, enjoy the weather and get home and have a meal waiting for me, I say "Huzzah, bring on the slow cooker!"

These nice long days are getting me outdoors more, leaving me a little less time to cook. The slow cooker sitting in my pantry has been calling my name. It's the perfect solution for a beautiful day. Just a half hour of prep, including a little bit of browning, and I was out the door with a promise of a great tasting coq au vin waiting for me at the end of the day.

I'm still figuring out proportions on my slow cooker recipes. Coq au vin is one of my favorite stews, so I thought I'd give it a go in the slow cooker. If you want to add or subtract some of the tomatoes or red wine based on successful slow cooker recipes you've used before, feel free to do so. And, get in touch with any slow cooker tips, especially about adapting standard recipes to slow cooker style recipes.

I have a friend (who blogs at Weekends So Sweet) that does quite a bit more slow cooking than I do. She has experimented with not browning ingredients before slow cooking and has had good results. Just wanted to mention this because a lot of these recipes end up looking like they have a lot of steps, but they can be simplified. I look at slow cooking as a good place to experiment. I've only had one real disaster (involving several acorn squash that just looked and tasted horrible after 8 hours on low in the slow cooker). For once, my attitude of throw it in the pot and see what you get can work here as real advice.

So get outside, enjoy yourselves and come home to a warm nourishing meal!

Slow Cooker Coq au Vin

Ingredients

• 6 chicken thighs
• 1/2 pound cooked bacon, chopped into pieces (cooking method here)
• 2 cups red wine
• 1 onion diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 to 2 cans canned tomatoes
• 2 sprigs fresh oregano (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
• salt and pepper to taste

 Method

1. Heat a large skillet over high heat, adding olive oil (or bacon grease if you have it) just before the pan is smoking hot.
2. Salt and pepper the chicken thighs and place them in the pan, skin side down and cook for 5 minutes on high.
3. Turn over the thighs and cook another 5 minutes.
4. Place the thighs in the slow cooker along with the cooked bacon.
5. Return the pan to high heat and sauté the garlic and onions until softening, and just turning brown.
6. Add the onions, garlic, wine, tomatoes and spices to the slow cooker.
7. Set the slow cooker on low for 8 to 9 hours.
8. Serve with boiled potatoes, salad or over egg noodles.

Bacon in the Oven

Joe makes bacon in the oven.

A seemingly simple statement. But, I need to point out that Joe, my dad, used to leave the house when Gran Fran would cook meats that were too strong smelling.

I'm not clear when he turned the corner and actually began cooking the bacon himself, but a few years ago, I walked into my parents house and saw him lining up strips of bacon on a jelly roll pan. I was intrigued.

He told me my mother, Gran Fran, had discovered that if she cooked the bacon in the oven, there was a lot less mess. And, Joe wasn't bothered by the smell. Let me point out that this was well after they had spent a good 45 years living together, so it goes to show you that you new things can happen late in a marriage!

This method does take a little bit longer, but it's worth the effort. The bacon comes out nice and crispy, but not burnt, with a some chewiness left in the fat.

Ingredients

• 1 pound bacon, thick cut works really well, but any kind will do

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.
2. Place the bacon strips in one layer on a sheet pan.
3. Cook the bacon for 40 minutes then raise the heat to 400 and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Remove the bacon from the oven once it has become nicely browned.

Cookbook Review: Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food

Remember how my friend got me a quail to roast for my birthday a few weeks ago? Well, that same friend got me a great cookbook for Christmas, too.

The book,  Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food, by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough, with photographs by France Ruffenach, brought me back to the re-opening of the Bi-Rite Marketin 1998.

At the time, we lived on 17th street and Dolores, just a block from the market. The book lists June 8, 1998 as the opening day of the market as it operates today. That would put me at about 3 months pregnant. Which, as I recall, makes total sense, because by the time I was in my third trimester and had little to no interest in cooking, many a take out dinner came from the Bi-Rite Market. Lucky me!

The book talks about creating community through food, and the relationship the owners and his family had throughout the years with the neighbors. I experienced this day in and day out, whenever I went in to buy some meat or fish or prepared food, the people behind the counter always recognized me and knew what I was going to ask for before I even asked for it. From the outset, the atmosphere was always inclusive, never condescending and truly inspiring. It was a new take on an age-old traditional local grocer: organic, locally produced foods, where you might pay a little more, but what you got was well worth the investment.

My baby's first solid food (other than rice cereal and cheerios) was a piece of Bi-Rite's roasted chicken. I think that kid ate more Bi-Rite meals than I did in her first few months of solids. It was a good routine: walk down the hill from work, pick up some delicious food, walk the block home and enjoy. Did I also mention that the job I was walking home from was through a random connection that was made in front of the prepared foods case at the Bi-Rite?

I was in the market one afternoon, with my baby in her stroller. A woman approached me, said she liked my shoes and mentioned she had a baby about the same age as my girl. We talked for a bit longer, during which time she asked what I did for a living. At the time, I was managing trade shows, and told her this, and proceeded to ask her what she did. She had just launched an ecommerce start-up that was looking for some people and would I want to send her a resume. Email addresses were exchanged, communication ensued and I eventually became employed by a woman I met at the Bi-Rite.

So, yes, for me, creating community through food holds a special meaning in my heart when it comes to Bi-Rite. And, the book is organized in such a way that it's as if you're going on several visits a week to the store. You can read about pantry staples, locally sourced cheese, wine and produce, as well as get some awesome recipes for all of the above ingredients and more. The book presents the recipes within a story about the ingredients and why the buyer may have chosen to bring a particular variety of a fruit or vegetable into the market. It's written as a whole piece, not just story-then-recipe-then-story. It's more about the nature of how you might shop if you were to shop for your ingredients each day (which I love to do), versus how to make a meal in 30 minutes or less.

There is a definite need to know how to get good food out to the table quickly. This book does an excellent job of explaining how to get the best ingredients into those simple (and also the not so simple meals) and to give you an appreciation of what it took to get that carrot onto your plate. I'm a very busy single-parent who loves to cook and sees the benefit in buying the best ingredients I can, so this book is for me.

In closing, I'd like to share the recipe from page 162 for Brussels Sprouts with Pistachios and Warm Bacon Vinagrette. I made this the other night and was thrilled with the results. I've never used raw brussels sprouts (nor the super fine slicing attachment on my food processor), but I most certainly will do so again.

Brussels Sprouts with Pistachios and Warm Bacon Vinagrette

recipe from Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food, by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough, with photographs by France Ruffenach

copyright 2011, 10 Speed Press

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 pounds Brussels Sprouts
• 6 thick slices Bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
• bacon fat drained and reserved
• Extra-virgin Olive Oil, as needed
• Freshly squeezed juice of 1 Lemon
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Sherry Vinegar
• 1 small Shallot, minced, about 1 tablespoon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced Garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon Honey
• Kosher Salt
• 1/4 cup lightly chopped toasted Pistachios

Method:

• Peel off and discard the darker outer leaves of the sprouts and trim any discolored areas from the stem ends.
• Cut the sprouts in half lengthwise. then silce them crosswise very thinly - about 1/16 inch.
• Alternatively, you can use a food processor fitted with the slicer attachemtn, but the cuts will not be as clean.
• Transfer to a large heatproof  bowl, add the bacon, and set aside.
• Measure 1/4 cup of the reserved bacon fat into a small pan and warm over low heat until liquefied(if you don't have enough bacon fat, make up the difference with olive oil).
• Remove from the heat and whisk in the lemon juice, vinegar, shallot, garlic, honey, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
• Drizzle the dressing over the brussels sprouts and toss well.
• Taste and season with more salt as necessary.
• If you have time, let the sdalad sit out for 30 minutes or so before proceeding--in this time, the dressing helps the sprouts soften a bit.
• Just befor serving, top witht he toasted pistachio; if using the horseradish, use a microplane grater to shave a little over the top as well.