Like mother, like daughters, and granddaughter as well. I've continued a long line of cooks. Daughter taught me to make seafood carbonara after my nightshade sensitivity manifested. She taught me to make confit from the tough, chewy legs of my free-range ducks. [See these and many of her other food blogs at artificialintelligentsia.blogspot.com] She lives in the Bay area, but also spent a year in France on a postdoctoral assignment. I visited them there for Christmas and was blown away by the food. Her husband is also an avid foodie and excellent cook, so they selected their leased home at least in part by the similarity of the neighborhood to where they lived in France: walkable distances to farmer's markets, restaurants, and parks.
One of daughter's cogent observations from France was that French soups are simple. Cook any veggie soft in stock, puree the heck out of it with a little seasoning, swirl in cream or crême fraiche. With this as her introduction to them, granddaughter has hardly met a vegetable she didn’t like, at least as soup.
Granddaughter has loved the idea of cooking since she was too little to do much in the kitchen. She had a lovely plastic vegetable set with "knife" and cutting board, and would chatter about her cooking. One day when we were on Google Hangouts, she ran up to her mom and held up two plastic vegetables. "I want to make a soup out of these!"
They were a carrot and a zucchini. Her mom made her a chicken rice soup with both of those minced in it, but I thought perhaps the French style would work well too. And so it did.
Audrey's Carrot Soup
2 cups cut carrots
1 cup sliced zucchini
1 quart chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
Salt and pepper to taste
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ to 1 cup heavy cream (vegans try coconut cream!)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
[Carrots vary in flavor. A Tbsp. or two of honey may also be nice.]
Cook vegetables soft and puree them well. Season, and add the lemon juice. Drizzle cream in the serving bowls to make pretty patterns.
The following is a salad daughter invented during her pregnancy to satisfy all her cravings at once. It is full of excellent nutrition for all genders and conditions.
California Salad
Half a head of romaine lettuce, chopped. May add other baby greens
1 avocado, diced
3 oz. crumbled feta
3 oz. smoked trout, flaked
Sections of one orange, two mandarins, or a can of mandarins
Dressing:
1 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp OJ concentrate or juice of 1 fresh orange
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp white wine or rice vinegar.
(or just blend Annie’s Shiitake Sesame dressing with orange juice concentrate.)
Arrange salad and beat all dressing ingredients well. Dress at the table.
Of course family traditions run the other way as well. Our crescent rolls (from my grandmother) are an essential fixture of Thanksgiving.
Crescent Rolls
Dissolve 1 oz. yeast in 2 c. warm water with a pinch of sugar, set aside to proof
cream together:
½ c. butter
1/3 c. sugar
1 egg
work in until crumbly:
2 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt
Stir in yeast water and beat 100 strokes. Let rise, stir down, knead in enough white flour to make a smooth workable dough. Separate into 3 equal parts. Roll each out to a 10 inch circle, brush with melted butter and cut into 8 wedges, roll up from the large end to the point and bend slightly. Arrange on cookie sheet and let rise again. Bake at 350 degrees about 15-20 minutes. Brush hot rolls with more melted butter.
But it’s fun to learn new things from the young.
What are your family specialties?