mulberryshoots

Years ago, I had lunch at “The Tea Box” a bento box restaurant inside Takishimaya, a jewel of a department store in New York City. The restaurant is closed now, but fortunately, the chef, Ellen Greaves published a cookbook called “Simple Meals for the Bento Box”  I have two copies of the book here and have also given copies of the book as gifts. In it, there is a recipe for a pea soup that we enjoyed ourselves at the restaurant when it was still open. It’s on the stove now, waiting for final preparations right before serving.

Sweet Pea Soup (adapted from cookbook above):

Heat one cup of chicken broth plus one cup of spring water in a pot on the stove. Rinse a package of snap peas (8 ounces) and put in the broth when it’s boiling. Simmer gently for one minute. Add a 16 ounce package of frozen petite sweet peas into the broth. Simmer for 5 minutes and turn off the heat. Leave it alone until dinnertime.

Finishing steps; spoon out drained peapods and peas into a food processor. Add the broth liquid and puree until smooth. Be sure to put the soup through a fine sieve, stirring to allow as much liquid through as possible. If not put through a sieve, the soup has a grainy texture. Add a little cream to taste, salt and pepper and serve with snipped chives on top.

To go along with the soup, I made a mixture of cream cheese, fresh chives and smoked salmon in a bowl.  Open a packet of cream cheese and let come to room temperature in a bowl. Snip in some fresh chives – about a dozen short stems. Open a pack of smoked salmon – a small one, bits, or on sale. And with a paring knife, cut the salmon and chives into the cream cheese until roughly combined. Cover with plastic wrap and chill.

When ready for supper, toast two sesame bagels, cut in half.  Finish the sweet pea soup and serve in some pretty bowls. Place the smoked salmon gamish on the table and rinse some fresh lettuce, tomatoes and fresh basil on a separate plate. Voila! . . . a delicious supper on a sweltering day!

For dessert, I sliced up two white peaches that have been sunning themselves on the kitchen counter. Squeezed a little fresh lemon juice and added a couple of spoonfuls of turbinado sugar. Covered with plastic wrap and chilled. When ready to serve, spoon out the macerated peaches and add some light cream. It will thicken due to the lemon juice. Yum!

Footnote: Reminded of this soup, I took out the cookbook and am re-inspired to cook bento box size servings for appetizing but small portions of food for the rest of the summer. I have two bento boxes that I bought at Takashimaya those 20 years ago which contain four different kinds of serving dishes. They are spectacular and I am so glad that I have them now. Along those lines, I also thought about apportioning our meals in separate portion serving trays and found these on Amazon. They’ll be perfect for everyday use – and be lots of fun besides. We’ll eat really well in small portions – and I look forward to this new adventure to cooking smaller portions while enjoying them more!

Today, I made an apple pie for us to enjoy while we watch the Patriots game against Tampa Bay tonight. It’s been ideal New England Fall weather the last couple of days although it’s quite a bit warmer today. Despite that, I picked up some Cortland apples at the store to make an old-fashioned apple pie. Recently, it’s occurred to me that I enjoy making (and eating) pies more than making cakes. I don’t really know why, but it’s a really different cooking process and eating experience too!

The biggest difference of course is the crust. I confess I used to buy frozen pie crusts and just use two of them over the cored apple mixture. But recently, I’ve been interested in making pie crust from scratch. The last time, I used too much ice water to the flour/fat mixture and the resulting crust was hard and not tender at all.  This time, here’s what I did for my second try at homemade pie crust:

1. Measured 2 1/2 cups of King Arthur flour into the bowl of  my Cuisinart
2. Took two very cold (hard) sticks of unsalted butter from the fridge.
3. Unwrapped them, cut them lengthwise twice, and then into small bits.
4. Put the bits of cold butter into the Cuisinart and pulsed a couple of times until the butter was incorporated in tiny bits in the dry flour.
5. Added salt (1/2 teaspoon); Added scant 1/2 cup of ice water while pulsing the mixture until it was still crumbly but still able to be patted into a ball without any other handling when I turned the machine off.
6. Wrapped up the ball of crust (for bottom and top crusts) and refrigerated for about 4 hours (honestly!)

To make the filling and finish making the pie:

1. I peeled about 8 Cortland apples (I have a new peeler for thin skins like peaches, tomatoes and apples – it works great!)
2. Sliced the usable apple pieces into a bowl, discarding bruised spots, cores and skin.
3. In a separate large bowl, I mixed together 1/3 cup of flour, 1/3 cup of sugar, 2 heaping teaspoons of Indonesian cinnamon spice; 1 heaping teaspoon of nutmeg, salt. Mixed the dry ingredients together really well and poured the prepared apple pieces into it, mixing well with my hands.
4. Then poured the coated apple mixture back into the pie crust and dotted the top with bits of butter.
5. I rolled out the top crust and used a crimped scone cutter to make impressions into the crust for decoration and also to provide steam holes when the apples bake. Crimped the edge into a pretty design and sprinkled the top of the pie with a little sugar.
6. I tore three lengths of aluminum foil and wrapped them around the crust so that it wouldn’t burn prematurely.
7. Into a preheated 400 degree oven, I turned on the oven light and set the timer for an hour.

We like to reheat the pie right before eating so it’s still a bit warm. With some vanilla ice cream, it’s a dream dessert. Especially here in New England during apple season and when we’re looking forward to watching a football game tonight!

Go Pats!

Yesterday at the Stop and Shop, I happened upon a small cooked lobster at the seafood counter. I picked it up and asked the counterwoman if there were any more and she said she hadn’t had any time to steam any more because it had been so busy.

I decided to buy it anyhow and shelled it when I got home, thinking there might just be enough for a couple of lobster rolls for dinner but there didn’t seem to be enough for two of us.  Somehow, I got distracted and I decided to make the wild mushroom pasta with lemon sauce instead. So, what to do with the shelled lobster?

Many places I have looked feature a lobster macaroni and cheese dish which I’ve always thought was a cringe-worthy gilding the lily kind of dish. I mean, why would anyone put lobster into mac and cheese? Well, tonight, I’m going to find out. I looked at numerous lobster mac and cheese recipes online (Ree Drummond, Ina Garten, Bobby Flay,) and was struck by how expensive and how many types of cheese were included in their recipes to make the dish: cheddar, gruyere, goat cheese, fontina, pecorino, parmesan and on and on.

Being somewhat of a luddite when it comes to making an erstwhile pretty simple dish for supper, I went to the grocery store and bought extra-large elbow macaroni (the better to soak up the sauce); a package of Kraft white sharp grated cheese; and whole milk. I already had unsalted butter, flour and of course the lobster.

One of the tips from the recipes (I think it was Ree Drummond’s) was to lightly warm the lobster pieces in a skillet of melted butter first and then set aside; otherwise the lobster might be watery. After that,  it’s the usual 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, 2 tablespoons of flour stirred in to make a roux and then, adding whole milk to make a bechamel sauce base and then melting the cheese in it. I planned to do that, then folded in the buttered lobster pieces, mixing gently. For the finishing touch, I melted a little butter in the microwave and stirred some panko crumbs in it, covering them to make them brown in golden bits on top of the casserole. I then grated some fresh parmesan cheese on top and baked it in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

The proportions of the sauce and the macaroni was perfect as it baked – because when we served it, there was no gooey mess (too much sauce) and the plump elbow macaroni was scrumptions! I could have eaten the whole thing without lobster too – but that too was good. Gives me some more ideas of other simple macaroni casseroles to make – with ground beef, green peppers, onions and tomato sauce, right?