Vegetarian « (y)our food choices™

Tell your kids that Shrek eats this for dinner, maybe then they’ll try it.

Steve’s very kind. He tells me almost every night that whatever I have cooked is the most delicious thing I’ve ever made. Rarely does he say anything negative, and even if he doesn’t like something, the worst thing he’ll say is, “It’s good.” The other night I could sense his displeasure in the soup I made for dinner. I got the, “It’s good” response and could see Steve was having problems choking it down. I wasn’t pleased with the outcome, either. The recipe, “Creamy Fennel and Greens soup” is on epicurious.com, with a 3 1/2 out of 4 star rating. I thought that, at the very least, I would be able to use up some of the veggies in our fridge by adding them to what looked like a delicious vegetable soup. It wasn’t!

With recipe in hand, I went to work chopping and sautéing the onion and fennel, cleaning the collard greens and spinach, adding water, cooking the collards, then the spinach, and finally blending everything together. I blended, and blended, and blended some more but it still wasn’t the smooth puree I was striving for. As I tasted the soup I realized it was missing something. It needed more salt, more spice, more pepper, and more fat. I added more salt, pepper, and whole milk to the mix (the recipe called for cream, which we didn’t have in the house) but it still wasn’t smooth or tasty. The consolation was that I knew it was healthy thanks to all those green veggies. A small consolation indeed.

Usually, the food we eat has to meet three criteria: it has to be healthy, it has to taste great and it has to look like something we’d want to eat.

The taste and looks were lacking with this one. The soup looked like something scooped out of a swamp and tasted like it looked too, very very green. One of the fibrous veggies simply would not break apart in the blender and we found ourselves chocking back fibers that were so fine they reminded us of one of our cat’s furballs. Not the best soup I’ve made, but not the worst (very close).

The next day I tried my best to doctor-up the swamp soup in an effort to turn it into something palatable. After straining the solids from the liquid I pureed the solids again. After 10 minutes of blending it still was not completely smooth. I then added more salt and reheated. I put half the soup back in the blender one more time and, with the blender running, added 4 tablespoons of cold butter to the warm soup. It helped enrich the soup but still didn’t help smooth it. Whoever gave this recipe a 3 or 4 star rating on epicurious.com seriously needs to reevaluate their culinary tastes. And the recipe writer needs to take a good, hard look at this one. We think it could use some work.

Alas, I think this batch will just have to be eaten as a “nutritious” soup and not anything that looks or tastes good. I’m freezing the rest of it for one of those rainy days (I hope summer comes soon) because I just can’t stand the thought of wasting all those nutritious greens. If you do make this recipe, try eating the soup along with a grilled cheese sandwich to make it more palatable. After all, everything tastes better with grilled cheese!

Creamy Fennel and Greens Soup AKA Swamp Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 pound mixed dark leafy greens such as collard and beet, coarse stems and center ribs discarded and leaves chopped
6 cups water
3 cups baby spinach (2 ounces)
4 tablespoons cold butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Garnish: fennel fronds or chopped dill

Preparation

Heat oil and butter in a 6-quart heavy pot over medium heat until foam subsides. Add fennel, onion, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned, 7 to 8 minutes.

Add leafy greens (but not spinach) and water to pot and simmer, covered, until greens are tender, about 30 minutes. Stir in spinach and cook, uncovered, just until wilted, about 1 minute.

Purée soup in batches in a blender (use caution when blending hot liquids) until smooth adding chunks of butter to the running blender, then return to pot. Stir in cream and lemon juice and reheat over low heat. Season with salt.

Cooks’ note: Look through your spice rack to add some flavor to this soup, maybe crumbled bacon or blue cheese on top would help. Also try adding a potato or two to the soup when cooking the collard greens. This will give the texture a more velvet feel.

Soup can be made 2 days ahead and chilled. Reheat or serve cold.

A bowl of golden comfort food.

Almost all recipes evolve from a previous one. Very few occur out of thin air to the point of being new and original. This recipe is an adaptation of a Melissa Roberts recipe for Gourmet (Pasta with Beet Greens/Diary of a Foodie: Season Three: Farm to Fork). We have prepared Melissa’s recipe more times than we can count, but we thought it was time to replace the pasta with Arborio rice and to include both the beet greens and the beets they were once attached to. The concept of roasting beets in the oven until they are tender and sweet is something we enjoy any time of the year and we thought it might be interesting to replace the traditional winter squash with roasted golden beets in a creamy risotto to take the edge off our cool Winter/Spring weather.

Our evolved roasted beet risotto has a beautiful golden hue that looks almost too good to eat – almost. One bite and we knew that this dish was a winner that could easily be served in as a gorgeous first course or main course for vegetarians (or vegans, if you omit the Parmesan cheese). No one will miss the meat with the earthy and sweet flavors, plus all the olive oil and pine nuts give it just enough fat to satisfy and comfort your inner carnivore.

Thank you Melissa and Gourmet for the inspiration. If Melissa or the folks from the now defunct Gourmet are reading our blog (we miss you Gourmet) give our recipe a try. We think you’ll agree that your beet green pasta recipe has evolved into something truly golden.

Roasted Golden Beet Risotto

1 bunch golden beets with stems and leaves (about 3-4 medium sized beets)
4 cups water
2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
1 cup dry vermouth
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 medium onion, minced
1 cup Arborio rice
1 cup grated Parmesan Cheese (optional)
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the stems and leaves from the base of the beets and place in a bowl of water to wash thoroughly. Cut the stems from the leaves and separate. Chop the stems into ¼” pieces and the leaves into ½” strips. Scrub the beets and place on a layer of aluminum foil, fold the foil over the beets to form a “package.” Place the beet package on a cookie sheet. Roast the beets for 40-60 minutes or until a knife can be easily inserted. Allow to cool before handling.

In the meantime, heat the vermouth in a pan until just simmering then add the raisins and cover. Allow to seep until you are ready to add the vermouth to the Arborio rice.

Heat four cups of water with 2 teaspoons salt in a separate pan until barely a simmer. In a large Dutch oven, add the olive oil over medium heat. Add the pine nuts and toast, watching very closely so they don’t burn, for just a few minutes. Remove the pine nuts from the pan. Add the minced onions and beet stems to the pan and sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the Arborio rice to the pan and saute for 3-4 minutes until the rice is slightly toasty. Strain the vermouth into the pan and stir until all the liquid is absorbed. Set the raisins aside for later. Gradually add ½ cup to 1 cup of water to the rice and continue to stir. Allow the rice to absorb the water before adding more water. Total cooking time should be about 20-30 minutes. Before the last addition of water, add the beet greens and stir thoroughly.

Once the beets are cool enough to handle, using paper towels, gently rub the beets to remove the skins. Dice the beets into ¼” pieces.

When the risotto is completely cooked, remove from heat and add the Parmesan cheese, beets, and toasted pine nuts. Stir one last time before serving and top with additional Parmesan cheese or a drizzle of olive oil or both.