Edited: this was written prior to the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We have apparently now entered the meaty side of things.
Yes, I am aware that I said we would get into the meaty side of things – and we will.
Seems like much of life these days is waiting to get into the meaty things.
But in the meantime, the nights will be in the mid-40s for the next week, with sunny, dry fall days ahead. This vegan cream of mushroom soup is perfect for lunch, or with crusty bread and a big salad for dinner. It freezes well, so put some up for the rainy days ahead.
Cream of Mushroom Soup (serves 6, with leftovers)
Luscious and creamy without a trace of cream, this silky soup is full of grounding, warming flavors and herbs. A perfect vegan lunch, or see Recipe Notes for meat-eating options. Use homemade chicken, vegetable, or beef stock (see recipes included below), or look for store-bought organic stocks with limited ingredients. Seasoning makes the difference here, so don’t shy away from salt and pepper. Taste as you go.
Ingredients
1 cup raw cashews (see Recipe Notes) ¼ cup olive oil or ghee (divided) 1 cup onion, chopped (red, yellow, and white all work) 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 pounds mushrooms, roughly chopped (see Recipe Notes) 3 tablespoons fresh thyme (or 3 teaspoons dried) 2 tablespoon fresh sage (or 2 teaspoons dried) 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock (divided) Salt and pepper to taste Splash of apple cider vinegar for serving optional for carnivores: ground beef, browned and drained (see Recipe Notes) optional for serving: fresh thyme and fresh chopped parsley
Method
Cover cashews with boiling water and let sit for at least 30 minutes. Drain, then purée in a blender with ½ cup of chicken or vegetable stock. Set aside.
Heat olive oil or ghee in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to turn translucent and take on some color (about 5 to 7 minutes). Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute.
Turn the heat to medium high and add the mushrooms, a handful at a time, allowing the mushrooms to color just a bit before adding more. You may need to add a little more ghee or olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and add fresh thyme and sage. Add remaining stock and bring to a low simmer. Cook until mushrooms are tender (10 to 12 minutes), then add cashew purée, starting with a ¼ cup and adding to get the consistency you want. You may need to add more stock or less cashew purée.
If you are using ground beef, add it back in now and bring the soup back to a low boil. Remove from heat. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar, season to taste, and serve with chopped fresh thyme and parsley.
Recipe Notes
• If you have leftover Cashew Cream, it works well in this recipe. Simply add whatever you like for a nice creamy consistency. • Select any mushrooms you like. In the fall, look for local chanterelles and porcini mushrooms, as well as year-round shitake and Portobello. A mix of mushrooms works fine here. • If you are making the carnivorous version of this silky soup, start by browning one pound of ground beef in a stockpot. Remove the ground beef when browned and proceed with sautéing the onion, as above (no need to add ghee or olive oil). Make sure and scrape the browned bits of ground beef off the bottom of the pot as you sauté the onions. Add ground beef back in after you incorporate the cashew purée.
Things fall apart in the fall. It is the season of death and decay and the gradual fading of the light (fall back on Saturday, November 3rd. Take the country back Tuesday, November 6th).
It is also a time of powerful transformation and intention setting and a season of acceptance that comes after grief in the face of extraordinary change.
This is clearly reflected in nature. Leaves litter the sidewalks and the grass wears a morning tiara of sparkling frost that melts away with the rising sun.
In the garden, overgrown green turns spindly and the last vestiges of fruit struggle to hang on the vine. This is the last call for the summer garden – last call to bring in any kind of harvest before the sun barely crests the horizon and night falls before dinnertime.
Green tomatoes are a unique by-product of the scraggly fall garden. Tart and bright, they are everything you need when the light dims.
Here, two recipes: Green Tomato Chow-Chow and Roasted Green Tomato Soup. The former a staple in the south, the latter a bright ray of sunshine in a darkening fall kitchen. If these don’t do it for you, give last year’s ode to fall a whirl. You can’t go wrong with any of these.
Green Tomato Chow-Chow
Use this uniquely southern condiment on greens, black-eyed peas, pork chops, chicken, BBQ sandwiches, and in salad dressing (or stir it into the soup that follows). Add finely chopped white cabbage if you like. This recipe scales up easily and can be canned for winter time. This particular recipe makes one pint.
Dice the green tomatoes, Thai chili, onion, and celery. Place in a glass bowl and add salt. Stir, then cover with plastic wrap and let sit, at least four hours but preferably overnight.
Place a mesh sieve over a bowl and strain the vegetables, reserving the liquid. Pack vegetables in a pint jar. Measure spices and place on top of the vegetables.
Heat sugar, vinegar, and a 1/4 cup of the reserved tomato liquid in a heavy saucepan until sugar dissolves. Let cool slightly, then pour over vegetables. Let cool to room temperature on the counter, then refrigerate. Only gets better as it sits, but unless you preserve it, eat in a month or less.
Roasted Green Tomato Soup
This soup is quite accidental and made from the bits and bobs of my CSA, herbs grown on my porch, and stock made from vegetable peelings from the summer. This particular batch of stock featured corn cobs and fresh fennel, both delicate, subtle flavors that actually manage to lift the soup to a whole other level. Roasting the tomatoes and caramelizing the onions coax the last bit of summer’s sweetness from both. As with its red brethren, this soup goes well with a buttery, gooey grilled cheese.
Ingredients
2 pounds green tomatoes, cut into quarters for roasting
Olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
3 cups vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups arugula (ish)
Optional garnish: thinly sliced scallions
Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss green tomatoes and whole garlic cloves in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 40 minutes.
In a large stockpot, heat another two tablespoons of olive oil. Add onion and cook on medium-low until caramelized (around 30 minutes, so start these when you put the tomatoes in the oven).
Add roasted tomatoes and garlic and stir to combine. Add fresh thyme, salt, and pepper and cook for two minutes. Add stock and arugula. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.
Use an immersion blender (or regular blender) to puree the soup until smooth.
My brother and I have not spoken more than a handful of times since November 8, 2016.
While the final catalyst was his part in the current president’s election, I realized a long time ago that there was a disconnect between us, formed since we could walk. We spent our childhood together, me mostly afraid of him as the object of his ire, scorn, amusement, and anger. Both of our parents worked, and we spent a lot of time alone together. When my brother needed a punching bag I was handy; he routinely delivered punches, smacks, and pinches, along with various projectiles aimed at my head. He broke two windows in our house, one with a walnut and one with a deflated volleyball, as a result of those errant projectiles that veered from me at the last minute and met instead the fragile single panes of our house in the woods.
In terms of missiles, I remember most the Osage oranges, the softball-sized round seed pods that looked like I imagined brains looked. They were all over the base of the hill where our bus turned around. Florida Ropp, our bus driver for my entire elementary career, would pull up to the bottom of the steep hill and let us off before backing into a wide driveway and turning around. I sat in the front so I could fly down the stairs and immediately start running up the hill.
My brother emerged slowly, casually, a few seconds after me, to begin leisurely scanning the ground for the best orange. He would heft several in his hands before finding the perfect missile. My short legs never carried me far enough, fast enough, and the first one nearly always hit me square in the back between my shoulder blades. He had good aim and didn’t often miss.
We don’t agree on politics. We don’t have the same friends, taste in music, or ideas of what is important. Although I think he is a great dad and has a strong work ethic, I am not sure he believes either of those things to be true about me. When I started my own school, I think he envisioned me in a prairie skirt huddled around a kitchen table with a few raggedy unfortunates, not the fully accredited, non-profit private school I actually built.
When my husband died, though, he showed up. He cleaned out the demolished car and returned, silent and somber. He handled Dane’s bill collectors so I did not have to. His whole family piled into their car and drove down to Georgia from Northern Virginia to sit with us, and on that first fatherless Father’s Day in 2013 we spent it at Camden Yards in Baltimore with them.
It is hard for me to rectify what he did in that one time that was so important and vital with the rest of our lives. Even as we don’t speak, I would do the same for his family.
Perhaps we can just come to some peace with each other, where it’s ok that we are related and all, but there is really no obligation. We are guests in each others’ house; our children are strangers to each other. We cannot choose our family, but we can choose who we continue to invite into our lives. It’s hard when the chasm between us is vast and filled with fundamental differences in the way we believe the world should work.
Soup is an odd transition but perhaps just as polarizing. I have never lived with anyone who has liked soup. I do not understand how a person could not like soup. Various reasons have been that it’s sort of a half-meal and not particularly satisfying, or that it’s too, well, soup-y. For this reason, even though I am incredibly good at it (if I do say so myself), I don’t often make soup of any kind.
This recipe was an accident of sorts. Back when I was a public school teacher working with unruly adolescents, I was planning to teach a history unit on Africa and came home one evening – late and hungry – from a team planning meeting. My team decided that I was to design a dish that was quick and easy to share with my class when we started the unit; on that cold and rainy evening, I threw together some traditional flavors from all over Africa and hoped for the best.
After tasting the first batch, I ended up keeping the first to myself and making another for the class. Even the anti-soup faction in the house begrudgingly admitted it was delicious.
These days I make it all for myself and eat the whole batch over several days. It is silky and simple and complicated all at once, and warming all the way down to the bones. I have made my own ras-el-hanout spice blend instead of using the simple ginger/cayenne mixture I first used in this stew (back in 1999). There are various recipes online that include between six and 30 spices in their ras-el-hanout mixes; I chose to go simple for the sake of ease and convenience. The result is a deep, complex, satisfying, and somehow familiar stew that brings everyone back to the table.
African* Peanut Stew
Ingredients
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups sweet potatoes or yams, chopped into ½” cubes
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups vegetable stock (or chicken if not cooking for vegetarians)
2 15-ounce cans of diced tomatoes (or two pints if you preserve your own)
1 large apple, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 heaping tablespoon ras-el-hanout (recipe below) Optional but highly recommended: 2 T grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup crunchy peanut butter (unsweetened is best)
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
If you are making your own ras-el-hanout, make that first. Add coriander and cumin seeds to a small frying pan over medium heat. Toast until spices begin to open up (they will smell more…toasty…), swirling frequently to avoid burning. If they burn, start over.
Place toasted seeds in a coffee grinder and allow to cool. Add red pepper flakes and grind until fine and incorporated. You can also use a mortar and pestle if you don’t have a spice grinder.
Combine all spices and mix thoroughly. This makes a little over 1/4 cup of ras-el-hanout, which will stay fresh for about a month in a dark, dry place. Realistically, it will be okay longer but just lose flavor the longer you have it.
Make the soup: In a large, heavy-bottomed stewpot (enameled cast iron is great for this), heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and sauté for two or three minutes, adding about a teaspoon of salt and some cracked black pepper. Add sweet potatoes and sauté until just cooked, soft on the outside with a slightly firm center (al dente).
Add chopped garlic, stock, tomatoes, apple, ras-el-hanout, fresh ginger (if using), and cayenne pepper. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a low boil, and then lower the heat and simmer for 45 minutes.
Stir in shredded coconut, peanut butter, and green pepper and simmer for another ten minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with more shredded coconut and chopped unsalted peanuts.
*Yes, this is a blanket and general name for a stew that takes flavors from all over, most especially Morocco but also in the southern regions of Africa (and western as well). I do not pretend to be any kind of expert in these flavor profiles; I am simply experimenting and combining things that taste delicious, no matter how incongruous. I mean no disrespect.
NOTE: I am a fan of 30-day challenges, and November is traditionally a time of two: National Novel Writing Month, and 30 Days of Thanks. As I am not a fiction writer, this year I have chosen to publish a daily blog for the entire month, expressing my gratitude. This may not be entirely food-focused, but expect recipes aplenty. Feel free to join me in the comments below. What are you thankful for today?
Luxurious abundance.
In 1996 when I moved to Seattle, I rolled into town with just $200 in cash (and no credit to speak of, plus one black cat and a car of dubious quality). Even back in 1996, before the construction boom that is currently overtaking the Pacific Northwest, this small change didn’t get me very far. I slept on the floor of a friend’s cousin’s house for a couple weeks, then moved quickly onto another floor of a stranger’s house in West Seattle after the cousin began to hit on me.
At that time, I had just a college degree, no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and about $75 left, so I applied at a local temp agency and quickly found work that paid every Friday.
Temp work was steady but didn’t pay well, and the end of the week often found me short of cash and hungry. Too proud at that point to apply for any kind of financial assistance from my new city, I solved the problem with what I had at hand: coffee.
Every morning I would drink a fortifying cup of coffee for the commute to work, then continue to drink copious amounts of coffee throughout the day, lightened with a considerable amount of milk and sugar. This got me through the day without lunch (except for the days when someone would bring in doughnuts or bagels), saved tons of money, and allowed me to pay my bills without applying for any kind of financial assistance (from the state or from my parents).
These days, I can still stretch a dollar until it screams, but as I look back on that time I realize how rich I actually was. I was educated and had a job and a safe place to sleep at night. These days in Baltimore, 20% of Baltimore’s children face food insecurity in that they have no idea where their next meal is coming from. They may not have a safe place to sleep, and their parents may not have the educational resources (or, let’s be real, the skin color) to easily secure even a temporary job.
A couple months ago, I learned about a local organization that helps remediate food insecurity and works to alleviate food deserts: Gather Baltimore. This organization uses volunteer labor in the fields and on the street to gather food that would otherwise rot or be thrown out. The food is sorted (with decomposing or inedible food going to compost) and packed into big blue Ikea bags to be sold for $7 to anyone who wants one.
These bags generally contain between 30 and 40 pounds of produce and are designed to feed a family of four for one week. Bags also often contain bread, crackers, and occasionally, chips.
While this amount of food can be a lifesaver, one considerable issue can arise: what do you do with ten pounds of lettuce? Or five pounds of jalapeños? Or that crazy, lumpy brown thing that you know is a vegetable but you have no idea how to actually cook it?
For people who lack basic cooking skills or too many extra ingredients, this can be a considerable challenge. I have used the Gather bag to make some delicious things I would not have otherwise made, including a spicy corn relish that I could eat my bodyweight in.
The lettuce thing actually happened once when I got a bag that contained not only two heads of butter lettuce but also a two-pound bag of shredded iceberg lettuce. From this, lettuce soup was born. Overall, this entire recipe cost me about $2, as I made the vegetable stock from peelings and vegetables from the previous Gather bag, and the spices were purchased from the bulk section at MOM’s in Hampden for less than a quarter.
It may sound crazy, but lettuce soup has French roots and is often a light course in a sumptuous French meal. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.
Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped (at least one cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
1 ½ teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon allspice
1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
5 cups vegetable stock
8 cups of lettuce, any kind, but tender-leafed lettuce (e.g. butter lettuce) works best
4 tablespoons of butter
Optional garnish: Greek yogurt or sour cream, chopped cashews, mild white cheese
Method
Heat two tablespoons of butter in a stockpot over medium heat. Add onions and cook for two minutes, then add garlic and cook for one minute more.
Season with salt and pepper, then add coriander and allspice and cook for one minute more.
Add potato, lettuce, and stock. Bring to a low boil, then turn heat down and simmer. Cook until potato is tender.
Puree the soup in one of two ways:
1. Working in batches, use a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Use a handheld immersion blender and puree in the pot.
