Fiona's white bean soup

So this week we have a guest cook in my mom who got this recipe from her friend Fiona. Below is their conversation back in July of 2010 about the soup. I am going to give it a try and post my reaction as a comment. 

Fiona,

  We have just finished our week in Perth and Margaret River. Tell Scott we went to Beckett's Flat. We bought a bottle of their wine for Shabbat.  We gave him your regards. They said they had not shipped to Africa before but were up to give it a go once we get settled. He said the post might be expensive, so we are first going to try and see if the local bottle shop will order it in for us with their normal consignments. I also want your white bean soup recipe. I think Mara might like it as well as it is a good meal for vegetarian--that with some bread would be a good meal in its self.

Thanks again for everything while we were in Brisbane. Know that it was truly appreciated. It was an honor and privilege to get to know you and your family.

Cheers,

Arleen

Hi Arleen,

Glad you had fun on the west coast of our lovely country. I have attached the recipe for the white bean soup. It comes from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten. Just replace the chicken stock with vegetable to make it vegetarian. I also found I had to cook the soup for longer but it's possible I didn't cover the beans with enough water the night before as they had absorbed all the water by morning and some were still dry. My tip, use a big bowl and lots of water. Enjoy!

Keep in touch

Regards

 Fiona

Very good with a loaf of fresh bread or cornbread.

Here I used 3 cans of beans, drained and rinsed them, added vegetable stock cubes with that amount of water and dried rosemary. I did not puree. got lots of compliments.

Enjoy, especially on a cold day.

 mom

I tried it out and it was indeed yummy, good for a cool winters day for sure!
Mara

Sweet potato and black bean chili (or not)

So I forgot to buy the chili powder (or really any of the things the recipe called for) so I did some odd things to this poor defenseless recipe.
Toasted sesame oil instead of olive oil
No chili powder or cumin or chipotle or cilantro
1tbsp basil parsley and oregano
lemon juice instead of lime
1/2 tsp Cayanne
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp Tony Chacheres Herb and spice mix
4 tbs Creshendo Greek spice mix (from Rouses specialty section.)
Whole canned tomatoes instead of diced.

It came out really yummy but probably not at all like it would have if I had even half followed the recipe...

Chocolate Peanut butter cookies

So the last time Jess was here she signed me up for Ok Cupid internet dating sight. Last night I finally had a date with someone from there. We were supposed to meet in the quarter but that didn't work out. (for those of you wondering 30min is as long as you can stand in a shoe store before it gets creepy) I ended up following a bunch of protestors yelling UP WITH EGYPT DOWN WITH MUBARAK for about 4 blocks and then I went home.
She called about 2 hours later and we figured out that we actually had already met at an event on the Tulane Campus months ago. So I had her over to the apartment for a cup of tea (mostly to avoid having to go out in the cold again.) We ended up making these cookies. The cookies were pretty good. The jury is still out on the date.

Link to the Cookies!

Lemon Pie (the redo)

Evelena gave me some home grown lemons from her lemon tree so I had a go at Lemon Meringue pie.
For those of you who are wondering: When the recipe says use a mixer instead of a whisk USE THE MIXER!
I was frustrated about something and needed to get her off my mind, so I thought I would whip this by hand myself. The pie tasted fine but no one knew it was supposed to have meringue on top because the whole thing was flattened out. I beat it for about 20 min and thought I had gotten stiff peaks but obviously I was wrong. Oh well It was yummy and it made Monday better so I guess I'll just go with it...
Here is the link for the recipe.

Whole wheat beer bread

So those of you who are frequent visitors to my apartment know that I have accumulated a motley assortment of different kinds of alcohol left behind by house guests and especially beer which I rarely drink. This recipe is the perfect use for the leftover beer, plus it is super easy and looks really impressive.  I did it the first time just as the recipe said and used a Guinness, this yeilded a loaf of heavy dark bread. The second time I went nuts and modified the recipe left and right. The original author says not to use light beer but I actually thought it tasted better with the bud light from last Mardi Gras...

Here is the original link.
When I  made it the second time I  used Bud Light
I also sauteed up a batch of cabbage and sweet potato in the skillet and added a cup of that.
Finally I added
4tbsp of buttermilk powder (equivalent to 1cup of buttermilk but without making the dough too wattery)&
2tsp of honey
I cooked the whole thing in a cast iron skillet instead of in a loaf pan and it cooked up in about 30 min instead of the whole hour. I think this version was much yummier. The buttermilk powder makes it taste sort of like sour dough but without all the yeast and work of sour dough.


   

Back from break !

So the year is over and I am done with my obsessive weekly need to cook.
I am still cooking though and have been enjoying some recipe writing as well as my recipe reading.
I will try to catch up the old posts but for the moment I am just going to go forward.
This year I want to try and bring down the money and calories in my cooking so look forward to some healthier picks and some things made from what I had lying around. I hope you enjoy!