Watts Consulting

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food

Roasted Garlic Soup

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Sunday night was chilly here in Birmingham. Decided to warm things up with something simple–that, and the cabinets didn’t really hold loads of food as I have been avoiding the grocery store. Settled on a variation of garlic soup.

Roasted Garlic Soup

1 head garlic
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
several sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 cup white wine, optional
3 VERY small potatoes, diced (no bigger around than a 1/2 dollar–hopefully smaller)
1 can vegetable or chicken broth
freshly ground pepper
1 cup milk (I used 2%, but half and half would give it an extremely rich flavor)
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Rub the head of garlic until the outer layers of skin come off (leave the part that is directly on the individual cloves). Place in a small container, drizzle with about 1 tablespoon olive oil and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until very tender. Remove and let cool.

Heat a skillet (I like my stainless chef’s pan for this) over medium heat until hot. Add remaining olive oil and onions. Reduce heat to medium low and cook, stirring frequently for about 10 minutes. Add garlic and thyme and cook another 2 minutes. *You may need to turn the heat to low for part of the cooking time. The idea is to caramelize the onions and brown them only slightly.

Squeeze roasted garlic cloves gently. The clove should pop out of of the skin with ease.

Add white wine, if using. Add potatoes, roasted garlic and broth. Season with pepper. Cook over low heat for about 10-12 minutes, or until potatoes are very tender.

Transfer to a bowl and blend in batches until smooth. Return to pan, add milk and heat thoroughly. Spoon into bowls and top with cheese. Makes two servings. Use a little more milk and another couple of potatoes and this would easily stretch to feed three.

Vegetarian Sandwich

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Well, I haven’t really been doing a lot of cooking the last week (made several homemade sourdough pizzas, but those just all look the same in photos). Here’s a sandwich I made for Ann’s birthday last week. Fresh Big Sky Bakery bread (a Birmingham bakery), fresh veggies and blue corn chips. It is pretty similar to a sandwich that we got frequently at Ketabies–sp?? (later the Highland Market and now Rojo).

The sandwich is pretty simple: fresh sprouts, tomatoes, shredded carrot, walnut pieces, Swiss cheese, raisins and Ranch dressing between two slices of good wheat bread. Simple and delicious.

Pan-Seared Trout with Capers and Butter

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Cooked some wonderful trout last night. Pretty simple, really. (recipe below) Served with fresh spinach sauted in a little olive oil with chopped garlic and new potatoes roasted with garlic, fresh rosemary and a splash of olive oil.

Seared Rainbow Trout

2 10-ounce trout filets
salt and pepper
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
canola oil (or olive oil, but I was out of everything but extra-virgin–not good for frying)
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 tablespoons capers, drained
juice of 1 lemon
1 shallot, chopped (optional)
chopped fresh herbs (I used about a tablespoon each fresh flat-leaf parsley and fresh chives)

Place trout, skin side down, in a shallow dish. Season trout with salt and pepper. Sprinkle lightly with flour (you’ll shake much of the flour off before cooking).

Heat a cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add approximately 1 tablespoon oil to skillet and place fish into skillet, skin side up.

Meanwhile, combine remaining ingredients (butter through fresh herbs) in a small bowl.

Cook trout for approximately 4 minutes on medium to medium high. Turn, placing skin side down. Top of trout should be a golden brown. Add butter sauce to skillet, pouring some over trout and some around. Turn heat down to medium-low and cook for approximately 5 minutes. Serve immediately.

Eggplant, Mushroom and Pepper Pasta

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A quick, toss-together meal last night of sauteed eggplant, garlic, red bell pepper and yellow onion along with some fresh herbs (basil, oregano, and parsley) tossed with penne pasta and finished with a little white wine and fat-free half and half–yes, I know, not the best thing in the world, but it seems to work pretty well in small quantities. Topped with a bit of quality Parmesan cheese. Would have been better to have used bacon drippings instead of the olive oil and finished with a healthy toss of chopped crispy bacon, but I’m trying to be a little healthier.

 

Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce

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Wow. Looking back on some old CD backups from the late 1990’s, I found about a dozen letters I sent to family (mainly Mama and Papa but also Aunt Gladys and others). Interesting stuff. I also found some old recipes I developed when I worked at Weight Watchers. This Bread Pudding recipe actually got a perfect score in the Test Kitchen–I don’t think it ever managed to get printed, though. It was for a section of the magazine that was, I believe, abandoned. If it ever ran, it did so after I had moved on to work at Scenic Alabama. The recipe was a good one, though, so thought I would share it here.

Bread Pudding With Whiskey Sauce
 
3       cups milk
1/2    cup raisins
1/2    cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4    cup sugar
1       tablespoon vanilla extract
1       teaspoon ground cinnamon
3       large eggs, lightly beaten
2       tablespoons butter, melted
9       (1-ounce) slices French bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
Cooking spray
Whiskey Sauce
 
          Preheat oven to 350`.
          Combine first 8 ingredients in a large bowl; stir well. Add bread cubes; toss gently. Let mixture stand 30 minutes.
          Spoon mixture into a 13-x9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350` for 45 minutes or until pudding is set. Serve warm with Whiskey Sauce. Yield: 10 servings (serving size: 1/10 of pudding and about 3 tablespoons sauce).

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