Cook the Story

I have such exciting news! I’ve been teaming up with Roget’s Fine Wine and Beer, my favorite local wine shop, to do some food and wine pairings.

Each week one of my recipes will be featured in Roget’s email newsletter. The recipe is paired with a wine that Roget’s is sampling at their Friday evening and Saturday afternoon wine tastings.

On Fridays I’ll be posting about the wine on the Cook the Story Facebook Page and describing the recipe that I’ve chosen to pair with it. If you’re looking for new wines to try and want to know what to eat while you sip, come check out the Facebook Page on Fridays.

This week: The Seeker Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, Australia is paired with a simple yet satisfying shrimp soup. Come check it out!

Oh, and hey, if you’re a fan of Roget’s, head over to voteovations.com to vote for them as your favorite local wine shop (local to Seminole County, Florida, that is).

On Monday we had a bit of a scare. I started having contractions, painless at first, then a little pain. When they became regularly spaced at 4 minutes apart we jumped into the car and headed for the hospital.

I’m only 32 weeks pregnant so we were seriously hoping that the baby was not coming (the little one is still way too little!). After a couple of hours in triage and another couple of hours hooked up to monitors, I was given a pill and the pre-term contractions stopped. Hooray!

But, I’ve been told to take it easy and to stay off my feet as much as possible. Ha! Do you know that we’re moving to a new house in 2.5 weeks? Do you have any idea how much needs to be done?

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He jogs up the field, a zig, a zag, oops a tumble but then he’s up again and in position. The ball streaks toward his outstretched hands as the crowd goes nuts. Yes! He caught it!

A proud parent jumps up and claps.

Not me. I was not the proud parent at the Y’s Itty Bitty Sports Class yesterday. Nope. I was the one sitting in the stands crying.

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I haven’t been feeling great lately. I have bronchitis. Worse. yesterday morning I woke up to disappointing news from my home country. I’m not going to get into the details here because:

• it’s way too upsetting and I don’t want to ruin your day;

• it’s very political – I’ll wait until we know each other better before showing you my openly bleeding heart;

• if you’re Canadian it’s obvious what I’m upset about so I won’t bore you. If you’re from elsewhere, I hear that the news is spreading and is being taken as a signal of things to come. I certainly hope not *sigh*.

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At Food Blog Forum Orlando last weekend I won an amazing prize: Jaden Hair‘s The Steamy Kitchen: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight’s Dinner.

When I got home my little J came down with a fever and cough. My own followed. I wasn’t in the mood to cook, let alone sample new dishes.

Or at least I thought I wasn’t.

While on the couch cuddling with a Diego-entranced snotty J, I flipped through The Steamy Kitchen thinking, “Even if I don’t feel like it, I should make something so I can post about it next week. Ho hum. Blah.”

My eyes stopped at the Spicy Korean Tofu Stew. A big bowl full of meaty comfort (yes, tofu, but also seared beef and eggs poached amid a shitake mushroom and soy doused broth) with enough heat to knock some air into my stuffy nose.

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This is the last post in the series What’s in the Box? Tips for Dealing with Your Weekly Produce Box. I’m sad that it has come to an end. It’s been such fun sharing my organic improvisations with you while also reading your fantastic tips for how you get through your boxes of fruit and veg.

To finish off this series, I’m giving you my “recipe” for Empty the Fridge Soup. I make this on the day before my next produce box arrives. It makes the whole house smell like my Baba’s kitchen, it’s hearty and healthy and (the best part) it makes space for all those incoming goodies.

Before getting into the soup, I’m announcing my next series: Kid-Friendly Fare with Adult-Friendly Flare. In its honor, I’ve developed a frozen fruit recipe that is loved by children but can also be adulted-up a notch. It’s adaptable to whatever fruit you have and so is great for using up those last bits and bobs before your next produce box arrives.

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When asking people about their weekly produce box, I heard from many of you who belong to Community Supported Agriculture Groups (CSAs).

Y’all have reported that springtime is the most difficult because your farm share is flush with lettuce and herbs. So flush that your family starts looking like a bunch of rabbits and you spend all your time clearing every possible surface in preparation for drying out little leaves. (This is not just a problem for those in CSAs but also for all you over-eager gardeners out there.)

I get it. I mean, how much lettuce and herbs can you really eat?

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I squinted down at the bowlful of white glop in front of me then up at the waitress. I asked, “Where’s the cheese?”

“What cheese?”

“The cheese! The cheese! How can you have baked potato soup without cheese?”

She looked at me like I was nuts. “We don’t put cheese on our baked potatoes so why would we put it on our baked potato soup?”

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Soup-making is something that I just know how to do. Why? I grew up surrounded by soup-simmering and soup-eating.

Tomato Beef Barleys and Chicken Noodles warmed my childhood. Vegetarian Borscht Dappled with Heavy Cream appeared in the spring and returned to freshen Ukrainian Christmas Eve (a meatier version was ladled daily at the Perogy Patch). Mushroom with Wild Rice, Bean and Bacon, Hearty Potato Tomato, Pepper Jack and many other creations starred in Soup and Sandwich specials at the Falcon Deli.

And now, on my blog, Pepper Jack will also exemplify the simple brilliance of my mom’s recipes. Yay good soup! Yay awesome Mom! (more…)

(a.k.a. Smokey Soup with Some Shrimp, Some Sausage, Some Barley AND SOME HEAT)

While jumping up and down to Raise Your Glass by P!nk in a Zumba class, my New Year’s resolution changed from, “This year I will exercise more, eat healthier, eat less, blah, blah, blah”  to “This year I will do things that are good for me because they feel good.” (Read about my resolution shift here.)

As part of this new resolution, I sifted through my index cards to find recipes that are good for me, make me feel good and are like Zumba:

Fast. Fun. HOT!

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