Sun Dried Tomato Soup

Sun-dried tomatoes are one of my favorite foods, and this soup did not disappoint. While scouting my regular food blogs that I follow, I stumbled on this gem from Love and Lemons.

So on one of my last days in Saigon, I was trying to return our rented motorbike downtown by myself. Nick and Cate had gone on a tour of the Mekong Delta for the day. Of course the place was not open at its designated hour because this is Vietnam and things happen at their own pace. Usually I can deal with it, but the day was getting steadily hotter (it has been in the 100s this past week). Mostly, I was being impatient. I was also thirsty but I couldn't leave the bike. All of the sudden, a lady at a stand next to me pours half her fruit drink into a glass of  ice and offers it to me. These little gestures happen all the time and the generosity of the people here make it so easy to love this country. Just like that, my day turned around. A random guy showed up, told me the woman I was looking for was still sleeping, and miraculously produced our security deposit. There was a substantial amount of cash, so he went out of his way to make sure I got into a taxi safely. The next couple days went perfectly since (surprise!) my dad as well as my friend Cate came to visit. We celebrated my birthday with tons of delicious Vietnamese food and lots of cousins. My grandma was also very happy that this was the first birthday she got to celebrate with me! That's the last of the updates on Vietnam since we're now in Bali. More on that in the next post...

Ingredients:
1 red onion, roughly chopped
 5 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/2 cup white wine
4 cups veggie broth
1 can coconut milk (reserve a couple spoonfuls of the cream for garnish)
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes in oil (found perfect size at Trader Joe's)
pinch red pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons dried Tuscan herbs
2 teaspoons aged balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon maple syrup
salt & pepper

Directions:
Strain the sundried tomatoes from the oil, reserving both. In a soup pot, heat the reserved oil and saute the onions until almost translucent. This should take about 5 minutes. Then add the garlic and stir for another minute.
Add the white wine and let alcohol evaporate for a couple minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients including the sundried tomatoes set aside.
Bring to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes until tomatoes are completely softened. Turn off heat and use an immersion blender to blend the soup well. Dish into bowls and garnish with coconut cream, extra sundried tomatoes, olive oil, fresh basil, or all of the above.

Jalapeno Hot Sauce

We got a bunch of pepper plant donations up at the farm, so there are many peppers to be had.

The jalapenos are pretty mild this year. One of the farmers told me it's because we have had such mild weather this summer! So this sauce ended up being pretty mild. It has been great on enchiladas and eggs. I've been wanting to make my own hot sauce for awhile. It's actually pretty simple and you can add as much seasoning (onions, garlic, vinegar) as you want. The recipe is altered from Allrecipes.

10-12 large jalapenos, sliced with seeds
1 small onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 1/4 cup water

Saute the jalapenos, onion, and garlic for about 5 minutes. Then add the water and cook for 10 minutes. Puree the mixture once it is done cooking and add vinegar to taste. Store in a mason jar for up to 6 months in the refrigerator.

Garlic Scape Pesto

We're coming to the end of garlic scape season! This meal was made for our 1 month anniversary!!! It was a stormy day and the perfect day for some (super) garlicky pasta. Garlic scapes are garlic flowers. They are cut off at the beginning of the season in May so that the garlic bulb will continue to develop instead of the flower. The younger they are, the more tender they will be. If you wait too long to cut them off, they tend to be really woody. This recipe makes more than enough pesto for this dish. Use the extra for some delicious pizza toppings or to spice up any dish (we added it to quinoa).

1 pound dry pasta (I used orecchiette)
1 bunch fresh bok choy
1 medium onion
3 bunches garlic scapes
1/3 cup walnuts
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Toppings: prosciutto, capers, fresh mozzerella

To make the pesto:

Chop the garlic scapes into 1-2 inch pieces so they fit easily into a food processor. Toast the walnuts until golden brown if desired. Blend the scapes until chopped thoroughly, then add the walnuts and parmesan cheese. Add the olive oil until the pesto is at the desired consistency. Feel free to adjust the amounts of each ingredient to your liking.

Pasta:
Cook the pasta al dente according to the package direction. Reserve about 1/2 cup of pasta water when straining the pasta. Mince the onion and cook until translucent in a frying pan. Then add a little bit of water and cook the bok choy briefly. Add into the pasta. Add enough pesto to coat the pasta, thinning with the pasta water as needed.
Top with various toppings and serve hot or cold.

Fresh Herb Cheese (+ Ligonier Farmer's Market!)

Between settling into a new kitchen, not having internet and never feeling like cooking when it's hot outside, I’ve been MIA from the Pittsburgh Kitchen for a while! This recipe for herby cheese is a very simple two-minute spread that tastes so nice and fresh. All you do is mix fresh herbs, garlic, onion and olive oil into ricotta. It’s from a recipe in one of my very favorite cookbooks by my very favorite cookbook author, Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan.

You can serve the herb cheese with fresh veggies (she says it’s especially good with radishes!), crackers or bread. Ms. Greenspan recommends stuffing fresh cherry tomatoes with the herb cheese, which sounds amazing. I’ve roasted ricotta-stuffed grape tomatoes topped with Romano, and it was delicious.

Below the recipe I'm posting some pics from the Ligonier Farmer's Market, which is definitely worth a drive if you feel like a rural PA mini-roadtrip some Saturday! It's about an hour east of Pgh.

Also, side note: somebody (Brittany? one of the many Kates?) should post pictures of the wedding! I didn't take any.

ANDDD check out Julia's guest post on A Nerd Cooks: Granny Smith Apple Cake with Browned Butter Frosting

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“Lyonnaise Garlic and Herb Cheese (aka Boursin’s mama)”

Adapted from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan

2 cups fromage blanc or ricotta (I used ricotta)

½ shallot, minced, rinsed and patted dry (I used a quarter of a white onion)

1-2 garlic cloves, minced

About 2 tbsp snipped fresh chives

About 1 tbsp minced fresh parsley

About 1 tsp minced fresh tarragon

(I used parsley, thyme and rosemary from our herb garden!)

2 tsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Baked Garlic Chicken Wings

Taunting Twilly with a baked garlic chicken wing.

Making the perfect chicken wing is one of my greatest challenges in life. Today I got a little closer to winning that battle.

My mother is a chicken stockpiler. She always keeps an ample supply of frozen chicken - breasts, thighs, and wings - from Aldi in our basement freezer, so I grab a bag of wings and try a new recipe or technique whenever I'm feeling a bit inventive. I haven't found the perfect wing yet. I think the root of my dissatisfaction lies in a fact I try hard to ignore: I will never make chicken wings as good as D's. But I'll keep trying!

This evening I was looking for a healthy recipe. A lot of recipes I found were for fried wings or called for white sugar and brown sugar. So I refined my search to those that were baked and did not call for sweetener. I found this recipe and adjusted it to the one below.

• 24 medium-sized chicken wings
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 6 or so cloves of garlic, chopped
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Combine olive oil, garlic, spices, and lemon juice in a large ziploc bag.

Add chicken and toss it around with mixture.

Pour it all onto a baking sheet. Cook at 400 degrees for 60 minutes. 

About 30 minutes into baking time, pour all the

sauce into a pan, reduce it, and sift out the fat.

Remove wings from the oven when they look nice and crisp.

Add wings to a bowl with your reduced sauce and shake!

Drain sauce again (so they don't get soggy) and serve.

Next time I make wings I'm trying a slow cooker recipe. Bye bye!