Carrot And Ginger Soup

When we were living in New York, we'd sometimes go to E.A.T. for lunch. I always found the restaurant too expensive for what you got, but I did love their carrot soup, which was just so amazingly fresh and concentrated. Now whenever I make carrot soup, I try to emulate E.A.T.'s version. The key, I've found, is to use water, not stock. Stock just muddies the taste. By using water, you get this amazingly fresh carrot flavor. This is a super easy recipe.

About a dozen carrots, peeled and cut into smallish pieces
A tiny clove of garlic, peeled and smashed (use side of knife or bottom of glass)
A chunk of ginger about an inch long, peeled, cut up and smashed (smash same way as garlic)
Water
Pinch of ground cumin (optional, but nice to add because cumin has an incredible affinity for carrots)
Salt and pepper

Put the carrots, garlic and ginger in a pot. Add water--but only enough to just cover the carrots. What you want is a very thick, concentrated, bright orange soup. Cook until the carrots are tender (10-15 minutes). Add ground cumin (if using). Then blend using an immersion blender. If the soup is too thick for you, feel free to add more water. Now adjust the taste with salt and pepper.

My Dilemma With Trader Joe's

This is pretty simple. I'm just mystified that some of Trader Joe's products are so good and some are so bad. Like their avocados—always ripen to a lovely creamy consistency. Or their frozen chocolate croissants which you bake at home—turns your home into a bakery. So why are their cheese so bad? Their "Parmesan" is horrendous. Their Monterey Jack doesn't even melt. And their frozen ethnic foods, like the gyozas, have the consistency of wet cardboard. But great apple juice.

My Dilemma With Whole Foods

My dilemma with Whole Foods? They're just weird. Like they've got stuff I really like to buy, but the shopping experience is just so confusing. Like sometimes the meat you get at the counter is really fresh and sometimes it's really not fresh. Like I'm at the produce section and they've got all this stuff with scanner codes but no prices. So finally, I ask a staff guy what's with the veggies with no prices? I'm assuming since they have scanner codes, there must be a scanner somewhere? Like where is it? So the guy says, "Well what do you need the price of?" And I'm like, no—week after week this happens—where's the scanner? Do you guys even have one? So the guy finally gets it and says, "Yeah. I'll show you." And then he take me to the tiniest computer behind some mushrooms and I say, "Uh—don't you think you guys should have a big sign so we can find this scanner?" And he looks at me like, "Why?" Shopping rage. I'm getting a headache just retelling this story.

Coming next, my dilemma with Trader Joe's.

Kitchen Shears

Kitchen shears. Not a very romantic topic, but what in the kitchen is? Kitchen shears are pretty important though. I find it impossible to operate in the kitchen without them, especially in the age of over-packaging. A good pair of kitchen shears will cut through any plastic, no matter how tough, break cleanly through chicken bones, chop up herbs, cut raw bacon better than a knife, etc. On the other hand, a bad pair of kitchen shears will only enhance wrap rage. I had a bad pair; I used them for over ten years. When they finally came apart, I decided I wouldn't buy another pair until I'd done tons of research. Which is how I found my way to Shun Kitchen Shears. As sharp as any pair of shears I've ever had, and built to last, I now cannot live without them. It even comes with screwdriver blades, which I thought I would never use, but I actually did yesterday, tightening the screw on my cheap Ikea pot lid.

Nongshim Hearty Rice Noodle Soup

Nongshim runs some great ads. They always get me to buy their new instant noodle products. My latest try was their "hearty rice noodle soup" or duk bae kee noodle soup.  Nongshim tends to be hit-or-miss and this noodle was a bad miss.  The rice noodles take forever to cook, and if you follow their directions, the soup is just a gross mess.  But the ad is still great!

Basturma

By RosarioVanTulpe [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Today, for lunch, I finally tried a basturma sandwich. Basturma is an Armenian cured meat that reminded me a lot of Spanish cured hams, except that it's intensely flavored with spices like paprika, garlic, salt, and fenugreek. Doing some research, I found out that basturma is found all over what used to be the Ottoman Empire and can also be called pastirma. Apparently pastirma has the same etymological roots as pastrami but the two meats are worlds apart, since pastirmas are not cooked. Armenians make basturmas out of beef or lamb, but it can also be made from goat or camel.  I liked it, but a little goes a long way.

There's a great article about the basturma and what it means to Armenians by Nigol Bezjian. Just click here.

The Story Of Three Peppers

Every time a recipe calls for green bell peppers, I groan.  Because, these days, cultivated green bell peppers are pretty horrible:  rubbery, tasteless, old, and expensive.  Almost $3 a pound?  You've got to be kidding.  Most of the time, I just leave the peppers out.  But there are some recipes you really need a pepper for, like sloppy Joes.  So, what does a girl do?  How about replacing bell peppers with Anaheims or pasillas, my brain suggested as I browsed the produce section of an upscale chain supermarket with half-rotten vegetables.

The thing is, Anaheims and pasillas are almost half the price.  And they give really good flavor.  My only caveat is that if you use pasillas, make sure you fry them for at least ten minutes on low heat, because they're a bit tough.  Pasillas, which are actually poblanos, are usually roasted, so they need a bit more extra care if you're going to use them like bell peppers (apparently, US stores always mislabel fresh poblanos as pasillas).