Potage aux Pommes de Terre et Poireaux

A la Julia Child, avec Bruschetta a la Alton Brown.

Ingredients

For soup:

• 1 leek
• 1 onion (small)
• 3 large potatoes (5 c. potatoes)
• 3 c. water
• 2 bouillon cubes
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 c. Marsala
• 2 tsp olive oil
• about 1/2 c. milk (skim)
• cheese (we used Jarlsberg)
  

For bruschetta:

• 1 small loaf French bread
• a few T. olive oil
• shallot salt

Methodology

1. Wash and cut up all the veg. Cut them fairly small.
   
2. Saute the onion and leek in olive oil until they start to brown, then deglaze the pan with Marsala. When this is done and the water is hot, add the leek and onion mixture and the potatoes.
   
3. Cover pot and let it cook for about 10 min, until the potatoes are tender.
4. Puree some of the soup with a blender or immersion blender.
5. Cut the bread into small slices on the bias and stick under the broiler. Make sure the rack is close to the top, otherwise this will take forever.
6. When the bread has started to brown, flip it and go another 1-1.5 minutes.
7. Remove from oven, brush bread with olive oil, sprinkle with shallot salt.
8. Serving suggestion: put cheese on top of soup, then put a bruschetta on top. Mmm.

Notes

• Quite successful and simple. The onions plus the shallot salt was very nice. Although I overcooked the bruschetta a little (they got a bit overly brown) they were still very tasty.
  

How to Quiche

So. The other week my pal L. dragged me to the film Julie & Julia and I wound up tracking down the original blog The Julie/Julia Project. I can't claim to be that impressed by Ms. Powell's writing - she has some odd quirks which irritate me, although she does have a unique and interesting way of writing about food that doesn't just involve writing down her recipes. A week later I am still dreaming about food (this afternoon, for example, I dreamed of avocados. Weird.) and craving quiche. Mushroom quiche, specifically, until I tracked down this recipe online and decided that mushroom and leek quiche would be the thing.

No, I don't own a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I should probably amend that someday. But my goal for the year is to master Indian cooking, not French, so maybe next year.

Quiche aux Champignons et Poireaux

Ingredients

• Two leeks (white/white-green parts only - see note)
• 6-7 biggish crimini mushrooms
• Pinch salt
• 1 1/2 T. butter
• A few T. Marsala wine
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 c. skim milk (this - more than the vegetarianism or anything - is heresy to Ms. Child. And I apologize.)
• ~1/4 c. grated Jarlesberg cheese (I hated this until very recently - like our date night to a local Scandinavian restaurant last Friday. Apparently it is no longer nasty-strong. When did that happen?)
• A crust of some sort

Methodology

1. Pre-bake the crust. If you are me and using a pre-made pie crust, don't fuck it up, by which I mean, put it far enough up the sides of the pan that it won't shrink back when you bake it.
2. Saute the leeks and mushrooms in butter. Add a splash of Marsala to deglaze the pan. When leeks and mushrooms are tender, put them into the pie crust.
3. Whisk together the milk and eggs, add a bit of salt and pepper and a pinch of cheese. Pour it into the crust. Here is an important tip: if the crust has shrunk, don't add so much milk that it overflows the crust and goes back into the pie pan behind it.
4. Sprinkle the top with cheese.
   
5. Put it in an oven preheated to 350 and bake for about 25 minutes (though our oven runs hot, it actually took this long to start getting brown on top.

Notes

• I always wonder how much of the leek to cut up, so I go to about two inches below the beginning of the first leaf, where it's green-white. Cut off the roots, then slit the leek down the center as far as this point and make a second slit perpendicular to the first. Then slice up the leek to the end of the slit and put the pieces in a colander or bowl. Wash now, because leeks are like the Catholic School girls of the vegetable universe - very dirty.
  
• Was that a poor simile? I've never actually met a Catholic School girl.
  
• Maybe I've met one. And she does have a pretty kinky sex life, but she wasn't at Catholic School for long.
• The quiche was excellent. Next time I'll use port instead of Marsala because it will have a slightly stronger taste. Also more salt.
• This page is about to get all sorts of weird Google hits. Oh dear.
  

Portobello Pepper Wraps

From this recipe on Epicurious, with some alterations.

Ingredients

• 2 T. olive oil
• 3 medium sized portbello mushrooms, washed, caps and stems sliced thinly
• 1 medium sized onion, minced
  
• 1 14 1/2-ounce can stewed tomatoes (originally called for "Mexican style", evidently this doesn't exist or doesn't exist at our supermarket.)
  
• 3-4 burrito-size flour tortillas (we used smaller whole wheat ones)
  
• about 2 oz. crumbled soft fresh goat cheese (we used Montchevre)
  
• 1 large green bell pepper, roughly chopped
  
• fresh spinach leaves, about 2 cups
  

Methodology

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan or wok over medium-high to high heat until it sizzles. Drop in the mushrooms and the onion and saute for about 10 min. until tender.
2. Open the stewed tomatoes and add them (see note below). Add the bell pepper and cook for about 10 more minutes, until some of the juice has cooked off. Season with salt and pepper.
   
3. Drain pinto beans and heat in a pan with cinnamon and other spices (we used Penzy's Turkish seasoning because it is awesome.)
   
4. Heat a tortilla in a pan until pliable, about 15 seconds per side. Put in some spinach and goat cheese, add beans and veg. Roll up. You may overfill them, we did.

Notes

• We didn't drain the tomatoes, but I would suggest draining out about 1/4 - 1/2 the juice.
• Because "Mexican style" was non-existent, we went with store-brand "stewed tomatoes". They were fine.
• Bryan seasoned his with pan-fried pepperoni. He said it added crunch and salt. I felt they were delicious without. But then I would say that.
• We had a definite problem with over-filling the burritos. You probably do want large size ones. But go with whole wheat.