The first recipe I watched was for soup au pistou and I knew it was the perfect winter soup. Yes, it calls for green beans and basil so technically it might be more of a spring soup, but it’s everything I want right now. It’s cold, it’s windy, and sometimes dreary and I want soup. This soup is hearty without being heavy, full of vegetables, and the pistou (kind of like a pesto) gives the broth a robust flavor.

Now, this recipe is adapted from Julia Child’s for a few reasons. First, she used just water in her broth. I used a mix of water and chicken broth because I had an open container of broth in the fridge that had to be used. You could definitely use all water, more chicken broth, or even vegetable broth. Second, Julia calls for either leeks or onions and I used a mix of both. The reason being my leeks didn’t go as far as I thought they would.

The third adaptation is that Julia has a beautiful gilded soup tureen and I do not. Does anyone have a soup tureen anymore? Julia makes the pistou, then puts it in the soup tureen, and then slowly mixes in the soup from her pot. It looked beautiful, but… really? Since I don’t have a soup tureen do I really need to use two pots? I don’t think so, and I’ve come up with my own solution for those of us lacking in a soup tureen. If you have a soup tureen, I’d love to know it. Send me a picture or write in the comments below!

Ingredients:

3 quarts liquid (water, chicken broth, or vegetable broth)

2 cups diced waxy potatoes (I used Yukon gold)

2 cups diced carrots

2 cups diced leeks, or onions, or a combination of the two

1 tbsp salt

1 15oz can of white navy beans, drained

1/3 cup broken spaghetti (Julia used orzo, I just smashed up some pasta)

2 cups green beans, cut to 1″ length

ground black pepper

Pistou:

4 cloves crushed garlic (I just minced 4 cloves of garlic then smushed them a bit)

4 tbsp tomato paste

1/4 cup chopped basil

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup olive oil (or a little more or less to your liking. Julia Child said between 1/4-1/2 cup)

Directions:

Prep step: Chop all your vegetables!

1. Bring liquid, potatoes, carrots, leeks/onions, and salt to a boil in a large pot (6 quart pot would be best).

2. Once it’s come to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 35 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.

3. Add beans and spaghetti. Let them cook for about 10 minutes.

4. Right after you’ve added the beans and spaghetti, make the pistou. Place the garlic, tomato paste, basil, and Parmesan cheese in a large bowl. Use a wooden spoon or pestle and mash up the ingredients until you form a lumpy paste. Then, slowly, about a teaspoon at a time, mix in the olive oil. Add olive oil until you have something the consistency of pesto. I used about a 1/3 of a cup in total oil. Set aside until soup is finished.

5.  Add the green beans. Cook for 5-10 minutes. You want them to be a bit crunchy, but cooked through. Basically, stay away from mushy green beans.

6. When soup is done, add 1-2 cups of soup to your pistou. Whisk the soup and pistou until smooth. Then, gently pour the pistou soup into the rest of the soup post. Mix that together until the broth is a beautiful red-orange color throughout.

7. Serve and enjoy!

Messy level: Honestly, for the number of ingredients, I’m surprised to give this recipe 1 spoon. There is so little mess! All I had to do was chop, heat, and mix. You’ll end up with very few dishes and almost no splatter. This recipe is a winner!

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But this is a great recipe to talk about on a sick day because it’s the ultimate comfort food. Ryan and I first made it during a cooking class at Sur La Table which focused on Jacques Pepin. I had never been to a cooking class before and I thought everything we made would be too complicated and I’d never be able to make it again at home. Not so! This recipe blew us away in class and we made it many times throughout the winter. It’s rich, thick, and delicious which makes it perfect for sick days, freezing winter evenings, and according Jacques Pepin, it’s good after a night of heavy drinking. This recipe comes from “Essential Pepin” by Jacques Pepin. It takes about an hour to finish, but it’s pretty straightforward. It’s not the prettiest recipe because it look rather lumpy. It also comes out thicker than a regular soup, but it’s hearty and amazing.

Another thing that I’d like to pass on is  a way to cut onions. Our instructor taught us this in class and I’ve found it really handy. For this recipe you’ll need long strips on onions. First, cut the onion from end to end, NOT across the equator. Peel off the onion skins. For strips, cut both tips off the ends. Then cut the onion along the lines you see on the onion. This means you are NOT cutting straight up and down, but on a diagonal following the grain of the onion. Hope these pictures help make sense of what I wrote.

If you’re dicing the onion, again cut the onion from end to end. Next cut off the non-hairy end of the onion. Then, like above, cut along the onion along the long lines on the onion. The “hairy end” of the onion will hold the strips all together. Now, cut horizontally up the onion until you get to the “hairy end.” Now you’ll have nice small squares of onion.

On to the recipe.

Ingredients: 

15-20 slices of baguette, cut about 1/4 inch thick

3 tbsp butter

4 cups of onion cut in thin strips (about 4 medium onions)

6-8 cups chicken broth (you can use more or less broth depending on the size of your casserole dish)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

2 cups grated Gruyere cheese (feel free to use more! I love cheese and sometimes use up to 3 cups)

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup of port

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°

2. Arrange the slices of bread on a cookie sheet. Toast in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until they are light golden brown on the edges. Remove from oven and set aside

3. Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Cook the onions in the butter for about 20 minutes, or until the onions start to turn a bit brown in places.

4. Add the stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to boil and cook for 20 minutes.

5.  Arrange 1/2 the toast on the bottom of a casserole dish. I use a 2.5 quart dish, but have also used my Dutch Oven with success. The bigger the dish the more stock you can use. Smaller dish means some stock doesn’t make it into the final product.

6. Layer 1/2 onions on top of the toast

7. Layer 1/3 cheese on top of the onions.

8. Repeat the layers so in total you have two layers of bread, onion, and cheese.

9. Pour the stock into the casserole. Leave about an inch on the top because the soup will rise in the oven.

10. Sprinkle the last 1/3 of cheese on top of the soup mixture.

11. Bake for 35 minutes, or until a nice cheesey crust forms on top.

12. While the soup is baking, whisk the egg yolks and port in a bowl.

13. Remove the soup from the oven. Make a hole in the middle of the soup mixture and pour in the egg and port mix. Stir everything so the port mixture is well incorporated. The heat of the soup will cook the egg.

14. Turn off the oven and serve!

Messy Level: High. Prior to documenting this for the blog I would have thought this was a fairly mess-free recipe, and if you’re more meticulous than me you might keep your kitchen clean. But for me, after chopping four onions I had onion skins all over the kitchen. I shredded the cheese in the food processor and some fell out so I had cheese on the floor. But my worst mistake was that in my excitement for this dish, I over filled the casserole. It cooked over a lot which led to burned stock remnants at the bottom of my oven. Needless to say, that’s no fun. So, be more careful than me!

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Now, like all family recipes, many of the directions I got from my mom and my aunt were a bit vague. Things like “a lot” and “until it looks right” can be really confusing and frustrating until you make it and it comes out yummy and “a lot” and “until it looks right” makes a lot of sense. I’ll do my best to be specific, but this recipe allows for wiggle room when it comes to seasoning so don’t worry!

Before getting started, let’s talk ingredients. I use mostly Goya products. You can use whatever you want, but Goya is easy to find in grocery stores and always hits the spot. First, let’s talk pigeon beans, or gandules. I have only had pigeon beans in this dish so I have no idea how else to use them, and I really have no idea what they taste like solo, but they are great in this dish.

Second, is sofrito. I like the Goya frozen version. You can make your own fresh version. The recipe I like is from Wilo Benet’s book True Flavors. You can also buy the sauce-like Goya version, but the frozen container is the  largest and is less tomato-y. To use it, I just microwave the container for 20 seconds and then scrape off the portion I need.

Finally, let’s talk tomato paste. You can use regular tomato paste, but I’ve used whatever tomato based sauce I’ve had in the fridge. Some sometimes I’ve used paste, sometimes plain pasta sauce, and once the tomato juice from a can of whole tomatoes.

I think that’s the basics, so we should be good to get started!

Ingredients:

1 cup medium grain rice

1 can pigeon beans (drain the beans but hold on to the liquid)

2 cups of liquid (You can use all water, but it will be most flavorful if you measure the bean liquid and then use chicken broth or water to make the difference up to 2 cups) You might also need more than 2 cups of liquid, and I’ll explain why in the directions.

olive oil

1 small onion diced

2 tbsp garlic minced (can use more or less depending on taste)

3-4 tbsp sofrito

3 tbsp tomato paste

3 tbsp cilantro

*People also add green olives, cubanelle peppers, and diced ham. I don’t because Ryan doesn’t like olives and I don’t like ham, but if you choose to use these ingredients add them the step before you put in the pigeon beans.

Directions:

1. In a large pot, heat 1-2 tbsp of oil. I like to have the setting at medium-high.

2. Cook the onion and garlic for about 3 minutes, or until the onion in translucent.

3. Stir in the sofrito, cilantro, and tomato paste. Now here is where my mom said you can use “a lot” of sofrito. She said there was no way you could use too much, so don’t feel like you have to stick to just 3-4 tbsps of sofrito. I know I’ve used enough sofrito when everything that turned the color of sofrito and the onions and garlic now look they are cooking in a thin layer of liquid.

4. Stir in the drained pigeon beans.

5. Pour in the liquid. If you can see the pigeon beans clearly through the liquid, add a little more until you can’t see the ingredients at the bottom of the pot. Usually I add about another 1/4 -1/2 cup.  Bring it to a boil. Season with salt if you’d like.

6. Once the liquid has boiled add the rice.

7. Cook until the liquid evaporates and the surface of the rice is visible with some bubbling between the grains of rice. This usually takes 9-10 minutes.

8. Lower the heat, cover the pot with a lid, and cook for about 20 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is fully cooked. Some people like to overcook it a little at the bottom so those grains are crunchy – I usually have people fighting for those portions.

Messy Level – Low. It’s really a one pot dish so there’s not much to clean afterward. Also, everything cooks at a nice boil or simmer so there isn’t an occasion for thing to pop out of the pot.  Any mess I make comes in through spilling sofrito, chicken broth, and tomato sauce as I balance out how much I want to put in. But who doesn’t spill while cooking? 

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While I was cooking, what made me happy was Ryan got home and said “it smelled good in the hall and I was hoping it was my house.” Awesome! I was winning before he even tasted it. The only compliment better than that is that we both liked it after we ate

Many of the recipes I try out and post on the blog I’ve gotten from a cookbook, but this is a Mariel original! It was inspired by some Google searching, a little bit by Eating with the Seasons which is a book from my farm share with Potomac Vegetable Farms, and by Ryan’s love for tex-mex food. So I got ideas from here and there, but overall it’s all mine. It might seem silly, but I feel like I’m becoming a “real” cook when I’m putting meals together based on my own ideas. Hope you enjoy the recipe! It’s a great new take on taco night.

Ingredients

3-4 red bell peppers (depending on size, I used 3 and had leftover meat)

1 lb ground turkey (could also use beef)

1-2 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 can of corn (or about 2 ears fresh)

optional: 1/4 cup of corn salsa from Trader Joe’s. It’s a little sweet and spicy and I love it!

1/2 packet of taco seasoning

1/4 cup of tomato sauce (I like a chunky sauce so tomatoes are in the mix)

1 cup of chicken broth

shredded cheddar cheese (to your taste)

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 400°

2. Cut the bell peppers in half. Clean out all the seeds and pith.

3. In a skillet on medium-high, heat the olive oil. When the oil is hot, saute the onion and garlic (about 2-4 minutes).

4. Add the turkey meat. Add the taco seasoning. Add the corn. Cook until mostly cooked through.

5. As you’re cooking the meat, add the tomato sauce if you sense the meat getting dry.

6. Add all of the tomato sauce and 1/2 cup of chicken broth to the meat.

7. Simmer the meat mixture for 3-5 minutes.

8. Optional: If you like the peppers extra cooked, wrap them in aluminum foil and roast them in the oven for 10 minutes before you stuff them.

9. Stuff the meat mixture into the pepper half. Put the stuffed peppers into a casserole or rimmed backing dish

10. Sprinkle the top with cheese.

11. Pour the remaining chicken broth in the bottom of your dish

12. Cover with aluminum foil and cook for 20-25. It’s read when everything is hot, pepper is softened, and cheese is melted.

Messy Level: Low! This is basically a 2-dish cooking endeavor. I basically used a knife, cutting board, skillet, and casserole dish so there was very little that needed cleaning up afterward. The biggest mess is trying to neatly get the cooked stuffed peppers out of the dish once they are done. Not only a good meal, but Ryan didn’t have to go crazy doing the dishes afterward.

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