Fresh Pea and Leek Soup

In a strange turn of events for San Diego, it rained all weekend. So much for Labor Day BBQing! After spending a delightfully rainy afternoon at the Zoo watching the lions snooze, we pulled out a few wedding gifts and decided on a delicious, and super easy, soup.

I received Ina Garten's cookbook, "Barefoot Contessa At Home" from Elizabeth I. at my bridal shower and have been dying to make something from its beautiful pages. Once the rain started coming down and I realized I had a fridge full of veggies from the Farmer's Market, I pulled out the ever handsome bright orange Le Creuset we received from Tom J. and the stars aligned.

Fresh Pea and Leek Soup. I made some adjustments to the recipe based on what we had at home (I wasn't about to go out to the store in that weather!) and it turned out absolutely delicious. Below is the original recipe, with my changes noted.

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts (2 leeks)
1 cup chopped yellow onion
4 cups chicken stock
5 cups freshly shelled peas or 2 10-oz packages frozen peas (I used frozen)
2/3 cup chopped fresh mint leaves (I used a small handful of fresh tarragon instead)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup creme fraiche (I used about 3 tablespoons of mascarpone cheese instead - delish!)
1/2 cup chopped fresh chives (I didn't have chives, but I'm sure they would be quite yummy.

I also added about 2 tablespoons of lemon zest and about 1 tablespoon of fresh nutmeg.

Heat the butter in a large saucepan, add teh leeks and onion, and cook over medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until the onion is tender. Add the chicken stock, increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Add the peas and cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the peas are tender. Off the heat, add the mint (or tarragon, basil would probably be nice too), salt, and pepper. Here I added the lemon zest and nutmeg.



Puree the soup with a blender (I highly recommend a Vitamix - talk about a life changing appliance!) or immersion stick blender. Once the soup is all pureed, whisk in the creme fraiche (or mascarpone, or heavy cream) and chives and taste for seasoning. Serve hot with croutons, pita chips, or toasty baguette.



Then pour yourself a nice glass of crisp white wine, snuggle in with your new husband (or old husband, if that's what you have available) and watch a movie. Hopefully something better than "Thor", which is what we chose. Bad choice of movie, great choice of soup recipe!

B's Biscuits

I woke up on Saturday morning at 5:30 and my first thought was "what can I bake?!?" I delved into our wedding gift recipes and gravitated straight to B's Biscuits, a recipe perfected by one of our many adopted moms, Barbara H. Cory and I stayed with her on one of our trips to San Francisco and awoke each morning to these warm biscuits, slathered with butter (Barbara reminds us not to be chintzy with the butter!) and homemade jam. Talk about a great house in which to be a guest!

This Saturday was my first opportunity to see if I could pull off the biscuits, and in the process I proved that they are foolproof. Despite my years of baking experience, I managed to mix in the wet ingredients wrong, lose count of how much baking powder I added, and throw some baking soda into the homemade jam. And yet, they turned out delicious!


Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into little cubes
3/4 cups well-shaken buttermilk or kefir (I used Kefir)

Preheat oven to 425. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

Mix dry ingredients in a cuisinart. Blend in butter cubes but keep the little lumps. (I would show you what this looked like but this is the first thing I screwed up...oops!). Add buttermilk or kefir and mix until dough ball forms.


On a lightly floured surface, roll or pat out dough to about a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut out as many rounds as possible with a floured cutter (I used a juice glass, which worked just fine). Don't twist when cutting as this could prevent the biscuits from rising properly. Gather scraps and cut as many more as you can.

Space the rounds about 1 1/2 inches apart on the cookie sheet and brush the tops with buttermilk or kefir (I used half and half). Bake until pale gold (about 12-15 minutes). Let cool on a wire rack and serve warm or room temperature.


Despite my errors along the way, the biscuits rose nicely and tasted divine. While the biscuits baked, I took some frozen strawberries, threw them in a saucepan with some sugar and simmered them until they were hot and melty. Then I tossed in some corn starch and cooked a few minutes longer. Because we don't like big strawberry chunks in our jam, I put them through a few pulses in the blender and served the warm jam alongside the biscuits with copious (though not really necessary, but you don't want to be chintzy!) amounts of butter.

Turns out my husband is perfectly happy to be woken up at 8am on a Saturday morning if it involves fresh biscuits and homemade jam!

Wonderful Wedding Waffles

To be fair, we did not receive this recipe as a wedding gift. However, we did receive the waffle iron necessary to make these amazing little wonder clouds, so they get included here! And, credit where credit is due, we adapted this recipe from Mark Bittman's overnight waffle recipe.

I don't think we'll ever make quick waffles again - these are just too amazing! And well worth planning ahead to start the batter either the night before, or in the morning for a delicious waffle dinner.

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups all‐purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
Butter for brushing the waffle iron
2 eggs

8-12 hours before waffle time, combine the yeast, flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the milk, then the melted butter and vanilla. The mixture will be creamy and loose. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside overnight at room temperature.

To start baking, brush the waffle iron lightly with butter or oil and heat it. Separate the eggs and stir the yolks into the batter. Beat the whites until they hold soft peaks. Fold them gently into the batter.

Spread a ladleful or so of batter onto the waffle iron and bake until the waffle is done, usually 3 to 5 minutes, depending on your iron. Serve immediately or keep warm for a few minutes in a low oven.

Newlywed Cooking Adventures!!

We're back!! Even though we're not technically "Sturteburys" anymore, it's time to revive our Family Adventures.

First order of business is sharing the amazing recipes we received from so many of our friends and family as wedding gifts to start our marriage off "deliciously". To do that, we're going to attempt to share our experience making the recipes, in addition to the recipe itself.

Hope you enjoy these as much as we have!!

Day 3 - April 13, 2010

For our first full day in Paris, we started with a baguette and croissant at our neighborhood boulangerie and enjoyed our first French breakfast on the canal wall, with our legs dangling over the water.





And then it was off to la Tour Eiffel! The cold wind was whipping through as we waited in line to walk up (we decided we would rather conquer the tower, rather than just visit), and I think our noses were effectively numb by the time we reached the top. Good thing we found wall heaters to warm up against!

We stopped in for a cup of tea and then Cory found a lovely garden on the first level to sit together. Before long, Cory was down on one knee and Molly was lovestruck (by both her dashing fiancee and the beautiful Tiffany ring he put on her finger!). The rest of the day was a happy blur :)




Ooh, plus we had a great dinner on Rue Montargeuil, at a little place that served globally-influenced Wok creations, right out of classic Chinese food boxes. A perfect engagement dinner!

What we learned today: Engagement opens up a whole host of new nickname possibilities: Husband in Training, Wife in Training, Fiance, Forever Bear, Forever Bunny, etc. The entire continent may be left vomiting like an Icelandic volcano long after we're gone!

Day 2 - April 12, 2010

We easily connected through Frankfurt to our Paris flight (but what a weird airport, though we did love that they have bicycles for people to ride through the airport). On the one-hour flight, they served us Camembert sandwiches and free wine – we're not in Kansas anymore! We got on the metro (turns out Cory is an excellent European navigator, especially to get his tired, hungry girl to the apartment after so many hours of travel) and got to our place on Rue de Lancry in the 10th Arrondisment. Our little studio has everything we could need and the neighborhood is a delightful, bustling place! After a short tour by our host, Tom, and a crepe with Nutella (not more than a couple hours after arrival), we napped up to head out for our Hidden Kitchen dinner.



Cory had found out about the Hidden Kitchen on David Liebowitz's foodie blog, which Molly was questioning as we headed out to a Paris apartment on our first night in town, for an intimate, home-cooked 10-course meal with 14 strangers. Almost 5 hours later, we had enjoyed a once-in-a-lifetime feast prepared in a small home kitchen (in a stunning apartment). The two highlights of the meal: sliders served on pages of the New Yorker, and caramelized white chocolate cake with lime sorbet.



What we learned today: The French seem to be in a rush to go somewhere at all times, everywhere! Getting run over by a person, bike, scooter or car may be an inevitable part of our time here.

Day 1 - April 11, 2010

We woke up at 4am, super duper excited for our European adventure! After spending an additional hour and a half at the San Diego airport due to weather delays (and had our last stupid-style American croissant in the meantime to get a baseline for the trip), we finally got on our way with only minutes to spare on our connection. Good thing we had the world on our backs because we ran our little hearts out to make our connection to Frankfurt and arrived in the terminal just as they were calling for the very last chance to board our flight. But we made it and were on our way!!

What we learned today: Carrying everything on the plane is the only way to go, but 5 hours into our trip, we already know that we could have taken even less stuff!