Bread Salad, or Panzanella

Panzanella, or Bread Salad by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

When the summer tomatoes are at their juiciest, make this bread salad, panzanella, a salad that is greater than the sum of its parts. Tomatoes, bread, a little garlic, a round-up of the produce kicking around in the produce drawer. It's the kind of easy, effortless eating that just makes summer summer.

Panzanella

6 green onions

1/2 baguette, day old, cubed

1 shallot, minced

1 small cucumber, diced

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1/2 cup diced cucumber

1 handful basil leaves, shredded


Dressing:

2 tablespoons minced shallots

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind

1 clove garlic, minced (about 1 teaspoon)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Freshly ground black pepper to taste



1. To prepare the dressing: In a large bowl, use a fork to mix together the shallots, lemon rind, garlic and salt, mashing the ingredients together.Whisk in oil, vinegar and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Set aside.

2. To prepare the salad: Add the salad ingredients together and toss well with the dressing.Serve immediately or store in refrigerator for up to a half hour.

Text and image copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.

Broccoli and Cauliflower Salad with Bacon

Broccoli and cauliflower salad with bacon. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

This broccoli salad is a tried and true favorite, easy to pull together as a weeknight side dish. Recently, I had cauliflower in the vegetable crisper as well as broccoli, so I added it to the salad for color and contrast. The dressing is less sweet than many versions - I think it's just right for the amount of vegetables.

Broccoli & Cauliflower Salad with Bacon

2 cups broccoli florets
2 cups cauliflower florets
6 slices bacon, chopped and cooked 'til crisp
a handful sunflower seeds
a handful dried raisins or cranberries
1 cup good-quality mayo, full fat or go home
6 green onions, chopped in 1-inch long pieces
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. white wine vinegar

In a lovely serving bowl, put trimmed broccoli and cauliflower pieces, sunflower seeds, bacon and raisins. In a food processor, blitz the onions, mayo, sugar and vinegar together. Season to taste, remembering that the salad has salty bacon and sunflower seeds. Pour dressing over salad. Serve immediately. Store leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator.

Broccoli and cauliflower salad with bacon. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Text and images copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.

Guacamole with butternut squash and chipotle

Guacamole with butternut squash, chipotle & queso fresco. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Have you ever eaten a dish in a restaurant and thought to yourself "I have got to make this at home!"?

That's what I thought when I tried Alma Cocina's guacamole with butternut squash. Alma Cocina is an upscale, modern Mexican restaurant on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta. (I'm such an old-timer, I want to describe its location as across from the old downtown Macy's, but it's more accurate to say that it's in the 191 Peachtree building, next door to the Ritz-Carlton). The menu features a 20-ingredient mole chicken among other treats, and this unique spin on guac. Now, I love a bowl of guacamole. I've kicked it up with bacon on special occasions, but usually go with my boilerplate guac for weeknight Mexicano. It's this recipe to which I added a cupful of roasted butternut squash and a couple of teaspoons of smoky, chopped chipotle chile. A sprinkle of queso fresco crumbles finished the dish.

Guacamole with roasted butternut squash, chipotle and queso fresco

4 avocadosAsk a question about this ingredient

Juice of 1/2 lime 

1 clove garlic, minced


Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste


1 cup roasted butternut squash, recipe followsAsk a question about this ingredient

1 ounce queso fresco, crumbled


Tortilla chips for serving


2 teaspoons finely chopped chipotle in adobo sauce

1. Remove avocado pulp from shell and place in a medium bowl. Break up the avocado chunks with a fork. Add lime juice, garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Stir in butternut squash and chipotle. Adjust flavors. Pour into decorative bowl, garnish with queso fresco crumbles and serve immediately with tortilla chips.
   Ask a question about this step

Roasted butternut squash:

1 small butternut squash

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 425. Cover a sheet pan with foil. Using a Y-peeler or paring knife, peel the squash. Cut into two pieces, separating the long narrow neck from the round bottom. Halve each of these sections, scoop the seeds out of the round piece and trim the flesh into 1/4 inch dice.Toss the butternut squash dice with olive oil and salt and place on foil-lined pan. Roast at 425 for 30 minutes or until the pieces are tender and brown at the edges. Remove from oven and let cool, stirring occasionally. Store leftover squash in a covered container in the refrigerator. A small butternut squash will yield 2 cups of diced fruit.

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

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Cumin-kissed sweet potato soup



Sweet Potato Bisque with Cumin by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


It’s hotter than H-E-double hockey sticks outside, and I’m in the mood for soup. Since the highs are in the upper 90s with Code Orange smog alerts, we venture out in the early mornings and evenings and soak up chilled, conditioned indoor air through the heat of the day. It may not be cool enough indoors for a sweater, but a bowl of creamy, light soup seems just right for lunch.

In honor of the Code Orange smog alert, (and I may be making that up, because it reminds me of the terror alerts, so I’ll just say that the outside air is bad), I made a creamy vegetable soup with roasted sweet potatoes, scented with cumin and finished with plain, non-fat yogurt. I really want to call this soup a bisque, even though a proper bisque uses a seafood broth. The milky, peachy hue is reminiscent of a shrimp bisque.

This soup comes together easily, especially if you use leftover roasted sweet potatoes. When dinner’s in the oven, I’ll pull out a few potatoes, prick them with a fork, place them on a baking tray (or in a foil packet) and let them cook alongside the meal, 30 minutes in a moderate oven usually does the trick. The cooked potatoes can be wrapped up and refrigerated for a few days before creating this soup.

Sweet potato bisque with cumin


The cumin gives it a little zip, but if you’re not a fan, just leave it out and perhaps experiment with something else from the herb garden or spice rack. Thyme? Cilantro? Lemon verbena?


1 lb. sweet potatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 large shallot, minced

3 cups water

1/2 vegetable bouillon cube

1 teaspoon cumin

1 cup non-fat plain yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 350. Pierce sweet potatoes with fork or knife and place on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 30 to 45 minutes, until tender. Test for doneness by inserting a knife or fork into the tuber – it’s done when completely tender. Remove from oven and let cool enough to handle.

2. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, heat olive oil and sautee shallot until tender. Add water, bouillon cube and cumin and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

3. Squeeze sweet potato flesh into bowl of a food processor fitted with blade. Process for 30 seconds, to create a smooth puree. Gradually add seasoned broth to puree, processing until smooth. Add yogurt and process for about 10 seconds. Adjust seasoning and serve. Garnish with fresh herbs – I used parsley from my porch garden.

I used vegetable bouillon, one of my favorite shortcut tricks to add flavor to soups. If you have homemade vegetable or chicken broth, go right ahead and use that. Water will work fine, too.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Summer Squash Soup

Summer Squash Soup with Thyme by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

They're here! I waited patiently through January's snowstorms and April's terrifying thunderstorms and now the lazy, hazy days of summer are finally here. Well, with two active kids, we're not really lazy, but we're certainly more relaxed. No setting of alarms to get us out of bed before the sun rises, no afternoon carpool lines at the school. It's time to enjoy the summer and all the good stuff that comes with June: flip-flops, Mary Kay Andrews' beach books, and farmers' market tables full of produce. At my local farmers' market, I pick up a big ol' bag of yellow crookneck squash and make this only-in-summer soup. Some folks may think soup is just for wintertime, but I eat it all year long. This pureed soup reminds me of squash casserole, but without the cream-of-whatever soup and stale cornbread dressing crumbs. It's summer in a bowl.

Summer Squash Soup

 1 1/2 pounds summer squash

1 medium yellow onion, preferably Vidalia, peeled and roughly chopped

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

4 sprigs fresh thyme or lemon thyme

4 to 6 cups water

1/2 cube vegetable bouillon, such as Knorr, see note below

1 cup cream or half-n-half


1. Wash and peel summer squash, roughly chop and set aside.

2. In a soup pot, melt butter. When foaming, add onion and cook until melted and soft, but not brown. Add squash and continue cooking until soft.

3. Add enough water to cover vegetables. Season with vegetable boullion, two thyme sprigs, salt and pepper, going easy on the salt. I like a lot of pepper in this soup.

4. Let cook for about 20 minutes until vegetables are very tender and broth is flavorful. Using a slotted spoon, remove the thyme sprigs and discard. Scoop up vegetables and puree them in a food processor or blender. Stir puree back into the seasoned broth in the pot and heat over a gentle flame. Thin soup with cream or half n half. Season to taste and serve with a thyme garnish.

Note: I keep vegetable bouillon cubes on hand to add depth of flavor to soups and sauces. You could substitute chicken or vegetable broth for the water and bouillon, or simply use water. As the kids say, it's all good.

Summer Squash Soup with Thyme by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Good Gravy

Gravy for poultry by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Good gravy is a godsend, whether you need it to dress the bird, the dressing or the mashed potatoes, having homemade gravy on the Thanksgiving table pretty much separates the real cooks from the duffers.

There's no particular magic to gravy, just attention to ingredients and proper stirring to eliminate lumps will carry a novice through. Here's the recipe that I've used for years - it's based on canned chicken broth, but substitute homemade turkey or chicken or vegetable broth as you wish. For the Thanksgiving feast, combine the gravy with some of the pan drippings from the bird for a truly spectacular gravy (if the bird has been brined, add drippings judiciously, the salt can quickly overwhelm the sauce).

Gravy for Poultry

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

1 stalk celery, peeled and roughly chopped

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 bay leaf

1 sprig fresh thyme, if available

1 (32 oz) package low-salt chicken broth

Salt and pepper to taste.

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add the vegetables, all roughly chopped, and let brown, stirring occasionally. Pour chicken broth into a microwavable container and zap for 1 minute.

2. Stir the vegetables until they are nice and caramel-colored, about 10 minutes, then add 1/4 cup all-purpose flour. Stir this into the vegetables for an additional 5 minutes or so. Then gradually add 4 cups of warm broth. Strain the broth through a sieve, discarding the solids. Season to taste. Cool and store the gravy in the fridge for a day or so, or place in the freezer until Thanksgiving Day.

3. On Turkey Day, stand by the stove, lovingly stirring the gravy, adjusting the seasoning and admiring your kitchen skills. Homemade gravy without lumps, and not requiring a packet or a pocket or a jar.

When life gives you vegetables...make soup!

Last week, I whined about an overabundance of vegetables in my refrigerator, hoping for a Salon Kitchen Challenge on the subject of arugula, or turnips or cauliflower. That was not to be, we were given the subject of Halloween candy, which turned out pretty well for me, as I turned out Poached Pears with Chocolate Sauce (using leftover Hershey's miniatures). Still, I needed to use up the vegetables, and turned to the thrifty cook's go-to recipe, soup.

I made ribollita, a Tuscan soup literally meaning "reboiled." It's a mixture of vegetables, broth and leftover bread. Hey, I had that, too. The result is a hearty soup in a tremendous quantity.



Ribollita by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Ribollita

 I had a lot of greens on hand, and added a chiffonade of arugula at the end. This is optional, but a colorful and tasty addition.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 Asian eggplants, peeled and sliced on the bias
2 medium onions, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded
2 (14.5 oz.) cans diced tomatoes
1 cup fresh or frozen butter beans
4 cups vegetable or low-salt chicken broth, homemade if available
Salt and pepper to taste
A handful of basil, chiffonade, optional
Greens such as arugula, chiffonade, optional
Stale, good-quality rustic bread

1. In a soup pot or a Dutch oven over medium heat, stir in olive oil and place eggplant slices in pan. Cook them as you would meat, letting them brown on both sides. Stir in onions, letting them soften, followed by carrots and celery. Continue to cook until all the vegetables are brownish and soft, adding a bit of water if needed.

2. Stir in tomatoes, butter beans and broth. Add cabbage. Season to taste and let simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes. If adding basil or greens, stir them into pot just before serving. Place slice of stale bread in bottom of soup bowl, ladle soup over all. Serve.

One of my favorite writers on the subject of food, or just about anything, is Calvin Trillin. In a piece in Gourmet magazine a few years ago, Trillin wrote that ribollita is Italian for "sticks to your ribs." I must agree, but there's always room for dessert, especially this dense apple cake, kind of a blondie with sweet apples baked inside. It's from Lisa Kuebler's blog and is fantastic.




Apple Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

 



Summer's Best Stew: Ratatouille



Ratatouille and creamy grits by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



I've returned to the kitchen, my source for solace in the late summer. The light through the window is changing, it's amber coming through at a different angle, backlighting the spider web on the porch.

Spider web by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

My soul seeks comfort food, but my warm house isn't quite ready for day-long braises and Dutch ovens bubbling over with stewed chicken and bready dumplings. Ratatouille, thick with chunks of eggplant swimming in fresh tomato, I've found, speaks to my soul and lets me walk away from the table without needing a starch-induced nap.




Eggplants by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


There are at least two approaches to preparing ratatouille: the one-pot method, where each item is chopped and added to the pan gradually. This yields a tasty, but homogeneous stew. My preferred method requires roasting some of the vegetables, namely the eggplant, to give some textural variety to the final product. My recipe is evolving, first with the boilerplate recipe in the "Gourmet Cookbook," now tweaked by Francis Lam’s primer on Salon.com (previously published at Gourmet.com.) It is, to use Lam’s phrase, so good you’ll want to punch a hole in the wall (but please, don’t, somebody‘s mother will have to fix that.)

Redneck Ratatouille

I tend use whatever quantities of these vegetables I have on hand, given the general guidelines in the recipe. I’ve used roasted Poblano peppers and assorted banana and chili peppers instead of or in addition to the bell peppers. Just be mindful of the heat factor when cooking with the spicy peppers.

2 medium eggplant, peeled and diced into 1-inch pieces

Salt

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

3 large onions, peeled, halved, each half cut into 4 wedges

2 medium zucchini, peeled and diced into 1-inch pieces

2 medium yellow crookneck squash, peeled and diced into 1-inch pieces

4 large tomatoes, cored and chopped

2 tablespoons tomato paste (optional)

2 bell peppers, cored, seeded and cut into 1-inch pieces

A handful of fresh basil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

1. Eggplant prep: follow this step only if you have the large globe eggplants which tend to be bitter. If cooking with the smaller Asian eggplants, proceed to the next step. Set up a colander over a larger bowl and place eggplant in colander. Pour out about a tablespoon of salt onto the eggplant and toss. Let eggplant drain for about 30 minutes.

2. In a large oven-proof pot, preferably one with a lid, pour in all but about 3 tablespoons of oil and turn heat to medium. Add garlic and onion and bring to a bubbling boil. Let cook for about 30 minutes while you prep the remaining ingredients. Don‘t walk away, because, you know, it‘s a pot of boiling oil.

3. Heat oven to 450 and get out a half-sheet pan or a large cast-iron skillet. Pour eggplant and squash and zucchini out onto the pan (you may need to do this in batches), pour remaining three tablespoons oil and some salt and pepper on the vegetables and set in oven to roast for about 30 minutes. You’re looking for a touch of caramelly brown on the edges of the veg, not blackened.

4. Ok, now we have a pot of boiling oil and alliums on the stove and a pan of roasting squash and aubergine in the oven. It’s time to turn your attention to the tomatoes. In a food processor, puree the tomatoes and peppers. Add to the onion and garlic oil and continue to cook for another 30 minutes. Optional: if using tomato paste, you can add it to the pot with the tomatoes and peppers.

5. When tomato/onion/garlic/oil mixture is a rich red color, add in roasted squash/zuke/eggplant. Taste mixture for seasoning, then add salt, pepper and basil.

6. Turn oven to 300 and set Dutch oven with stew inside. Let ratatouille cook for at least one hour, and several more if you can. Remove pot from oven and let cool.

I serve ratatouille at room temperature over a bowl of creamy grits. Other choices are pasta such as rigatoni, or couscous, or polenta.

Text and images copyright 2010, Lucy Mercer.

Green Bean Soup: Color Me Convinced

Thanksgiving is near and as I reflect on all that I'm thankful for in 2008, things as varied as change coming to the White House, no more diapers, and low gas prices, I must say that joining a CSA program has been a highlight of the year. Each week since May, my kitchen has been filled with fresh, organic produce, provided by Farmers Fresh Food. The glorious summer bags loaded with juicy sweet blueberries and homely but heavenly heirloom tomatoes were bookended with the greens of spring and the greens of fall. Chard and spinach filled the spring bags, while kale, arugula, turnips and lettuces came in the past couple months.

A consistent player throughout the late summer and fall has been the weekly one pound bag of green beans. Before this year, I only made green beans one way: cooked to death in pork stock, like any true Southern cook should. This method works very well for the flat, hearty Romano or pole beans that came in the summer. But what about the skinny, delicate haricots verts that are available now? Here's my latest discovery, and what a revelation it is, because it combines a technique and a vegetable that don't get much play in my house: green beans pureed into a soup. If you're still with me, then you're braver than I. Green bean soup sounds like baby food to me. Blech. We don't do those little jars in my house anymore. The kids eat real, whole foods, just like the grownups.

Facing an abundance of green beans and knowing that more would be in my near future, I made the soup and now I'm hooked. Try it. And if you think of a clever name to tell the kids, let me know. Both of my girls pronounced the soup delicious, although they weren't crazy about the name "Green Soup."

Green Bean Soup with Lemon Scallion Butter

Lemon Scallion Butter

1/2 cup chopped fresh scallions
1/4 cup unsalted butter
grated peel of one lemon
Two tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Soup
1 medium onion, chopped
1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 pounds green beans, trimmed and chopped
4 cups chicken broth, or vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 cup cream or half-n-half, optional
Freshly ground pepper

1. To make lemon scallion butter, combine the first five ingredients in blender or food processor until well blended. Set aside.

2. To make the soup, cook the onion in the remaining butter until translucent. Add the beans and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken or vegetable broth and salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook until the beans are tender, about 15 minutes.

3. Puree the soup in the blender, food processor or food mill. When using a food processor, I find it easier to remove the green beans from the broth with a slotted spoon and puree them until smooth. Put the pureed beans in a separate pot, adding broth until you get the consistency that you like. Warm the soup over low heat and add the cream, if you're using. The dairy is nice, but it mutes flavor and I like my soup intensely green and lemony.

4. Find your nicest soup plates and pour out a portion of the soup. Place a spoonful of the lemon butter in the middle of the soup. Makes about 4 reasonable servings.

In fall and winter, this soup is perfect with homemade buttermilk biscuits with shavings of good quality ham. In spring, I'd go with a chicken salad sandwich on white bread, cut into triangles.