Chicken Stew

 After deciding to do "something with chicken" I remembered seeing a recipe online for chicken stew. I don't remember where I saw it, but I figured that if I found any chicken stew recipe it would do. A google search brought me to Food52 "Chicken Stew with Potatoes, Carrots, and Celery". Since I had potatoes, carrots, and celery on hand I figured it was a good choice. However, I discovered that the baby carrots had gone past their prime and had a bit of a slime on them. No worries, I simply added mushrooms instead (since I already had some of those).

I seared two boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my indispensable cast-iron stew pot, and then removed them to cut into small chunks. The chicken was set aside while I prepared the rest of the stew. Diced onion and garlic were cooked along with some herbs. I used sage, thyme, and a pouch of something I found in the spice drawer called "Winter Savory" - no clue what was in it. Next the celery and mushrooms were added to the pot.

Once the vegetables were cooked I added flour and vegetable broth. The recipe called for chicken broth, but I didn't have any. The vegetable broth was left over from the weekend's salmon recipe.

Finally the chicken chunks and potatoes (cut into bite-sized pieces) went in. Everything simmered for 20 minutes until the potatoes were fully cooked.

A warm cozy dish for a cold winter's eve. Made for some dandy leftovers too.

CodFish ChowderSoup

Thanks to our resident librarian, we knew that yesterday was National Homemade Soup Day -- which was perfect for the record-setting cold we were expecting (and received). In preparing this blog post, I noticed that it has also been Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, but the aforementioned conditions made my usual Saturday gingerberry waffles a better choice.

In addition to finding the holiday, Pamela found just the right resource -- the Soup Cookbook from the Jean Childress Country Kitchen collection. More a pamphlet than a book, this publication is 32 pages (that is, eight sheets folded and stapled) and is apparently difficult to find even on sites that carry other works by this New England writer.

Having already intended to pick up some seafood for the day's main meal, we quickly settled on the recipe entitled "Oven Baked Fish Chowder" even though I usually prefer shellfish chowders to fishy fish chowders.

Preparation was simple. I preheated the oven to 375F and arranged the racks so that a Dutch oven (that is, a large, oven-safe covered pot) would fit. 

I then set the pot on the counter and added most of the items from the ingredient list (my choices and variations in parenthesis):

• 2 pounds cod or haddock, cut into bite-sized pieces (I chose 1 pound cod and applied kitchen math to all other ingredients; original quantities are shown below, so cooks should do their own math)
• 12-ounce can evaporated milk
• 4 potatoes, unpeeled and cut into chunks (as I usually do, I partly peeled some Yukon golds)
• 1/4 cup celery leaves (we opted to exclude this, given the tiny quantity would use)
• 1 bay leaf (I used a small one)
• 4 whole cloves 
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 tsp dried dill (I used a bunch of fresh dill, chopped)
• 1/4 tsp black pepper (I used more than this)
• 2-1/2 tsp salt (I used less than this)
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (see below)
• 2 cups boiling water (I set this on the kettle while chopping and measuring the rest)

I simply placed stirred all this together gently and placed the covered pot in the oven for one hour at 375F.  After about half an hour, the aromas began wafting into the rest of the house, reminding us that this meal was now preparing itself.

Meanwhile, I gently heated light cream (recipe calls for 2 cups, so I heated 1 cup) on the warming zone of the stove top. Any way of getting the temperature close to that of the soup without scalding it would do. 

After an hour, I stirred in the warmed cream and chopped some parsley for a garnish. I added Tabasco to my serving (this is chowder, after all) and served it with some buttered crusty baguette from our favorite fishmonger. Kyler's Catch is of course the only place I would go to for cod, and they usually have some yummy bread to go with whatever seafood we are having. 

This was both tastier and more photogenic than I expected.

The recipe purports to serve 8, which seems correct. Divided in half, we had plenty for the two of us, and enough leftover for a lunch. I used only 2 ounces of white wine in the soup, so the rest of the bottle served as our beverage. Langhe Doc Bianco Dragon was both a good ingredient and a perfect pairing. 

Some folks use only cheap or leftover wine for cooking, and sometimes we do that. But more often we use what we are drinking in what we are cooking, and we never regret this. I had selected this wine for the label when browsing our new favorite wine store, not realizing until later that the Luigi Baudana vineyard had named the wine in honor of its label, which had been the last work of their beloved designer Gianni Gallo. This is a white wine from Barolo, a region I had associated only with exquisite reds.

Chowdah de Crab

Our weekend house is only beach-proximate, but it is close enough that careful readers of this space will know we have added The Beach House Cookbook by Mary Kay Andrews to the small collection of cookbooks in the galley at Whaling House. It is full of fun, flexible recipes -- some of them involving seafood.

We turned to this volume when we finally got around to inviting some friends over who live full-time near the same waterfront. Pamela found a suitably maritime recipe: crab chowder.

Followers of this space may also have noticed that we are somewhat finicky about all things crab. Being from Maryland, we are cautious when our national crustacean is prepared by non-Chesapeake folks, even if they are good with other seafood. But we would be in charge of this dish, and we would get our crab, if not from the Great Shellfish Bay itself, then at least from a trusted Maryland.

The location of the cookbook ends up being consequential -- we looked over the recipe and jotted down some ingredients but not others. The result was more than the usual number of substitutions. One of those was fortuitous -- I replaced all of the called-for chicken broth by doubling (OK, more than doubling) the half-and-half. And I don't regret that!

How I made this -- as executed, not exactly as written:

I heated some olive oil, and added some chopped up bacon. We had bacon ends rather than slices, so I coarsely chopped them. Once crisp -- after about eight minutes -- I added finely chopped onion, in lieu of shallots. I then added a bit more oil and a pound of tiny red potatoes, each quartered. I added a seafood seasoning mix and I sautéed these for about 5 more minutes before adding most of a bag of frozen corn (of course I would have used local corn a few weeks ago) and close to a quart of half-and-half.

I brought it to a simmer -- actually, I covered it and walked away at the wrong time. It boiled over. But it did not get overheated on the bottom, so I moved it to another burner and controlled the heat more carefully. I kept it on a low simmer for 30 minutes. 

Near the end, I added a full pound of Phillips lump crab meat (from Costco, rather than our local fish monger; again, it's a Maryland thing). I then added a tablespoon of flour I had whisked together with just a splash of reserved half-and-half. I also stirred in a glug of port (in lieu of sherry) and kept simmering until the crab was gently broken up and heated through, about 10 more minutes.

We served this with Pamela's famous skillet cornbread and a fruit salad. This all paired quite well with two different unoaked Chardonnays and was followed by a sweet, tannic punsch from Sweden.

This was not a meal made for photography; hence the iconic crab above rather than the chowder itself. 

CCC: Chicken Corn Chowdah

The recipe for Easy Corn and Chicken Chowder I found on All Recipes was indeed easy, and I think it was easier and yummier than what I found on our cookbook shelf. 

I departed from the recipe in three rather minor ways. First, this includes "rotisserie chicken," which we are starting to notice in a lot of "easy" recipes. We find it just as easy -- especially because we are working at home even. more than usual these days -- to cook the chicken rather than buying it from under a heat lamp at the local grocery. We also have greater assurance of the quality and provenance of the chicken. A couple hours ahead of dinner, I boiled breasts from Commonwealth Poultry, adding a bay leaf to the water. I then had time to cool and shred (using two forks in a bowl as always) before adding the chicken according to the recipe instructions.

I did not include a carrot because I did not have one. The method of incorporating flour was something I had not seen, and I did indeed end up with a paste of flour, butter, and aromatic vegetables in a small pan that I set aside to cool while I chopped things for the main soup pot. I used tiny red potatoes with skin on, rather than russets. I also used only one kind of corn.

After boiling for 15 minutes (with heat a bit too high, resulting in some scorching), I added 2 cups of half-and-half, rather than the 2-1/2 cups called for. I notice this amount in a lot of recipes, and never buy a second carton to get the extra half cup.

The result: very creamy, a bit decadent in fact. It went well with corn bread baked by Pam and of course some Malbec.

A Sweet, Creamy New Year's Day Soup - and it has bacon!

I googled New Year's Recipes on New Year's Eve and found The Pioneer Woman's website. From her list of 35 recipes I selected Butternut Squash Soup. I actually made it on New Year's Day, even though it says it's a New Year's Eve recipe. I also only made a half batch since the pandemic had only the two of us celebrating the start of 2021 together. I carefully added all the things I would need to make this soup to the shopping list of things James was going to procure, including the titular butternut squash. However, when he came home I discovered that he had neglected to buy one. Although we avoid multiple trips to the grocery store these days, he went back for this most important ingredient once we determined that it was indeed on the list!

As per the instructions I caramelized some chopped onions in the drippings left when I cooked the bacon then added the chopped pieces of squash to the pan along with some salt, chicken broth and water. I cooked everything on the stovetop until the squash was soft. Once I could cut the squash with the side of a fork I asked James for help transferring everything to our blender where it didn't take long at all for everything to purée. Once that was done it went back to the pan where we added some heavy cream and maple syrup. I split into two big bowls, and we topped with the crumbled bacon. So good, especially with homemade biscuits!

This is easily made vegetarian by skipping the bacon and cooking the onions and squash in olive oil and substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth. I image you can skip the cream and make it vegan as well.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I don't think I've ever made tortilla soup from scratch before. James and I have occasionally made it from a kit, but in reviewing our shelf of recipe books while looking for a recipe for some chicken breasts I noticed our seldom used The Daily Soup Cookbook where I discovered the tortilla soup recipe. 

Before getting to the recipe, which I only used as a suggestion, it is important for me to discuss our history with tortilla soup. We usually only enjoy this when we eat at Mexican restaurants - something we have not done at all since before the pandemic. Each time we have some of this soup we remince about the first and second times we ever ate it. The first time we couldn't believe our good fortune in finding a restaurant that made such an exquisite soup. The second time we couldn't believe how the soup could have been so thoroughly ruined (too much salt and burned tortillas).

Both times were during our first trip to Mexico in 1989. Both were also at the same restaurant about two weeks apart. 

As I said, I used the recipe only as a guide for what I ultimately made. Which was way better than either the first or second tortilla soups I tried.

I started with making a vegetable broth by simmering some whole peppercorns, whole coriander seeds, chopped onion, garlic, chopped celery, and some canned diced tomatoes in water. Once the stock was made and strained I prepared the soup by frying a chopped onion and three cloves of chopped garlic in Chipotle-infused olive oil (from L.O.V.E. Emporium). I added some dried oregano, fresh cilantro leaves, and some salt, some canned diced tomatoes, six cups of stock, and some fresh lime juice and simmered for 30 minutes. Finally I added the poached and diced chicken breasts. Once everything was cooked I placed broken up commercial tortilla chips into soup bowls and added the soup on top. This was served with shredded cheddar cheese topping and fresh cilantro garnish.

We had enough for leftovers so I made a change to the second-day offering by adding some frozen corn kernels before reheating.

Of course this would have been even better had I included avocado slices when serving, but alas we had none.

What have I got in my cupboard? New recipes for Stay-At-Home Coronoavirus advisory

This Spanish Tortilla isn't really a new recipe for us. It is essentially the same as this frittata recipe from a few years ago. Typically I'm pretty traditional when it comes to Spanish Tortillas and will only use eggs, onions, potatoes and olive oil (lots of it!) but I didn't want the pepper we bought from the farmer's market to go to waste. We'd already had to toss a nice acorn squash we'd bought but waited too long to use. This is no time to waste food. Limiting trips to the grocery store is what life is all about now.

One way we've been limiting the grocery store visits is by having some additional items added to our weekly milk and egg delivery. This week we ordered turkey tips and I used them as a substitute in for beef chuck in a beef and barley soup recipe I found on the New York Times Cooking page. I ended up making quite a few substitutions in fact. Here's how my recipe played out:
I drained the juice from two 14 oz. cans of diced tomatoes.
I added water to the tomato juice to make one quart of liquid which I put into a big soup pot.
I added the turkey tips along with some salt and pepper some celery stalks and some fresh parsley.
All of this cooked for one hour.
Then 1/4 cup of barley was added and cooked another hour
I removed the celery and parsley and added the reserved canned tomatoes, some frozen peas, and some chopped onion and carrots. 
I brought the soup to a boil and then simmered for 45 minutes.
As I'm writing this I realized that I didn't add the leftover cabbage that was in our refrigerator. It was part of the reason I chose the recipe!

Anyway, I made biscuits to go with this. It was quite good and filling. Now I need to find another cabbage recipe.

New Zealand Sweet Potato Chowder

This one comes from The Daily Soup Cookbook which I don't believe we've blogged about, although it does appear that we used it at least once before, judging from the cracked spine and the crumbs on the page for New England Clam Chowder. However, this time I chose a Sweet Potato Chowder recipe. This was relatively simple and I made a few substitutions on the ingredient list. The recipe called for sweet potatoes (natch) and yams. I skipped the yams and put in some carrots instead because I already had some on hand. I also used frozen corn kernels rather than corn cut from the cob.

Otherwise I followed the recipe which called for caramelizing onions with a bit of sugar, adding a bay leaf, thyme, and salt and pepper, followed by vegetable stock, and the sweet potatoes, corn, and carrots. This simmered for 20 minutes. Then I added heavy cream and removed the bay leaf before I used my immersion blender to pureé part of the chowder.

I used my trusty 22-year old bread machine to make french bread to serve with this.

A filling and tasty meal for a December night. Also made for great leftovers.

Chili Verde

Southwestern Cooking 1992, no author
Assembled by committee
This cover reminds me that I
sure miss saguaros!

On a very cold afternoon last week, I decided it would be a good day for an "original intent" recipe for this blog. That is, I would take take an actual cookbook from one of our shelves (we have a few shelf-fulls by now) and find something we had not prepared before.

Many of the recipes in this book are for dishes we have already prepared, either from similar recipes or from our own experiments born of seven years living in the Southwest.

I selected Chili Verde because it uses pork -- an ingredient we do not use very often -- and because it seemed perfect for fending off the cold winds of late January.

I began by cutting two pounds of lean pork shoulder into 1-inch cubes, and browning them in oil. I did this in two rounds to take advantage of our indispensable cast-iron skillet, transferring the browned pork to a deeper pot for the rest of the cooking.

I then added mild and hot peppers (seeded and chopped -- I use a variety of colors), cooking a few minutes to soften, and then scallions, and minced garlic. 

I then added cumin, coriander, and oregano -- if you are measuring these, you're not doing it right -- a can of chickpeas, and 3 cups of low-sodium chicken stock. (Beer or water are offered as alternatives). I cooked this for an hour (60-90 minutes recommended, but I had not started the recipe early enough to keep it lingering) and then added 2t corn starch dissolved in a small bowl of water, cooking for a few minutes further as a thickener.

The result was a thinner soup than any chili I have had, but it was delicious -- I credit the herbs. I chopped an avocado in 1/2-inch dice, tossed it with lime juice, and we used this to top each bowl. Avocado is notoriously quick to discolor, but the lime juice and a tight glass jar allowed us to keep half the avocado for leftovers the next day. Pam made delicious skillet cornbread for the second round.

This is a delicious, nutritious, easy, and cheap meal we will try again. 

Yashim Weekend (a Two-fer)

If you look to the right of this screen and scroll down a bit, Dear Reader, you will encounter the archive summary that I have captured and included to the left. Each triangle opens the months of a given year, with additional triangles revealing our individual posts. The parenthetical digits are a tally of our posts for each month and year.

The earliest years were our most active, with a brisk pace of two posts a week in 2011 and one and a half for a few more years, and averaging the titular one post per week for a few years after that. In 2018, alas, our pace has fallen off. With the holidays (which include a lot of comfort food and little time for experimentation) behind us and my sabbatical ahead of me, I decided that this weekend was my chance to build on last weekend's success and try to establish a stronger pace for the new year.

I was ambitious enough to bring Jason Goodwin's Yashim Cooks Istanbul: Culinary Adventures in the Ottoman Kitchen to our weekend house, and lazy enough to select two of its easier (or so it seemed) recipes.

I did not realize until after the fact (thanks to my favorite librarian) that January is National Soup Month. I am glad that my choice for a simple dinner Friday evening was a lentil soup, perhaps the simplest recipe in the whole book and ideal for Friday evening. It is the first recipe attempted by the fictional detective Yashim in the mystery series that led to the creation of this most unusual cookbook.

For this I sautéed onions and garlic in a mix of butter and olive oil (decadent!) and then added a potato (peeled and hand-shredded), red lentils, vegetable stock (in lieu of the called-for chicken stock), and a few spices.

This simmered for about a half hour; in the final few minutes, I prepared the soup's topping. I heated olive oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet and stirred in mint leaves and a combination of crushed red peppers and paprika. This was the perfect compliment to the rather subtle flavor and creamy texture of the soup itself. Next time I'll search look in different grocery for the pul biber Turkish pepper and I will use more of the mint, since it shrivels.

Yashim Cooks

Buoyed by the success of the soup, I tried something a bit more ambitious on leisure-cooking Saturday. Chicken with pomegranate and walnut seems to be among the simplest recipes in the book, and though it was not complicated, I should have started it a bit earlier in the afternoon than I did. The first step was to prepare a pomegranate syrup. Since I could not find it in our local grocery, I followed the simple recipe that Goodwin provides on the page before the main recipe.

This is really just a simple syrup -- he calls for 1.5 pints of pomegranate juice, 1 cup of sugar, and the juice of one lemon. He cautions that this is more of an activity than a recipe, and advises "vigorous and relentless stirring" for up to an hour. So I turned on my WBUR app and settled into my whisking zone. At the time I made the video above, all was going well, though I was beginning to wonder about the crucial word "until" in the directions, as in "until it reduces to a syrup."

I have made other syrups, and used what has worked before, which is simply a wild guess that when the volume had been reduced by about 2/3, it would be close to ready. I was, in fact, afraid that it might be a bit thin. My relentless vigor, it turned out, was for naught. As soon as I removed the pan from heat, the syrup began to adhere to the sides, quickly dry out, and smoke. I tried to salvage what was left by pouring it into a bowl, but the physics were still operating the same way. When I got back from disarming the smoke detector in the hallway, there was just a couple ounces of syrup, rapidly reducing. I poured it into yet another bowl, forming a perfect hard shell.

An hour into the process -- but all caught up with the TED Radio Hour -- I turned the page to the recipe at hand. Fortunately, I had prepped a few things with my non-whisking hand. This dish begins with browning chicken thighs, and then removing them to a plate. In the same pan, I sautéed onions until translucent and then returned the chicken to the pan, on top of the onions. I added water (broth was another option) and later finely chopped walnuts (Goodwin suggested a mortar or electric blender, but I just minced madly for a while), turmeric, a few other spices,

At the end, I generously garnished with the seeds of one pomegranate. The result was quite delicious, despite the absence of pomegranate syrup, and I will definitely try this again. But I will leave the question of "until" to the professionals by purchasing the syrup somewhere.

Watch this space for more Yashim cooking. We have been in Istanbul only once, during a layover last year on our way to Jordan.  Our experience -- though quite brief -- of food in that part of the world is my motivation to delve more deeply into this volume!

Lagniappe: I am posting a teaser here about National Clam Chowder Day -- February 25 -- in hopes that readers will help me remember that one a couple days ahead of time (as I will need to plan a visit to the fishmongers).

Burned Toast Soup

Two weeks ago one of James' colleagues brought him some bread from her brother's bakery - a loaf of sourdough and a loaf of rye. We used most of it to make some sandwiches, but as we were getting down to the tiny pieces and the heels, this recipe showed up on my Facebook feed. Since it called for bacon (which we already had on hand) and sourdough bread it seemed like a good thing to try. It is not difficult to make, although it calls for several rounds of "letting it stand", so it does take more time than one might expect. I also make a small mess with the immersion blender. The soup splattered out of the pot, and onto my clothes, as well as the stove top and kitchen walls. We used both the last bits of the sourdough and the rye, and the flavor of the rye was quite detectable. It was a good recipe for using up the last few pieces of bacon and the bread that was beginning to go stale, but I wouldn't make it again otherwise.

Egg & Bean Soup - A not-as-good variation

This recipe comes from our Extending the Table cookbook. It seemed like a good choice as it comes from one of our favorite countries (Nicaragua) and it looked like a simpler version of the Company Egg Dish we made two months ago. Unfortunately it was not up to snuff. Although I put in more/different spices than called for, including our fail-safe (cumin), this turned out rather watery and bland. James didn't even finish his.

Succotash Chowder

James and I each picked a recipe from the vegetarian classic The Moosewood Cookbook this week. See James' post here. 

Until recently my only experience with succotash was strictly audible as an overused expression (sufferin' succotash) from the Saturday morning "Bugs Bunny" cartoons of my youth. This past fall I tasted a Three Sisters  succotash (made with corn, beans, and squash) for the first time and so this recipe caught my eye as a good nueva receta to try this week. This one uses potatoes instead of squash, and was more of a soup than the other one I had. I liked them both though. This is rather simple and only took about half an hour to make. I made two changes to the recipe: I used frozen lima beans instead of dried (making it a lot quicker than it would have been otherwise); and I used a mix of milk and cream, which made the chowder nicely rich. It made for great leftovers as well.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili

photo from allrecipes.com

James and I bought a rather large bag of sweet potatoes a few weeks ago, and have been using them in various recipes (both old favorites and new temptations). I noticed that we had several cans of black beans in the cupboard so I started looking for a sweet potato and black bean soup recipe. I thought I would be able to count on good ol' Deborah Madison for this one, and was surprised to discover that her great big vegetarian cookbook in fact does not include such a recipe. My next stop was the New York Times Cooking pages. Once again, I was disappointed. So I next turned to allrecipes.com where I hit the jackpot with this hearty chili.  The ingredient list is rather long, but I am now such a foodie that I had everything in my own pantry (or at least a reasonable facsimile of everything). This isn't especially difficult to prepare, but it does take some time. The sweet potatoes have to be peeled, diced, and roasted. Additionally, the cooking time for the chili is close to an hour.  I made a few minor changes to the ingredients. The recipe calls for coating the sweet potatoes along with a chipotle pepper in olive oil. Since I keep a big bottle of chipotle- infused olive oil in my pantry I just used that to coat the sweet potatoes. (If you are in need of such a bottle I got mine at Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium - they deliver!). In lieu of water I used the coffee that was left in our carafe from our morning brew. And, instead of of the teaspoon each of cocoa powder and sugar called for I used two small pieces of Mexican chocolate which turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. Topped with fresh cilantro and sour cream this was rich in colors, flavors, and textures.We both quite enjoyed this meal, and it paired perfectly with a bottle our own Barolo wine. In fact, I don't think we've ever had anything that so perfectly complemented the Barolo. There is no doubt that we will be making this one again.

Lime Butternut Squash Soup

Another tasty recipe from the Civilized Caveman. I was surprised by how much flavor this five-ingredient soup had, The lime was more prominent than I expected. The preparation was rather simple. I had to peel and cut the squash which took some effort, and the steaming took some time so I used that time to make our favorite cornbread to accompany the soup. Once the squash was steamed I drained the water and added the rest of the ingredients and used my immersion blender to blend it right in the same pot. It was super creamy, and very thick. James and I also added some fresh nutmeg to it, because it is butternut squash after all!

Cream of Tomato Soup

One of the things I like about fall is that it is such a great time to have soup. I found this recipe in Deborah Madison's New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. 

I followed the recipe mostly as written. I skipped the optional tomato paste, and used my immersion blender rather than pouring the soup back and forth between the pot and my regular blender. The soup was flavorful and perfect for a chilly evening. I served it with some crusty yogurt bread that I made in my bread machine.

Sicilian Seafood Stew

This one comes from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home a vegetarian cookbook that includes some fish recipes, too. This recipe has scallops and shrimp, and is rife with vegetables as well. Most of the recipes in this book are intended to be cooked in 30 minutes or less. This one is an exception. The cooking time is a bit over half an hour, and the prep time adds about 15-20 minutes more. It is quite tasty though, and makes for dandy leftovers. Normally we would opt for a white wine with seafood, and indeed had thought ahead and chilled a bottle of Chardonnay intending to have it with the meal, but I'd forgotten that the recipe calls for red wine to be added to the stew, and we learned some time ago that when cooking with wine the same wine that's added to the dish should be also served, so we saved the Chardonnay to have with our roast chicken the next day and paired the stew with the Malbec I used. 

Said Chowder

Herewith, the recipe for the chowder I made from ingredients left over from Pam's excellent clams-and-linguine dish the night before. Somehow the 2 pounds of clams recommended at Kylers ended up being more than 3, which was more than plenty for the excellent pasta Pam prepared.

We had plenty of broth (wine, EVOO, onion, garlic) and plenty of clams remaining. So I consulted the basic chowder recipe on AllRecipes. We decided not to purchase bacon for this, but did begin by sauteing a small, finely-chopped onion in a bit of bacon fat reserved from recent cooking. Although there were already onions in the broth Pam had prepared, this allowed for some newly caramelized flavor to begin the dish.

Once the onion was slightly browned, I added Pam's broth, instead of the water called for here, and some diced red-skin potatoes. While this was cooking, I removed the clams from their shells and trimmed them. When the potatoes were tender, I added about a pint of half-and-half, the clams, and the butter.

As this was gently heating, I whisked a tablespoon of flour into a small dish of water, and added it for thickening. Clam chowder comes in two kinds -- Manhattan (red) and New England (white). And the New England kind comes in two sub-kinds -- authentic (thin) and delicious (thick). I actually enjoy the authentic stuff when expertly made, but for my own purposes, the thick stuff was perfect. I did not, however, overdo it -- this was still a chowder, not a solid object!

Final verdict: this turned out quite well -- wine, bacon, butter and cream each playing a key role, I suppose, and we will be back to Kylers for more clams soon.

Lilith's Lily Fair Soup and Lemon Potato Salad with Mint

Last week I posted about our summer solstice meal with a recipe from The Wicca Cookbook. One of the recipes I wanted to try was the Lilith's Lily Fair Soup, but I had to wait because our day lilies were not yet blooming. Today I noticed the familiar orange color in the garden and bought the rest of the ingredients I needed.

    

                    

Preparation was fairly simple, but had to be started several hours in advance so everything would have time to chill. Essentially I made two fruit smoothies, and then poured them carefully into bowls once they were chilled. The first round was made from the mango, melon (we used cantaloupe instead of honeydew) and the orange juice. Once that was blended I put it in a bowl which I placed in the refrigerator to chill. I rinsed the blender and then mixed the raspberries, liquor, and sugar in it. This mix, too went into the refrigerator. I let it chill about two hours, and then poured the mango/melon mix into the bowls. Next, the raspberry mixed was poured slowly to one side to create an eye-pleasing soup. One day lily was cut up and sprinkled on top of the soup, and then one whole lily was placed on top. This soup was beautiful, and delicious. And, for me, it was also a bit nostalgic. First because day lilies were the first edible flower I ever learned about (many years ago during an elementary school field trip), and also because the neon orange and bright pink color combination of the soup reminded me of a treat I used to get from the Good Humor truck!

                      

To complement this summer soup I also made the lemon/mint potato salad from the New York Times. Again, the dish was simple, but I had to start it several hours in advance. We enjoyed some Tuscan bread, purchased from the Fairhaven (Massachusetts) Farmer's Market, and some Cinco Cães wine from the Westport Rivers Winery.

Celebrating Maryland Day

Every year on April 28 we celebrate the anniversary of Maryland's statehood. Since it fell on a Thursday this year we picked a seafood recipe as Thursday night is James' rowing night, when we typically stop at Kyler's Catch for some fish for Pam to prepare while James is out to sea. Usually we have something easy to prepare, but since this was a special occasion I (Pam) decided to up my game, and tried my hand at shucking oysters for the first time. I used this helpful online guide to assist me in this endeavor. The oysters were used to make Chesapeake Oyster Stew from the Dishing Up Maryland cookbook. The recipe also called for bacon, celery, onion, half-and-half, flour, salt, pepper, Old Bay seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, and butter. Since this was being prepared at "Whaling House" (our beach home), which is not as well appointed as Cloverfield (our primary residence) I was prepared to make substitutions and do without a few things, but imagine my horror when I realized there was no Old Bay in the house! And to think I call myself a Marylander. Ah, well, there was nothing to do but to proceed without it. There was no place within walking distance to get the necessary ingredient, and we are still a one-car family after all. I also skipped the celery. The stew turned out to be quite good - savory, creamy, and rich - even though, in addition to not having the proper seasonings, I made a few mistakes along the way in the preparation. But, really, after almost five and a half years of blogging about cooking, if I can't fix a recipe blunder at this point it would all be for naught. We also enjoyed Corn and Basil Muffins, a favorite recipe from the same cookbook (you can read more about these from my 2013 Maryland Day post). However, this year I found myself without the needed milk or eggs. I used water with a bit of melted butter in place of the milk, and a mix of Balsamic vinegar and baking soda in place of the egg (an idea I found on a vegan website). The muffins were still good, but a bit more crumbly.