Lekker: Pumpkin Soup

You know what success tastes like? THIS SOUP. No, really. I am so thrilled to have finally mastered a recipe for pumpkin soup I could SING! 1, because I refuse to be defeated with crappy recipes when I have my mind set on something and 2, because I am so. sick. of pumpkin by now. Trust me, I've gone through about 3-4 different recipes in my pursuit of perfection and since I was raised with a "third world country" mentality I can't justify throwing food away--so I've been eating a lot of pumpkin soup. And there's nothing more frustrating that eating something that isn't quite right! Too garlicky. Way too spicy. Too rich and unhealthy. Sigh.

And then, over the weekend, finally...perfection. I tossed all the recipes in the rubbish bin and decided to wing it, and whaddaya know...finally, something I can rave about. Huzzah! Not only is the colour of this soup beautiful and vibrant, but it lets the pumpkin shine as the main ingredient while still maintaining a complex flavour profile. It's also super easy and quick to whip up--and even better the next day.

Pumpkin Soup
makes about 3 servings

What You Need
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium shallot, diced
2 small leeks, white and light green parts only, washed well and thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced in half lengthways and diced small
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh sage, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 cups pumpkin puree (Make your life easy and use the tinned stuff; just make sure it's pure pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling)
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons heavy cream
freshly ground pepper, to taste

You'll need an immersion blender for this one, or, work in batches pureeing in a standard blender.

What You Do
1. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter until the foam subsides and it turns a lovely light golden-brown colour. Keep  close eye on it, as it can go from beautifully nutty and brown to blackened and burnt within seconds. Add your shallot, leeks and celery and saute for 5-7 minutes or until soft and golden brown. Add the garlic and sage and cook for 1-2 minutes more until fragrant.

2. Pour in your wine and let it simmer and reduce until there is no liquid left. Add the broth and the pumpkin puree and stir well to combine. Simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender. Taste, and adjust salt and pepper as necessary. I find I usually need about 4 turns from a pepper grinder, and actually I don't use any salt since I think the broth is plenty salty enough. Stir in the 3 tablespoons of heavy cream, and serve!

If you wanna be all fancy-pants, serve it with a couple of whole sage leaves fried quickly in butter. A multigrain, highly seeded bread would be delicious toasted alongside this.

Liquor: Halloween Candy Corn Martini

I started this little project about a week ago, but because I can't count (apparently), by posting today I'm not giving YOU enough time to try this recipe yourself. Seriously, I fail so hard. The only reason why this takes 5-7 days is because you're doing your own infusion of candy corn vodka--MAYBE you could find a version in a liquor store? I mean, it's seasonal and god knows they flavour vodka with EVERYTHING these days (maple syrup, anyone? how 'bout butter? Swedish fish?). It was super easy to make, though, so if you have any extra candy corn left over from Halloween this week, do have at it! (The candy corn alone was difficult to find; for some reason I had to go to three different stores to find it and even then I almost had to fight this woman off for the last bag. Lady, I WILL have my candy corn vodka--this is not amateur hour!)

If you don't like vodka, you probably shouldn't make this. And we also probably shouldn't be friends. Now, if you don't like candy corn, well...I was worried that I would wind up with a sludgy sickly sweet mess, but I was wrong! The vodka absorbs the buttery taste of candy corn plus the iridescent orange colour, but leaves a lot of the tooth-aching sweetness behind. It really was very mild.

To make the candy corn infused vodka you'll need 2 parts vodka (I used Absolut) to 1 part candy corn; so, 2 cups of vodka and 1 cup of candy corn. I wasn't sure I would like it, though, and I'm the only vodka drinker in the house, so I halved it to 1 cup of vodka and 1/2 cup of candy corn. Throw into a clean Mason jar and stow away in a cool dark place for 5 days.

Bonus: doubles as a Halloween decoration. Sort of. If you're reaching.

When your five days of infusion are up, it's time to strain the vodka. Look! All the candy corn disappeared! 

Dudes, it was SO GROSS looking the first day--the candy corn had dissolved into these ghostly, floating tendrils of white that looked like snot floating in the vodka. 

Never fear. Shake up the jar, and then strain it through cheesecloth (fold over a few times to make it a tighter strain) into another glass or bowl. I found the easiest way to do this was to rubber band the cheesecloth around the mouth of a drinking glass and pour the vodka slowly through that. The cheesecloth caught everything and left only clear orange vodka behind. Presto!
 

Cheers to Mondays, cheers to candy corn, cheers to being holiday-specific drunk!

Candy Corn Martinis

makes 1 decently sized martini

What You Need

1 1/2 ounces candy corn vodka

3/4 ounce vanilla vodka (I used Absolut Vanilla)

1/2 ounce white vermouth

3 dashes Angosturra bitters

What You Do

Shake over ice in a cocktail shaker and serve.

Look, I failed on multiple levels with this little project, because I had intended to line the rim of the glass with Pop Rocks all cute-like. But do you think the four different stores I went to had Pop Rocks? NO! Do you think the fifth store had RED STRAWBERRY Pop Rocks? Of course. Because, that's what Mondays are just like.

I finally got home and thought OK, I'll make a compromise and edge it in green decorating sugar that I have on hand. So I open the drawer and--hahahahahahaha. I only have red sugar left. At that point I decided I just wanted to get the damn vodka inside me as soon as possible, so I chopped a candy corn in half and quit at life for the night.

Lekker: Potato-Leek Soup

Oh god. I feel so guilty for posting yet ANOTHER soup recipe. (And there's a second one in the chute...) I'm sure I've lost ALL of my male readers (those that aren't sick and making my Italian Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup, anyway) with the dearth of salads and soups that've been on here lately. What can I say for myself? Most of the time I'm solo, and I like soups! I can make a big batch and have lunch or dinner for a few days, and because I'm not expected to feed a man I don't have to feel obligated to make "real food." And, it's "soup season" because it's fall and blah blah blah.

I promise, I have plans for "real food" in the coming weeks--Sticky Chutney Chicken, Tex-Mex Chili, Bucatini Bolognese and some to-die-for buffalo chicken sandwiches that are *perfect* for football Sundays. This wasn't even planned for today; it only happened because my housemate TB and I spent the morning harvesting the final crop from the garden before tearing it up for the winter, and it yielded a shit ton of leeks and potatoes.

Not to mention...sweet potatoes. BOATLOADS AND BOATLOADS OF SWEET POTATOES.

But for now, one of my absolute favourites--Potato Leek Soup. Of all the versions I've tried and tinkered with, this one is my favourite because it's largely dairy free except for the butter, but just as rich and creamy as you'd wish. I love serving this with a hearty slice of garlic bread, just like my mother used to, and a crisp green salad. TB raved about this recent batch and subsequently cleaned me out of my dinner for the rest of the week. Oh well. :)

Potato Leek Soup
makes 4 servings

What You Need
2 T butter
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, washed well and sliced thinly
1 large yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces (I find Yukon Golds to be the smoothest and richest potatoes for mashing or pureeing)
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or you can use vegetable broth to make this completely vegetarian)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
~1/2 cup of water, to thin

You'll need an immersion blender for this soup, or, work in batches to puree in a regular blender.

What You Do
1. In a medium saucepot over medium heat, melt the butter until the foam subsides and it turns a light brown colour. PLEASE be watchful, as it can go from beautifully brown to blackened and burnt within seconds. Browning the butter, though, gives it a nice colour and slightly nutty flavour. Toss in your sliced leeks and chopped onion and saute for about 7 minutes or until soft and golden brown. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook for 1-2 minutes more until fragrant.

2. Pour in your chicken broth and add your potatoes. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are completely tender. Remove from heat.

3. Using an immersion blender, puree until smooth. At this stage I found that I needed to add 1/2 cup of warm water to thin it out to a consistency that I preferred, but use your judgement.

TB wanted the flavours of a baked potato, so he topped his soup with some shredded cheddar cheese and bacon crumbles. It was, in a word, divine. I'm a simple girl though and this soup is so flavourful I love it as-is. It's warm, rich, and sticks to your ribs for those disgustingly chilly winter nights that are sure to come this season...

Bon appetit!

Liquor: Pumpkin Juice!

It's Halloween, so of course everything is pumpkin EVERYTHING right now! However, the inspiration for this particular recipe actually comes from my nearest and dearest favourite fantasy series...Harry Potter. These are the books that opened the world of fantasy, magic and make-believe to me, that provided me--as a geeky, gangly, unpopular and painfully awkward 11-year-old--another world to disappear into when mine was so unbearable.

I am only slightly less awkward and gangly as a 23-year-old and about eleventy-billion times more geeky (hello Hunger Games, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Batman...) and I still love Harry Potter as much as I did at the first turn of the first page. And since it's Halloween, the movies have been playing on ABC Family every weekend and I've been loving every minute. :)

Pumpkin juice is a beverage often enjoyed by Harry, Ron, and Hermione and in my current inundation with pumpkins, I decided to give it a whirl. I know it *sounds* weird, but I assure you it is delicious, refreshing, interesting, and definitely worth a shot! Now of course...the kiddos enjoy this straight up, but I discovered that it's even MORE delightful with a splash of Maker's Mark over ice. My girl friend Tiny Bird preferred it with some Gosling's dark spiced rum, and Lilypad liked it with brandy. (Drinking it in her Hermione Granger Halloween costume, natch.)

Pumpkin Juice
makes about 5 cups

What You Need
1 small pumpkin, known as a pie pumpkin in most stores OR 1 cup tinned pumpkin puree (100% pure puree, not pumpkin pie filling!)
2 cups apple juice (I used the freshly pressed Simply Apple brand, which is stored next to the refrigerated lemonades in your supermarket)
1 cup white grape juice
1 cup pineapple juice
Dash of ground ginger
Dash of cinnamon

Now, here's the thing. I'm currently on a kick about doing everything from scratch, so I made my own pumpkin puree. It was a fair amount of work, and it turned out smoother and a bit thinner in consistency and lighter in color than the kind you get from the tin. It takes time and a bit of patience, but no special skills. Feel free to make your life easier and just use one cup of the tinned stuff, skip to step 3, and we're good to go.

What You Do
1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice the pumpkin in half from pole to pole and scrape out the seeds and stringy bits. I found this to be easier after pricking it with a fork in several places and microwaving for 1 minute. Less likely have a knife slip and stab yourself this way. Unless there's something we need to talk about. Lay the halves facedown on a baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until very soft. (It made the whole house smell sweet and wonderful as the natural sugars in the flesh were rendered out!)

2. When the pumpkin is cool enough to handle, slip the skins off (they turned very leathery in the oven, very interesting) and discard. Using a fine mesh sieve and a rubber spatula, working in batches, force the pumpkin flesh through the sieve into a bowl. This was the most time consuming part, for me, because you really have to mash it through thoroughly, scraping as you go. Toss the pulpy mess left in the sieve. Stir your beautiful puree together (it has a natural tendency to separate from its juices) and measure out 1 cup.

 
3. In a pitcher, stir together all of the juices and the pumpkin, along with the spices, until the pumpkin is completely dissolved. Chill until very cold, and serve over ice after stirring once again. Spike as needed. :)

Thanks for everything, JK.

Lekker: Hollandaise Sauce

It's Saturday morning, a beautiful, crisp, fall Saturday morning and I am NOT hungover today! Woo hoo! That means I could get up and mosey on down to the kitchen to whip up this breakfast of Eggs Florentine, giving me the opportunity to make some Hollandaise sauce from scratch.

We've already established how nuts I am for good sauces. They should be their own food group, and when you combine my favourite meal (breakfast) with my favourite thing (sauce---a BUTTER SAUCE) and my favourite drink (boozy breakfast drinks of course) you KNOW it's gonna be a great day. :)

Hollandaise is a very basic egg yolk and butter sauce, rich and thick and utterly creamy and decadent. You've had it on Eggs Benedict before, though it's delicious over vegetables like grilled asparagus (green, or if you want to be traditionally German, white) as well. Don't be intimidated if you've never made it before, just work slowly and one step at a time to avoid making the sauce "break" or letting the yolks scramble. I promise, it's worth the effort and truly only takes 10-15 minutes to whip up.

Thank god for weekends.

Hollandaise Sauce 
yields about 1 cup

What You Need
4 egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon juice, fresh squeezed if you have it but I just used bottled
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
pinch of cayenne or chili powder

You'll need to create a "double-boiler" set up to make this sauce. The simplest method is to find a stainless steel bowl that will fit on top of a smaller pot so that water can steam underneath it without touching the bottom of the upper bowl. 

What You Do
1. Set a small pot of water on the stove and bring it to a gentle simmer. In a medium sized stainless steel bowl, whisk the egg yolks and lemon juice together until the mixture is thick and light yellow in color. Meanwhile, melt the butter in the microwave in a separate dish.

2. Place the mixing bowl on top of the pot of simmering water, whisking constantly. Drizzle the butter into the bowl in a thin stream until fully incorporated. The sauce will get thinner at this stage and you will need to make sure you are whisking CONSTANTLY (and keeping the water in the pot at a bare simmer) to avoid letting the yolks scramble. Keep whisking until the sauce thickens, only about a minute or two.

3. Remove from the heat and add the salt and cayenne pepper. Now, at this stage I found that it had gotten too thick for my liking, so I whisked in 1/2 tablespoon of warm water to thin it out.

I had this drizzled over two poached eggs, sitting on top of two pieces of wheat toast and some wilted baby spinach. It was, in a word, divine.

Lekker: Andouille & Kale White Bean Stew

Thank god for this recipe. Seriously, I've been absent for awhile solely because I've just had one dud recipe after another. I wouldn't share anything here I'm not TOTALLY crazy about and can't wait to make again and lately it's all just been bleh, bleh, blah. Meat & Potato Pies that were good, but just too much damn work (3+ hours for six tiny little pies? GTFO); Chocolatey Peanut Butter Banana Bread (which was less like bread and more like cake and boring in either case); Roasted Garlic, Leek & Pumpkin Soup that sounds good in theory but turned out to be way too garlicky and way too spicy (will be tinkering with that recipe though) and a number of other nonsense failures.I needed a win.

Enter this deliciousness!

I'm sort of stretching this by calling it a "stew" because there is SOME broth, but it's so hearty and filling I don't think it deserves the "soup" classification. For most people, I think, "soup" is something that requires a Part 2 of the meal--a salad, or a sandwich, etc--to make it a full meal. Yesterday I had only a big bowl of French onion soup for lunch and I was a royal cranky bitch for the rest of the afternoon because I was starving. This is chock full of protein with just the right amount of veggies and delicious, salty, flavourful broth. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like this--except my Bonus Dad, who does not like kale, and my Bonus Mom, who does not eat sausage. Sigh. Sorry guys--can't please everyone, all the time! :-}

This takes about 35-40 minutes to prepare from start to finish. Serve with a thick wedge of garlic bread and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese on top and you'll want nothing more out of life.

 I took a picture of it still in the pot because I knew that if I got it into a bowl, I would be wanting to get it into my mouth much more than wanting to take some snaps--and I was right.

Andouille & Kale White Bean Stew
makes about 6 servings

What You Need
6 ounces Andouille sausage (I used one link of this one by Johnsonville)
2 medium shallots (If you don't know, shallots are like onions but stronger and more pungent in taste; they have the same reddish papery skin but are smaller and oblong instead of round, and purple and white in color instead of white or yellow; typically you can find them next to the garlic in your shop)
2 small or 1 large celery rib
2 medium carrots, peeled
2 cloves garlic
1 dash cinnamon (sounds weird, I know, but restrain yourself to JUST ONE DASH and it's amaaazing)

3/4 cup dry white wine
1 cup of diced tomatoes, drained of their juice (I found this to be just about half a can)
2 15-ounce cans of white beans, rinsed (I used Great Northern beans, but cannellini or "small white beans" work well here too)
4 cups of chicken broth (I used low sodium since the sausage has plenty)
1 bag (16 ounces) kale (I buy the triple-washed pre-chopped version because I am lazy)
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons dried tarragon
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1-2 tablespoons of butter or your preferred oil for frying
~1 teaspoon red wine vinegar (you can add more to taste, but start with that)

Shaved or shredded Parmesan cheese, for topping

What You Do
1. In a large stockpot over medium heat, melt the butter or oil. Slice up the sausage into bite sized pieces by slicing it lengthwise first, and then into little half-moons. Fry that over medium heat until nicely browned.

2. While that's cooking, dice up your celery, carrots and shallots. Since I like consistency, I try to aim for a size that is close to the size of the beans for the carrots and celery, and a smaller dice for the shallots. When the sausage is done, scoop it out to drain on a paper towel and, in the same fat, fry up your veggies for about 5-6 minutes until they're golden. Mince your garlic and toss that in with the dash of cinnamon, frying for an additional 2 minutes until fragrant.

3. Now add the wine. Again, if you're anything like me (that is, an inexcusable lush), that just means tipping your wine glass over until it looks like 3/4 of a cup. Ta dah! A miraculous excuse for a refill. The thing with cooking with wine (in the actual food anyway) is that you want to cook it down quite a bit; that raw wine taste in food is just nasty, and happens when you add wine at the same time as other liquids. So you'll want to cook this for about...meh, maybe 3-4 minutes until most of the liquid is gone.

4. Throw in everything else! The beans, sausage, tomatoes, chicken broth, bay leaf, and kale. If your kale is like what I had, even though it comes prewashed and pre-cut there are still some stemmy bits in there. Kale stems are tough and bitter (like some of my exes) and I don't particularly care for them (no comment), so I tear off the stems while I'm tossing it into the pot. Bring it to a good boil and then let that all simmer nicely for about 10 minutes.Sprinkle in your dried spices (adjust salt & pepper to taste at this stage if you like) and simmer another 10-15 minutes or so, or until everything is tender and your house smells droolworthy.

5. Remove from heat, stir in the teaspoon of red wine vinegar, and serve with Parmesan cheese on top with a thick hunk of garlic bread. TO. DIE. FOR.

Liquor: Old Fashioned

I'm a little bit of an old-fashioned girl. There's something I really like about getting dressed up in a classy dress and heels, slicking on some red lipstick and going out for a drink with a devilishly handsome man in a suit. Vodka and gin are my usual go-tos, I'll admit--but there's something a bit...cliched (?) about sipping a martini in that scenario.

Whiskey, to the rescue!

I've never been a whiskey drinker, not since a rather *interesting* experience with Jack Daniels when I was 16. (Dad, just don't think about it. Trust me.) Since then I have discovered a propensity to date guys who drink whiskey, and lots of it--Jameson, Wild Turkey, Jack's Tennessee Honey, you name it--so I've been around it plenty. I just never wanted anything to do with it. Sorry, Ron Swanson.

This drink--the way *I* make it--is a game changer.

If you would like to know how to make a TRADITIONAL Old Fashioned, go to this website.

I said I was old fashioned, not traditional. "But fruit doesn't belong in a man's drink." Seriously, skive off with that chauvinistic bullfeathers. There's no such thing as a man's drink or a girlie drink, there are drinks and there are drinks and if you're gonna sit there with your nose in the air judging me for putting fruit in my whiskey--well--then you are more in need of this drink than I am, friend!

Here's how I make it. Play with it until you find a way that YOU like it.

 

Jacked Up, Fruity, Deliciously Addictive Old Fashioned

makes 1, but you'll want more

What You Need

1 large shot of whiskey of your choice (I'm a fan of Maker's Mark but I don't know Jack [hah] about whiskey, so use what you like. A blended whiskey like Jameson wouldn't make much sense here, but I can't WAIT to try this with Tennessee Honey.)

2-3 dashes Angosturra Bitters (no compromises here, though I prefer more like 5 dashes)

A couple of orange slices (I used a mandarin in the photo above because that's what I had, and of course, it was delicious.)

A few maraschino cherries, as few or as little as you like (Don't get that artificially dyed iridescent red garbage; do you even know how those are made? Go to the Cocktail/Mixers section of your grocery store and get the real kind.) 

1 teaspoon simple syrup; or a cube of sugar if you don't have any simple syrup and don't want to make your own. (Liquor stores sell bottled simple syrup if you're incredibly lazy like me. Just make sure you don't wind up with a flavoured one by accident.)

Club soda, to top off if you like. Like I said, I can't do straight whiskey no matter HOW much fruit I put in it, so I like this. (I literally just realized that I used tonic water last time. Oh well.)

What You Do

I just happen to already have Old Fashioned glasses, so--in the bottle of an old fashioned glass, muddle up the orange slices and the cherries with the bitters and simple syrup, using the end of a wooden spoon or whatever small blunt object you have around. You don't need to go all Hulk on it, just mash it up a bit o release some of the fruit juices. Add the whiskey and taste it. If you're like me it's goddamn delicious, but a little too strong, so add some club soda and some ice, if you like. Bada bing, bada boom, we're done here.

Lekker: Roasted Tomato Garam Masala Soup

Oh no...two soup recipes in a week? Shit, must be fall yo!

I whipped this baby up this weekend in between episodes of Mad Men (rewatching; goodness Betty Draper drives me just bananas--grow a backbone, lady!) as an alternative to traditional tomato soup. Don't get me wrong, tomato soup and grilled cheese is one of my favourite meals ever and sooo comforting on a rainy day. Not that it was raining here, but anyway--I'm interested in creative spins on that traditional American combo and this is totally in the running: a roasted tomato soup with lots of garlic and onion, and a big Thai kick from the garam masala spices and coconut milk. What to serve it with? When I do this next time, I'm grilling up a naan and paneer cheese sandwich. NOM!

Don't be intimidated by the unfamiliar ingredients; they are all easy to find if you know where to look.

Roasted Tomato Garam Masala Soup
makes about 6 servings

What You Need
14-16 Roma tomatoes, sliced in half lengthways
2 large yellow onions, sliced in thick chunks (I don't care how you wanna do this; quarters, chunks, rings, whatever--just make them similar in size to the tomatoes)
2 whole heads of garlic (you can take it down a notch to one head if you're really anti-garlic or something, but know that roasting them really mellows their flavour and brings out just a lovely carmelised sweetness)

olive oil or whatever oil you prefer for roasting
1 can coconut milk (reserve a couple of teaspoons for a pretty garnish)
~2 cups chicken broth, or vegetable broth if you want to make this entirely vegetarian
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/4 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes or 1 teaspoon of sriracha sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons dried cilantro, or a comparable amount of chopped fresh cilantro
about 8 stalks of fresh parsley, leaves chopped roughly (toss the stems in your compost pile)
salt and pepper, to taste

What You Do
1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. The first thing you have to do is get the garlic in the oven because those take the longest to roast (about 45 minutes). If you've never roasted garlic before, it's really easy. Just rub off the excess papery skin, leaving the whole bulb intact. Slice off the top 1/3 of the bulb so that the individual cloves are exposed. Pour olive oil over top until the cloves are well coated, and wrap up in aluminum foil and throw in the oven. If that wasn't clear enough, here's a tutorial, except I don't bother with the baking tin; I just wrap them up into little foil bundles and have done with it.

2. While that's going, line a baking sheet with foil. In a large bowl, toss the halved tomatoes and onion chunks with enough oil to lightly coat and season with salt and pepper.  Spread out evenly on the baking sheet and add those to the oven. Roast for 20 minutes, stir, and roast for about 15-20 minutes more, or until the onions have gone golden brown (maybe a little blackened in some places, that's okay) and the tomatoes have broken down and are brown in spots. QUITE CONVENIENTLY, an episode of Mad Men runs about 48 minutes, so...I'm not *saying* my timing is perfect, but it kind of is. 

3. Everything roasted? Sweetness! In a large stockpot, throw in the tomatoes, onions, roasted garlic, coconut milk (treat that can like a Shake Weight before you open it otherwise it'll be all separated and weird; nothing wrong with the Shake Weight, nothing at all), 1 cup of broth, tomato paste, garam masala and chili flakes. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5-10 minutes. Now, you'll need to either use an immersion blender to blend this all up, or work in careful batches in a blender until smooth.

4. Now that it's all blended you can add the cilantro and the parsley, and add the remaining cup of broth adjusting to the thickness that you like for your soups. I'm not gonna hunt you down if you like it a little thicker...baha. Heat for about another 10 minutes at a gentle simmer and serve with a pretty drizzle of coconut milk and a couple of leaves of fresh parsley. Look at you all fancy. If you like it spicier, add in a gorgeous drizzle of extra sriracha. (I find that the coconut milk adds such a rich, gorgeous creaminess that I want to contrast it with a decent kick.) Done! Next time, I think I'm going to pass the soup through a strainer quickly before serving to remove some of the fibrous leftovers from the tomatoes.

A couple of notes:

* Garam Masala is a spice mixture common in Indian and Southeast Asia. I had a difficult time finding it in the grocery store, but in TARGET, of all places, I found it in their Archer Farms line of spices. I imagine you could find it at an Asian or Indian foods market as well, and of course there's always the great wide Internet if you're really determined. 

* Coconut milk is much more common nowadays so you shouldn't have any trouble finding it. I found the tin in the Asian foods section of my local supermarket, but it's also available in cartons. Just make sure you get an unflavoured kind and if you use a carton, you'll need about 1 1/2 cups' worth. 

* I mentioned I would serve it with a grilled naan and paneer sandwich. Naan is flat bread from the Middle East, so I guess I'm doing a bit of a fusion thing there, but it's easy to find--usually by the imported cheeses, by the deli, or by the bread in your store. Paneer is an Indian cheese that I simply can't find, though my search is not over. In the interim, I would use a fresh white cheese of any kind--queso fresco comes to mind. Hell, you could even do a grilled naan and FETA sandwich here that would be AWESOME! Just pick any mild, white, solid cheese and you're good to go.

* If you don't like Indian food, and don't like curry, or Thai or Indian flavours, and hate trying new things, and expanding your culinary palate--don't eat this. You'll be pissed that "I gave you this crappy recipe" and I'll be pissed that you're a dumbass.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for a martini with Don Draper. Hello, Don...

Lekker: Italian Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

Ya know, I really didn't expect to come home from a blissful vacation on the beaches of Florida this past weekend to all sorts of upheaval at work, a government shutdown, and..bronchitis. What is UP with everything?! GTFO, moon cycles or universe or polar tides or whatever the hell else is causing all of this nonsense.

Protip: Wine helps. I recommend Monkey Bay Sauvignon Blanc. TRUST ME, I am a pro at this by now. And if you're furloughed, you know that means some good ol' Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill baby!

So, given that I have absolutely zero regard for my personal health (apparently) what was a cold last week has turned into a wonderfully throaty cough/bronchitis. Hey, I gave it a try with vitamin C and echinacea and fluids and zinc and this that and the other thing, and it didn't work, so...wine. Also, soup! Yes, fall is sort of here (it's still 87 degrees but the leaves are turning orange so I don't know WHAT is going on. Goes back to that crazy moon/universe/tide thing, I think, although if you believe my housemate it's BECAUSE OBAMA!) so it's soup season. Combined with being sick? Here's today's Lekker Recipe: Italian Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup.

I was actually inspired to create this by my best friend Lion, who is also, entirely coincidentally, sick with the same thing. I turn into a full-on mother hen when people I care about are sick, so I wondered about what I would make for him. What would make him feel better, and comforted and satisfied, but still be healthful enough to fight the illness, and perhaps even pay homage to his heritage?

Italian Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup, a recipe dreamed up entirely by me--and believe me, it's been a loooong time since I've been so inspired. 

P.S. As good as my motives may have been, I'm actually totally horrible because he didn't get any of this stuff. The post office did not take kindly to my request to ship a quart of soup 1000 miles. Jerks.  Sorry, Lion Man. Next time.

Italian Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup
makes a metric shit ton--I obviously I thought I was going to be sick for a long time. I ate a bowl for dinner, froze half, and still have two more servings left for lunch tomorrow. It freezes great, so you may as well make the whole batch, but you can halve it too.

What You Need
1 rotisserie chicken (just the 2 breasts really unless you want more) or ~2 chicken breasts, otherwise cooked and shredded (I made my life easy and picked up a pre-cooked delicious chicken from the store because I hate cooking whole chicken breasts; plus, I get to eat the wings and rip off the skin and devour that as soon as I get home as a pre-cooking snack and that is LITERALLY the best part) 
1 leek, white and light green parts only, washed thoroughly (they have a lot of grit in them, so slice it off at the part where it gets tough and dark green and wash the bottom half well)
1 14.5 ounce can artichoke hearts in water (if they come already quartered, just slice them up a bit further nicely; if they're whole, then quarter and slice)
3 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
6-8 cups chicken broth or stock (I use the Knorr Homestyle Stock jelly-type things since I think they taste the best) 
3 large handfuls chopped Swiss chard (this stuff is great, I love it! It's like the silky older cousin to spinach; bitter when raw but utterly smooth and delicious in soups. I used the Kaleidoscope Chard from Trader Joe's here which is pre-washed and cut, but if you can find regular fresh raw chard that's great too. Just wash the leaves thoroughly, fold each leaf in half and slice out the tough inner stem, and slice the leaves into thin ribbons.)
2 large handfuls fresh baby spinach
1/2  bunch parsley, washed and chopped
1/2 cup dry orzo (Don't know orzo? You're missing out. It's a pasta shaped like an extra-large grain of rice with a GREAT mouthfeel used in Greek and Italian cooking. Mouthfeel means how it feels in your mouth. Giggity.)
olive oil, for frying
juice & zest of 1 lemon

I know it seems like a lot, but this is really super easy and hardly takes 30 minutes to put together. Ready? OK!

What You Do
1. In a small pot over medium-high heat, get some water boiling with salt so you can cook the orzo. I always cook pasta separate from the soup it's going into because I don't like the starch it releases during cooking to muddy up the broth of my soup. You want the orzo to be just slightly undercooked, because it's going to finish in the soup. I cook mine for 7 minutes flat, drain, and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and wash off excess starch.

2. While the water is boiling, shred up your chicken breasts with your fingers, or two forks if you want to pretend to be civilized (you're not fooling anyone), and slice up your leeks and artichokes as well. Leeks are like onions, but more complex in flavour and nutrition. Mince or crush the garlic, too.

3. In a large stockpot over medium heat, drizzle in some olive oil and throw the leeks and artichokes in to get them cooking with a bit of freshly ground black pepper. I saute them for about 5 minutes, just to get a bit of browning going on. Toss in the garlic and Italian seasoning and cook for 2 minutes more. Then add your stock and bring to a simmer.

4. Now's where it gets really easy! (Was it really that hard thus far? Nah, just a longer ingredient list.) Throw in your shredded chicken and let it simmer all together for 5 minutes. The spinach, chard and parsley take hardly any time at all, which is why you want to throw them in...now. Add the orzo now too, so it can finish cooking.  Now's the time to adjust the broth, adding a little more if you like your soups more watery like I do. Cook for about 5-6 more minutes.

5. Turn the heat off and add the zest* of one lemon and the juice of said lemon (through a strainer, if you want to avoid pulp and seeds in your soup). Taste and add salt if necessary. (A note: the chicken stock is probably pretty salty. However, I like salty things, and when I'm sick I tend to err on the side of more salt because it makes me drink more, which is important when you're sick. Capeche? It's why they give people in hospital that terribly salty chicken broth--to get them to absorb more fluids.) I always like to stir in a good glug or three of olive oil to finish a soup, too.

Done! Molto Italiano, no? Ah, io penso di essere stato un Mama italiano in un'altra vita!

Hope this banishes your sniffles, coughs and blues as much as it did mine. Ciao, bello. 

*I have a mircofine zester that I use for such purposes. If you don't have one, you can get away with the tiniest holes on a cheese grater as long as you don't get too much of the white pith mixed in there with the yellow skin, because that shit's bitter.