A Beautiful Gift from Sidney

As many of you know, Kitty's father Sidney passed away recently. He had been ill for quite some time, but the end of great lives is always a sad occasion. He and Lynn had recently moved from a house in the country, out side of Drew, Mississippi, to a house in the big city of Cleveland, Mississippi. The new house was right next door to the library (where Lynn works) and right behind the Episcopal church. If they had a grocery store and a wine shop in the same block, they would have never needed a car, except to take the dogs to the vet. They kept the old place near Drew and today, Kitty, Lynn and I made the trip out there to pick up some furniture and other odds and ends. I managed to throw my back out lifting the first piece for furniture and luckily it was the only heavy one. JT, a big man in his 60's who had once worked for Sidney, did the rest of the heavy lifting and even managed to whip a nest of wasps into a real frenzy while removing a window unit a/c.

This was the first time Kitty and I had been out to the old house since they had moved. I felt a deep sense of regret that I hadn't had the opportunity to go back out there with Sidney and dig up a truckload of the native plants that were all around the place. While I was gingerly moving some sticks out of the way for the moving van, I spotted some wild garlic plants and asked Lynn if I could pull up a few. She told me to take all I wanted and I ignored the searing pain in my back as I pulled up about two dozen plants. They were still a little green and milky, but I figured I wouldn't have the opportunity to get back up there any time soon. We loaded them in the back of the moving van, next to the bed, the mattress, the dishwasher and the formerly wasp-filled window units and made one more walk around the old place. Kitty cut a few branches off of the big Bay Tree behind the shed and I spotted an anvil that I would seriously like to have in my workshop. Kitty got her bays home. I had to leave the anvil for another trip.

When we got home, Stuart, Kitty and I cut the bulbs and tops from the garlic and stuck them in some loose soil in the big planter on the porch. I know the bulbs will take root and I hope some of the tops will do the same. While separating the tops and the roots, I noticed that the lower half of the stalks were quite tender. I bit into one of them to check for bitterness and was delighted to find that they had bright, yet earthy taste like a cross between a ramp, a green onion and garlic. We were so tired from moving that we had discussed getting takeout for supper, but the taste of the wild garlic changed my mind. Instead of some protein-in-a-box nightmare, I got in to the kitchen and whipped up a hearty soup with the garlic stalks as the star.

As you can see, it turned out beautiful. Thanks Sidney.

Bon Appetit
~Tom

What's in the Fridge? Soup, that's what!

It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog or has ever taken an Ivy & Devine cooking lesson, I love to make soup when the fridge is full of leftovers. Friday night, Kitty and I had dinner with our friends Sid & Mandy. We had a whole roasted chicken along with some mushroom rice pilaf. That left me with some leftover chicken and some mushrooms. A quick check of the fridge turned up some aromatic vegetables and excess milk (the boys were not here this weekend). A peek in the pantry led me to some brown and wild rice from Rainbow and there you have it...soup. I learned from Kitty that our neighbor, Rachel, was at home taking care of her oldest, Jude, who had recently done a header into a door frame and was sporting some sweet stitches on his noggin. Not to mention the fact that her husband was traveling and she is also a new mom. Tom and his soup to the rescue. This is why I cook. Remember people Food=Love!
Bon Appetit!
~Tom

Smoky Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

1 lb. smoked bacon

½ roasted chicken

32 oz. chicken stock    

32 oz. whole milk

1 cup brown and wild rice mix

2 portabella mushrooms

2 medium yellow onions

4 stalks celery

1 whole garlic pod

1 leek

1 bunch green onions

1 stalk fennel

1 tsp. thyme

2 tsp. oregano

3 whole bay leaves

½ bunch parsley

Black pepper

Sea Salt

Prep

Finely chop parsley, onions, celery, mushrooms, fennel bottom, leek bottom and green onion. Pull chicken from bones and chop into small pieces. Slice bacon into 1” pieces. Slice ¼ though the top of the garlic pod, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and wrap in aluminum foil. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Cook

Place foil-wrapped garlic in oven and cook for 20 minutes. Heat a large stock pot over medium heat and add bacon. Cook until most of the fat is rendered from the bacon and bacon begins to crisp slightly. Add onions, celery, leek, fennel, green onion, thyme, oregano and bay leaves and cook until onion is translucent. Add rice, chicken and mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add chicken stock and mushrooms. Remove roasted garlic from oven and allow to cool. Squeeze the pod over the pot, adding the roasted cloves to the soup. Bring the liquid to a light boil and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook at a light simmer for 30 minutes. Warm milk in microwave and add to the soup. Cook for an additional ten minutes or until soup is hot.

Plate

Serve hot in a shallow bowl and garnish with parsley.

(Serves 8)

Dinner with Friends

Tonight, Kitty and I were lucky enough to be invited to dine with Mandy, Sid, Amy and Monte at Mandy and Sid's home. Monte and Amy brought a fantastic salad prepared from our good friends at Broad Street Baking Company. Sid and Amy picked up ice cream and Kitty and I brought v1.0 of a new soup that I am working to develop. The recipe below is v1.2, but the pictures are of the prototype. See if you can figure out the changes. If you can get them right, I'll award yo with a sample of my new Ivy & Devine Seafood Seasoning Blend, which is yet to hit the shelves.
The nexus of this soup derives from that last bite of steak on your plate at Char or Tico's or Shappley's. You know the one...when you use the one remaining sliver of beef to Zamboni around your plate and pick up the last smear of mashed potatoes, the last leaves of creamed spinach and the last drops of mushroom sauce. In one perfect morsel on the end of your fork you get the melding of the entire steakhouse experience.
Since I've been messing around with deconstructions lately, I wanted to see if I could create a dish that gave the diner this exact experience over and over again. The only thing I could come up with was soup. so give it a try and let me know if it lives up to the mark.

The dessert was featured in today's Jackson Free Press. They were doing a story on the Muppets' creator, Jim Henson (a fine Mississippi boy from Leland, way up in the Delta) and asked me for an appropriate dish. What I came up with was Ice Cream Sandwiches for Grover. You can get the recipe here, or wait a week and come back to this blog (publishing rights and what-not). At our dinner gathering, Amy, who had read the article today, kiddingly asked if we were having this dish for dessert. After a quick survey of Sid and Mandy's kitchen, the answer was YES (with only one short trip to McDade's).
Bon Appetit!
~Tom
Steakhouse Soup

2 large yellow onions

2 whole garlic pods

2 leeks

6 large Yukon gold potatoes

1 6 oz. bag fresh spinach

1 flatiron steak

1 tsp. Ivy & Devine Creole Seasoning Blend

2 Tbsp. mushroom base*

4 Tbsp. Dales Steak Seasoning

1 qt. heavy cream

2 qt. beef stock

1 bunch green onions

1 bunch parsley

4 Tbsp. olive oil

½ stick butter

1 baguette French bread

Salt

Pepper

Prep

Roughly chop onions and leek bottoms. Cut potatoes into 1” cubes. Chiffonade spinach. Finely chop parsley. Season steak liberally with Ivy & Devine Creole Seasoning Blend. Slice through the tops of the garlic (about ¼ inch cut), drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and butter, then wrap individually in foil. Slice Baguette into ½ in crostini. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook

Toast crostini in hot oven until gold around the edges. Remove and set aside. Place foil wrapped garlic pods in hot oven. Heat a large stock pot over medium heat and then add 2 Tbsp. olive oil. Allow the oil to heat and then add onions and leeks. Cook until onions are translucent. Add 1 qt. beef stock and simmer. Remove garlic from foil and squeeze out the roasted cloves into the stock pot. Heat a large iron skillet and add olive oil. When the oil is hot, add steak and cook until medium rare (approximately 5 minutes per side). Remove steak and deglaze with equal parts water and Dales Seasoning. Allow meat to rest and add deglazing liquid to the stock pot. Add spinach, mushroom base and remaining beef stock. In a separate large pot combine potatoes with enough water to cover. Add 1 tsp. salt to the water and bring to a hard boil. Reduce heat to a light boil and cook for ten minutes. Drain water and mash potatoes with ½ stick of butter. Finish potatoes by whipping with an immersion blender until creamy and completely free of lumps. Add potatoes to stock pot. When meat is fully rested, cut into cubes and set aside. Add any liquids remaining on cutting board to the soup mixture. Add cream and allow mixture to come to a simmer. Remove from heat and add steak and green onions. Salt and pepper to taste.

Plate

Serve immediately in a large, shallow bowl. Top with toasted crostini and garnish with chopped parsley.

(Serves 8-10)

*I recommend a brand called Better than Bouillon.

Cold Weather Cooking

With the temps diving below freezing and into the teens, I start to think about a hot bowl of hearty soup. Tonight, I worked my way through the fridge and came up with this dish to combat the chill. I hope you enjoy it!

Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup

2 cups jasmine or basmati rice

½ gallon whole milk

2 quarts rich chicken stock

4 Tbsp. olive oil

1 large yellow onion

1 whole pod garlic

1 bunch celery

2 medium zucchini

1 bunch broccoli

1 bunch green onions

2 Tbsp. mushroom base*

3 boneless chicken breasts

2 tsp. Ivy & Devine Poultry Spice Blend

Salt

Pepper

Paprika

Tabasco hot sauce

Prep

Roughly chop onions, celery, zucchini and broccoli. Finely chop green onions. Cube chicken into 1” pieces and season with Ivy & Devine Poultry Spice Blend. Slice ¼ inch from the top of the garlic, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and wrap in foil. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook

Place foil wrapped garlic on center rack of the hot oven. Heat a large stock pot over medium heat. Add 2 Tbsp. olive oil and when the oil is hot, add onions and cook until translucent. Add rice and stir until each grain is coated with oil. Add remaining vegetables (not green onions) and cook, stirring frequently for 5 minutes. Add enough stock to cover rice and vegetables.

While the rice is simmering, in a separate skillet, brown seasoned chicken pieces in 2 Tbsp. of olive oil until colored on both sides. Transfer browned chicken to pot with rice, vegetables and stock. Add more chicken stock and raise temperature to medium-high until the liquid just starts to boil. Reduce heat back to medium.

Remove garlic from oven and squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into the stock pot. Add mushroom base.

When the rice is soft, reduce heat to low and add remaining stock and enough milk to fill the pot nearly to the top. Continue cooking until all of the liquid is hot. Season to taste with salt, pepper and hot sauce.

Plate

Ladle soup into a large bowl and sprinkle the top with chopped green onions and paprika.

(Serves 8 to 10)

* I like a brand called Better than Bouillon. 

This recipe is only for those with patience

Soup that Looks Like America


(Making this soup is a multi-day process, so don't print out this recipe and try to make it on the same day you want to serve it.)

4 qt. ham stock

8 oz. dry black beans

8 oz. dry navy beans

8 oz. dry red beans

8 oz. dry pinto beans

4 stalks celery

2 yellow onions

6 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp. thyme

1 tsp. rubbed sage

1 Tbsp. Ivy & Devine Coffee Rub

1 tsp. paprika

1 lb. smoked sausage

1 lb. ham (cooked or cured)

½ lb. bacon

1 bunch green onions

Salt

Black pepper

2 Tbsp. olive oil

Prep

Soak beans in cool water (in separate containers) overnight. Drain, rinse and set aside. Chop celery, onions, garlic and green onions. Cut ham, sausage and bacon into ½” pieces.

Cook

In a large stock pot, cook bacon until browned and most fat is rendered. Add olive oil, onions, celery and garlic. Cook until onions are translucent. Add ham and sausage and cook until slightly browned. Add thyme, sage, Ivy & Devine Coffee Rub and paprika. Stir until all herbs and seasonings are evenly distributed. Add beans and stir. Add enough ham stock to nearly fill pot. Set remainder aside. Cook over high heat until stock comes to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered for three hours, adding stock if needed to maintain a liquid consistency. Roughly stir occasionally to break up some of the beans, but not all. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve when beans are soft.

Plate

Serve in a shallow bowl and top with chopped green onions.

(Serves 6)

*There are plenty of good commercially available ham stocks in the grocery store, but to make it from scratch just chop up two onions, one bunch of celery, one pod of garlic and add with a ham bone to a pot of boiling, salted water and cook for several hours. To me, the homemade stock makes all the difference between good and great.

Is it soup yet?

Oh yeah. It's soup. This one took all day. Actually, it took a couple of days since I started soaking the beans last night. As you may have read in the earlier post, I call this "Soup that Looks Like America" because of the white, black, brown and red beans. I'll let it rest in the fridge overnight and serve it after church on Sunday to the parishioners working to "green the cathedral." The Greening of the Cathedral has nothing to do with our carbon footprint, it is a great event where lots of folks help to hang the greenery for our big Christmas week services.

So if you are hungry for some hearty bean soup, made from ham stock cooked from scratch, come to Saint Andrew's Cathedral this Sunday. Dean Edward O'Connor will fill your soul and I'll fill your belly.

I'll post the recipe when I can grab some time to remember what I did and write it down.

Bon Appetit!
~Tom

Soup that Looks Like America

This Sunday, Saint Andrew's Cathedral in Downtown Jackson, Mississippi, is holding a cooking contest. Parishioners are asked to prepare their favorite soup recipe and bring it to the church to feed those who are participating in the "Greening of the Cathedral." Edward, the dean of our Cathedral, will judge the soups and declare a winner of  "Souper Bowl Sunday."

In keeping with the ethos of our Cathedral (inclusion, diversity, warmth etc.) I have come up with a new recipe that I call "Soup that Looks Like America." It is a hearty, slightly spicy, soup with black, white, brown and red beans. Some are large, some are small. Some are whole, some are broken. I'll post pictures and a recipe when it is done.

Bon Appetit!

~Tom

Noodle Soup

No, not the kind in a can. I'm talking about steaming hot, meat on the side, in a bowl as big as your head, Vietnamese noodle soup from Saigon on Lakeland Drive.  That will be my next meal. I'm having lunch with a TV producer friend of mine to talk about the possibility of doing a pilot for a cooking/travel/entertaining/interview show. Stay tuned...stranger things have happened...undefeated Saints, early snow in Jackson, you just never know what could be around the corner!

Bon Appetit!
~Tom