Kale Caesar with Polenta Croutons and Minted Pea Soup

I've been obsessed with peas lately...its spring for goodness sakes! And caesar salads, I have no explanation for that though.

I still had half of a cookie sheet of chilled polenta leftover from Jaimie's wedding that I was trying to use up, and recently realized I needed to harvest from my mint plant, so that is the primary inspiration of this dinner combination: necessity (and craving!).

The soup is vegan without the suggested yogurt or sour cream garnish and the caesar is not vegan due to the dressing I picked--- it has eggs in it. It is however vegetarian because I didn't use anchovies for the dressing like most chefs do in caesar!

For the soup:

Olive oil

1 yellow onion, diced

5 stalks of celery, diced

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

2 cups of frozen or fresh green peas

2 cups of vegetable broth (don't forget you can make your own! see recipe!)

1/3 cup of mint, rinsed and lightly chopped

Salt

Pepper

Plain yogurt or sour cream for a garnish

For the Caesar:

1 head of kale, about 3 cups rinsed and chopped finely (and I keep the stems, not everyone does...)

Olive oil

2 cups of chilled, prepared polenta (**) chopped into cubes or longish cubes

1 egg entire, and 1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon of dijon mustard

2 cloves of garlic, peeled

1/4 cup of loosely packed basil 

2 tablespoons of lemon juice or white vinegar

1/4 cup of olive oil

1/3 cup of finely grated parmesan cheese

Chop onions and celery and saute in a soup pan with a thin coat of olive oil over medium heat until the two vegetables soften.

Add garlic and broth.

Simmer over medium-low heat for about 15 minutes.

Blanche peas (add to boiling water, and then after 3 minutes submerge in cold water to save the color and texture) and afterwards drain peas and add to soup. Continue to simmer gently over **low heat-- making sure not to cook it so hard that you ruin the nice bright green color of the peas! 

Using leftover, chilled and shaped polenta, (**Prepare polenta as normal in a pan on the stove about 2 tablespoons of butter or olive oil, 6 cups of water and 1 cups of polenta stirring constantly and cooking for about 30 minutes over medium heat, spread cooked polenta onto cookie sheets, you can bake it and then chill it or just chill it. Chill it long enough (about 2 hours) that it holds it shape. Cut into pieces.) fry in a 1/4" deep layer of olive oil over medium heat until all sides are golden brown. This takes attention and filling constantly so as not to overcook any one side. 

Meanwhile, harvest your mint...errr prep your mint if you don't have a plant to harvest from in your kitchen garden (though I recommend it!)

Those polenta coutons take about 15-20 minutes to get to the right level of crispiness/goldenness (unless you have a deep fryer, I sure don't!) so keep watching them as your finish your soup with the mint...

Using a hand blender or regular blender, mix mint and soup together, tasting to see if you might like to add salt. I prefer my soup about 85% smooth and 15% rustically chunky, so I quit blending it when it got to that consistency. Cover and remove from heat-- heating it more at this point will cook out the mint flavor.

In a small food processor, add all ingredients for caesar dressing (egg, egg yolk, dijon, garlic, basil, lemon juice/vinegar) except** the oil. Blend all ingredients and then slowly blend in the oil, drizzling just a little bit at a time, which will emulsify the egg and acid, creating a creamy dressing. 

 All done it will look like this:

Coat your finely chopped kale with the dressing and parmesan cheese.

At this point (finally!) your polenta croutons should be complete-- let them drain on a paper towel to remove excess oil.

Add more cheese, salt and pepper so that the salad tastes as you like.

And serve!

I garnished the minted pea soup with a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of baby mint.

Early Spring: Green Garlic, Peas N' Potatoes

[Buttered English Pea Salad with Romaine lettuce, Shallots and Roasted Garlic]

and

[Vegan Potato and Leek Soup with Roasted Garlic]



Hello loves,
It's basically spring-- I have been digging in the garden for AJ and the little borage sprouts have already come up, the earth worms are abundant, the daffodils have already begun to daffodil (!) the tulips are as tall as my hand--- it is happening. The world is thawing out. I am so thankful.

Now that I am gardening with AJ I feel the push for spring but also can tell you, unless you have a green house nothing is mature enough to harvest yet. We just planted our peas, lettuce, garbanzos and parsley, just last week!

But in the spirit of spring, this post deals with all of the fruits of spring: onions, garlic, lettuce and peas! And potatoes are a keeper crop, so you have them all year basically, this is a very seasonal dinner.

This post is 100% vegan (if you use non-dairy butter for the peas, and leave off the recommended goat cheese garnish) 100% gluten free and 100% vegetarian...though, if you want, which I will recommend at the bottom, both dishes would benefit from a sprinkling of crispy bacon, chopped into tiny pieces...just saying, for all you omnivores out there.

P.s. (all photos by ME!!! And not with my iPhone either, woot!!)


For Roasted Garlic (both dishes):
2 heads of garlic, whole, wrapped loosely in aluminum foil

For the Leek and Potato Soup:
Olive oil
1 large leek, white through light green section sliced into half moons, rinsed thoroughly
1 medium yellow onion, diced
5 peeled russet potatoes, roughly chopped
2 cups of veggie stock
2 raw garlic cloves, minced
About 5 roasted garlic cloves, minced
1-2 cups of unsweetened almond milk
Salt and pepper to taste
*Optional Garnish: Caramelized (green park of) leeks, sliced thinly (see below for preparation)




For the English Pea Salad:
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 shallot, finely chopped
5 cloves of roasted garlic, chopped 
Salt, to taste
1½ cups fresh or frozen green peas
1-1/2 of a head of Romaine lettuce (about 2 cups, prepped, washed, cored, and torn into large pieces
 Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
*Optional Garnish: crumbled chevre


To begin, preheat oven to 375 degrees, place aluminum foil wrapped garlic heads in oven. Let bake for 30-45 minutes. You'll smell the amazing smell wafting in your kitchen and you'll know when it is ready.

Next, prep your ingredients for your soup-- I am making an extra big batch in these photos, so ignore the discrepancy between the amount of potatoes I listed and the amount of potatoes depicted-- my potatoes went south super fast (that is why they were on sale, dangit) so I decided to throw them all in....

You must must MUST thoroughly wash your leeks, the best way to do this is by chopping them and placing them in a bowl of cold water to bathe for about 10 minutes--- agitate the water with your hands and then let them sit, drain them with a colander after. Leeks tend to get dirt throughout their green stalk and in between their layers, so this is really the only way to wash them completely.

Saute the diced yellow onion, and chopped potatoes over medium high heat for about 5-10 minutes, until the onions are clear and the potatoes start to get some color on them. Stir frequently.

Add the veggie stock (so that the ingredients are covered), and raw garlic and turn the heat to medium. Allow the potatoes and onions to simmer for about 10-15 minutes, until the potatoes are so soft that you can stick a fork in them easily.

Once the potatoes are soft, add the washed and drained leeks and let simmer for another 5-7 minutes on medium low-- you don't want to cook them so hard that the leeks lose their beautiful color but you do want to infuse their flavor in your soup.

Oh yeah, and then AJ got home!

While the leeks are simmering, take the butter (if you are using vegan butter, ignore my 'god-awful' dairy butter, hehe) and melt gently in a saute pan. Add the sliced shallots and all them to turn golden brown over medium heat. About 5 minutes.

At this point, your garlic is likely done. Unwrap and you will find lovely, roasted garlic adorably shriveled up in its skin. Let cool before you peel and chop or you will burn yourself (as I did, even this time)

In a pot of boiling water, blanch your peas.

***Blanching: plunge any vegetable, this time peas-- into a pot of boiling water for 2-5 minutes until they are a vibrant color and softened. Then immediately plunge them in a bowl of ice water ("shock them") and then drain.

While the peas are in their blanching process, cut up roasted garlic cloves for your pea salad and your potato soup.

Add garlic (5 cloves) to the golden brown shallots and butter. Let melt into the buttery mixture on medium low heat for about 3-5 minutes. Then remove from heat.

Plunge peas into ice bath, and then drain.

Mix peas with torn lettuce, butter-shallot-garlic mixture in a salad bowl.

Garnish with goat cheese if you so desire.

Meanwhile, your potato soup is nearly ready to be blended now. Add cloves of roasted garlic and blend about 1/2 of the contents of your soup, adding almond milk to taste and create the consistency that you like. I prefer a creamy-blended potato broth with chunks of potato and leek. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.

In a saute pan over medium high heat, drizzle olive oil and add the green leeks. Saute until then begin to brown. Add as a garnish on top of your soup. Serve with crusty bread if you so desire.

*You can also add finely chopped or crumbled bacon to either of these dishes to make them more complete for omnivores' tastes :) If you do that, I would begin your bacon as you blanch the peas so that it is ready by the time you serve your food.

Serve the salad at room temperature.

Bon appetit!

Tom Kha Soup (with Rice Noodles)

Tom Kha soup, also known as the most delicious, creamy, flavor-explosive soup known to man.

Know stories this time, let's just get down to business:

You will need:

**This recipe is completely gluten free and vegan EXCEPT** for the fish sauce, which you can leave out and replace with tamari, if you decide. However if you are ok with ingesting animal products, I highly recommend the very pungent saltiness of fish sauce over the tamari, it really is much fuller flavor.

The broth:

32 ounces of veggie stock

2 fifteen ounce cans of organic coconut milk (full fat)

2 lemongrass chunks as long as your middle finger and as fat as your thumb, cut into rounds and crushed with the butt of your knife

1 thumb sized piece of ginger, cut into chunky pieces (you don't have to skin it)

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut into chunky pieces

5-7 kaffir lime leaves (these are sometimes hard to find, either fresh in the herb section or dry, when I do find them I buy bulk and keep them in my freezer)**if you can't find them, quarter a whole lime as a replacement in addition to the other lime for the broth

1/2 of a lime, cut into chunks, skin on

2 butts of yellow onion (the useless part of the onion that you use for broth)

1 heaping tablespoon of brown sugar

1 heaping tablespoon of chili-garlic paste or srirachi

1.5 tablespoons of fish sauce (**or tamari)

4-6 cremini or button mushrooms, washed and cut into thin half moons

3 green onions, chopped (both white and green part)

Toppings:

7 ounces of firm tofu, cut into bite-sized slices

1 lb of rice noodles

1/3 of a red cabbage, sliced in thin shavings

2 handfuls of bean sprouts

8 baby tomatoes, quartered

Garnish:

1/3 of a bunch of cilantro, chopped

wedges of lime

First, prep your broth flavorings. You really want to bruise and smash the lemongrass and the ginger with the butt of your knife to help release the flavor.

In your soup pot, add a tablespoon of coconut oil on medium heat and lightly saute all of the broth ingredients to release the flavor-- about 3 minutes. Add the veggie stock and the coconut milk. Cover the pot and let the ingredients simmer  on medium low in the liquid for at least 45 minutes to an hour.

While the broth is getting flavorful, simmering away, fry the tofu in coconut oil. I spiced mine with garlic salt, cayenne and turmeric. Set aside once they are complete.

At this point, start the water boiling in a separate pot to cook the rice noodles for the soup.

After the broth has simmered for at least 45 minutes, strain the chunks out of it with a strainer or with a colander, and then return the liquid back to the stove. Over medium low heat, add the brown sugar, the chili sauce (or srirachi) and the fish sauce (or tamari).

Allow the broth to continue to simmer on low, meanwhile prep all of your veggies (if they aren't already).

And add your rice pasta to the boiling water, cook 6-8 minutes, until soft but still chewy.

Add the chopped mushrooms and green onions to the broth to let them get soft and soak up the flavor of the soup, they need to be in the broth on medium-low heat for about  7-10 minutes to get to that
"perfectly delicate" texture.

Finish prepping whatever is left (you'll want tomatoes, cilantro, lime wedges, red cabbage and bean sprouts)

Drain your rice noodles:

Now start building your soup! Noodles, veggies, tofu, broth, topped with bean sprouts, tomatoes, cilantro and a wedge of lime squeezed over the whole thing.

When AJ took this photo, the kitchen smelled so much of mouth-watering lemongrass coconuty-ness, and I said to him a moment before he snapped the shot "Can we just eat now, please?"

Enjoy!!!!!!!!! xoxoxo