To celebrate the holiday season, we prepared a comforting chestnut soup and a festive fruit salad.
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We cut fruit wedges from a variety of citrus fruits… |
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…and combined them with cherries, kiwi, pomegranate seeds, and slivered almonds into a colorful fruit salad.
Here is the recipe. |
| …Then, with the help of some friends, we embarked on the laborious task of peeling rare American chestnuts grown in the Frame farm nearby… |  |
| … and prepared a hearty chestnut soup.Here is the recipe. |  |
Today, we prepared two simple dishes that are mainstays of their cuisines.
The first was pan-roasted plantain, a staple in Latin America and the Carribean. The secret of this dish is to wait for the plantain’s skin to turn black as show by the left picture. Black = Sweet.
The second was baba ghanoush, a roasted eggplant dip that is very popular in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Here are the recipes.
Today, we continued to take advantage of locally-grown greens by preparing them in three ways. First, we prepared collard greens in an Indonesian-inspired coconut milk sauce. We prepared the coconut milk by extracting juices from a coconut.
Second, we prepared red chards with ground beef in a guisado, a Philippine-style sauté. Finally, we prepared Chinese broccoli with soy sauce.
Here are the recipes.
Today, we prepared Ribollita, a hearty Italian soup. We paired Tuscan cabbage (aka lacinato kale, dino kale) with cannellini white kidney beans, supported by onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes. We finished the dish with Italian peasant bread, a splash of olive oil, and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.
Here is the recipe.
Today, we prepared Masala Dal, a protein-rich legume dish that is a classic in Indian cuisine. We boiled yellow split peas in water, puréed, and then seasoned it with salt. While the peas were cooking, we prepared oil seasoned with mustard seeds, browned onions, and a bit of cayenne pepper. Here is the Masala Dal recipe.
We served the dish with pita bread toasted with ghee. As an accompaniment, we prepared a Tomato and Yoghurt Salad with chopped tomatoes mixed with yoghurt, sour cream, green pepper, and a mustard seed-flavored oil. Here is the Tomato and Yogurt Salad recipe.
Today, we started our our culinary adventure producing curry powder from whole spices. We continued by using the curry to flavor green beans and chick pea (garbanzo) flour. Freshly grated coconut and cloves sweetened the dish.
We culminated the adventure by explaining how to separate the coconut meat from its shell.
Here are the recipes.
Today, we made garam masala spice mixture, starting with whole spices. The process took some time to complete but it was very satifying to make a fragrant blend that is much better than the pre-mixed variety.
We produced enough garam masala for several dishes. As a start, we made stuffed cauliflower, a specialty from the Marahashtra state of India. This state may not be familiar but it’s capital, Mumbai (aka Bombay) certainly is. The stuffing consisted of a garlic paste with spices. The cauliflower was steamed first, then combined with a tomato sauce that included garam masala and other spices. The dish was well-received by our Co-op clientele.
To balance the rich flavors of the stuffed cauliflower dish, we also prepared a cool dish called Cucumber and Yoghurt Salad, also known as a Cucumber Raita.
Here are the recipes.
Today, Khun Sunee treated our Co-op members and friends with a green Thai curry with eggplants and mushrooms and a red Thai curry with tofu, mushrooms and peanut sauce. She toned down the pungent spices to appeal to our audience, but the dishes still received a very warm reception. The curries were served with steamed jasmine rice.
Sweet pumpkin rice cakes complimented the curries. Thank you, Khun Sunee and Tong!
Here are the recipes.
Today, we had a guest cook, Khun Sunee, who is a visiting scholar at St. Olaf College and a culinary teacher in her native Thailand. She was assisted by Tong, a St. Olaf student from Thailand.
In such capable hands, we produced three dishes that can constitute a complete meal. For starters, we served Tom Yum Tofu Soup, a sour and pungent soup with tofu and mushrooms. For the main course, we had Pad Thai, a stir-fry rice noodle dish. Finally, for dessert, we offered Kluay Buat Chee, or banana in a sweet coconut syrup.
Here are the recipes.
A great soup begins with simple ingredients — some meat, vegetable or seafood with water and salt. Today we start with a chicken broth and then enhance it to prepare a family of delicious soups. Happy New Year!
Here are the recipes involving chicken broth.
Here is the recipe for a rich vegetable broth that can substitute the chicken broth.
Luigi Cooks 