Crankybunny

Yet another evening meal, cooked by yours truly, directed by the simply complex recipes of Alice Waters.

Tonight–no pictures–was carrot soup and sauteed Swiss chard.  The simplicity of these recipes are deceiving.  Well, maybe not.  Well, maybe. The soup had simple ingredients, but a process that was a tad bit more complicated.

Soup - Basically this consists of onions, carrots, potatoes, and lets call it broth for it was supposed to be broth (it was, in reality, water with a little bit of veageny broth stuff in it for flavor - I forgot to buy broth and really, who in NYC has room in their freezer for all sorts of broths–except turkey broth–and seafood broth–never mind)  So you saute the onions, throw in the carrots and potatoes for a bit, cover with "broth" and cook until done.  Done cooking the carrots at least. 

Next step.  Puree–by whatever methods available.  Since the mini-prep food chopper died a few months back and the Big ‘un is in "storage" at Mom & Dad’s we were stuck with the blender a.k.a. frozen drink maker.  Throw in a bunch of cilantro (coriander if we’re being fancy) and pulverize.  Nope this isn’t all.  Then take the pulverized mix and, yes, send it through a sieve–using whatever utensils necessary.  I used a fancy whisk, a too big spatula and a spoon.  Only three utensils for one job.  Hmmmm.

Then the garnish.  This was actually easy.  Some red onion, a jalapeno, some more cilantro and some lime juice. Ta da. 

When ready, reheat the soup, shove the chard in a saute pan for 5 minutes add hot pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Squirt with lemon and you’re done.

Then you have to do the dishes…

Regardless, the recipes are yummy.  The soup wasn’t really too thick like many other creamy (without cream) soups can be and the chard had an added something with the tart lemon flavor.  Rich parried by tangy.  A bit of bread and we’re happy as a clam at high tide.