Invite A Blogger to Your Table - Poor Man's Soup

I know I've said it before, but community is one of my favorite things about having a cooking blog and events like Val's Invite a Blogger to Your Table are what it's all about. The idea is to invite another blogger, someone you've been following for years, or someone you don't know (yet!) to make a recipe with you (virtually or in person) and both blog about it on the same day. The rules are simple:

1) Choose a dish to prepare and invite one blogger to create that dish with you. You can source your recipe from a cookbook, magazine, blog or any other source. Your dish can be sweet or savory; easy or complicated.
2) Decide upon a date that you can both mutually post your recipe within a 4 week time frame.
3) Link back to More Than Burnt Toast somewhere in your post.
4) Please feel free to use the Avatar/Badge above "Invite a Blogger to Your Table".
5) Once you have made your dish with your blogging friend or friends and posted it, you can choose to STOP or CONTINUE on and invite another blogger to your table to make something DIFFERENT on a mutually agreeable date within the next 4 week time frame.
6) If you would like to, please e-mail Val at bloggerstable(AT)gmail(DOT)com for no other reason than to let her know you have participated. She would love to see what you have accomplished.
7) Cut and paste these instructions into your post and contact a friend. Let magic happen and let's get cooking!!!


When Giz from Equal Opportunity Kitchen invited me to make this old country recipe with her - one that her mom recently gave her (thanks Baba!) - I was delighted. There's something so seductive about simple recipes. There seems to be a higher degree of magic involved. When you look at some recipe lists with their exotic spices and fresh herbs and the like, you think "well of course that's going to be good!" But the bare culinary truth is that sometimes with 5 ingredients or less you can make the magic happen.

I also like the idea of a country recipe that's actually perfect for the season. Back in the days before fruits and vegetables were available year round in supermarkets, I think by the end of the winter, the only vegetables left in places like here were those that had survived in root cellars, like potatoes. It's not like potatoes never go bad, but if you keep them cool dry, it takes a very long time! Hence the ubiquitous potato (and other root vegetables) in my winter CSA. I used up the last few that were starting to sprout in this recipe and now I'm looking forward to spring veggies, like the spinach I got last week!

So if you're looking to use up the last potatoes, or combat the spring sniffles, I highly recommend this recipe!

Burnt Soup or Poor Man's Soup

1 medium onion, diced
2 tbsp oil (I used olive)
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
5-6 cups water, boiled
4-5 medium potatoes diced
salt and pepper to taste

1. Fry onion in oil until it's brown but not burned
2. Add flour and make a roux
3. Add water, stir to incorporate the flour and add the potatoes
4. Cook over medium heat until potatoes get soft
5. Add salt and pepper to taste

I executed this recipe exactly as written (you other foodies will recognize the self-control that takes) because I wanted to taste it the way it's written. This simple soup is surprisingly delicious. In the end, I added 2 large garlic cloves, minced and half a bunch of parsley, chopped, for the flavor and the immune system booster. I cooked it another 10 minutes with those ingredients and served with whole grain brain.

Even D. who "doesn't like soup", said "mmmm, your potatoes with sauce are delicious!"
Now head on over and check out Giz's version!

Squash-Leek Soup with Coconut Milk and How to Survive Spring

Some people call the season that starts on March 20th Spring, but I prefer to call it "be prepared for anything." We are now in the transition space, the exciting first warm days space, the back to cold snaps space, the first few flowers space and the everybody gets a cold space.

How is it that we blog all winter long (and thank goodness we do) about how to survive the cold and the dreariness, but nobody blogs about how to survive the coming of spring?


I would suggest that the way to do so it is two-fold:

1. Go outside and enjoy the flowers - or early bird songs, or first snow melts, or the visibly longer days. Get some sun on your face. Take some pictures. Sit in the park and watch the kids play (can you believe people pay me to do that? I love it.). Look for the little changes every day.


And...

2. Have some good soup on hand. The nights are still cold. April showers are on their way, and if you come down with a cold (as I did this week), you'll be happy to have some homemade soup waiting to be heated up and make you feel better.

Happy spring everybody!!



1 Tbsp ghee (or butter)
1 onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp curry powder
1 small piece of fresh ginger, minced
1 pinch cayenne
1 winter squash
chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup coconut milk

Melt the ghee in a large pot on low heat and add the onions and leeks. Leave to caramelize slowly. In the meantime, peel the squash and chop into cubes. Turn up the stove to medium heat and add the garlic and spices. Cook 1 or 2 minutes, stirring. Add the squash and enough broth to just cover it. Add 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Bring to boil, cover and simmer until the squash is tender (about 20 minutes). Add the rest of the coconut milk and puree the soup (in batches in a mixer, or with an immersion blender). Serve hot.

Lyon and Le Sathonay

Anne, me and a parapluie overlooking Lyon

I know, I know, I wrote about my 3-year blogoversary and then promptly disappeared for over a month. Not cool. The thing is, I've been focusing my creative talents pretty intensely on my acting career right now, a necessary and fun development. I thought about closing my blog all together, but I realized that when I have time for it, I still enjoy exchanging with my blogging friends and having a place for my recipes and thoughts about food (of which I still have many). So, I decided I just wouldn't worry about how often I posted, and I hope you all will forgive me for my intermittent presence!

The Saône

This weekend, D. and I went on a mini-getaway to Lyon to visit our friend Anne and explore the second largest city in France. Lyon is unique in that, not one, but two major rivers run through it: the Saône and the Rhone, and it is surrounded by two hills: "the hill that works," traditionally were the blue-collar workers lived and "the hill that prays," where traditionally the priests lived and where there are still quite a few churches.

And the Rhone (never get on a river's bad side by playing favorites)

Before we left, everyone told us that there's lots of good food in Lyon and I have to say that in general we found this to be true, especially on Saturday night when Anne brought us to one of her favorite little restaurants called Le Sathonay.


The traditional restaurants in Lyon are called "bouchon lyonnais," of which this was one, and true to typical lyonnais cuisine there were plenty on animal guts on the menu...er, I mean...[insert classier term that means the same thing here]. Of course if you like that sort of thing, I'm sure this would be a great place for it because everything we tried there was delicious. Also the staff was nice and attentive without being overbearing - just the right kind of service.


I started with the cervellé de canut and ham, which sounds like the brain of an unidentified animal, but is actually a kind of creamy cheese with herbs and garlic. It was absolutely delicious but you have to get everyone at the table to eat some (don't worry, I did) because you'll have major garlic breath afterward!


Then I had the special of the day, which was pork filet mignon cooked with spiced and potatos au gratin. The meat was very tender and moist and the spice-blend delicious. I wasn't hungry for dessert, but I had to try the creme brulée with rum anyway, and I'm very glad I did. I forgot until about half-way through to take a picture. We topped the whole thing off with some very decent lyonnais red wine and some digestifs at the end before heading back up the "hill that prays" for a quite night's sleep.


One of the strangest things about the trip was that it made me realize that somewhere in the last four years, I have become a true Parisian. I kept thinking "this is nice, but it's not Paris" and when we got back off the train at the Gare de Lyon (in Paris - I know it's confusing), I immediately thought "ah, home." Paris feels like home. It smells like home. Even the annoying people in the metro and big city noises that float in through the windows, all make me think "home." I feel like I belong to this city and this city belongs to me. I never thought that would happen. But there you go.

Typical Lyon blues

(thanks to D. for some of these photos!)

Blogoversary 3 Years Old: Oh The Places You'll Go

On February 1st, 2008, without a clue where it would take me or even what the word "blogosphere" might mean, I launched Hopie's Kitchen. Basically the idea was to be able to find my recipes in one place and to vent my frustration about the metric system. So far, these have been minor effects compared to the joy of meeting other bloggers, sharing cooking experiences and seeing my recipes-to-try folder grow exponentially. Recently, I have been less present than in the beginning - as I have focused more on my career and (yay!) actually made friends in the city that was at the time new and scary - and I've left off posting in French for now (props to Rosa who still manages a bilingual blog!), but I still enjoy blogging just as much, if not more. These days, I care more about quality and less about quantity. I share the stories I want to share and don't worry about getting every recipe out there.

In my last post, I tried to come to terms with being surrounded by the gray Parisian winter. And I thought, in the spirit of chasing the winter blues, I'd honor my blogoversary with some pictures of the fun adventures we've had together (virtually, of course) and the things we've eaten on them, since Feb 2008.

One of the first places we went, and the place we've been the most often on this blog is Rockport, my family's vacation spot:


We've eaten lots of good food here, including Scallops with Roasted Peppers and Green Beans and this Green Gazpacho:


We went to visit friends in Greenwich (where it also appears to be quite gray, so Paris is in good company!):


And had Cottage Pie (or Hachi Parmentier, as the French would say):


We went to Lady Mendl's Tea Room in New York:


And had Marbury Rose tea in honor of my godfather:


We spent a week discovering Gaudi, and tapas, and markets and bakeries in Barcelona:


and ate all sorts of amazing food. Iberian ham was a highlight:


We followed my love of Proust to Illiers-Combray:


Which inspired us to make these caramel treats that were certainly not Proust's mothers (or aunt's) madeleines!


I worked with a theater troupe doing farce in St. Benoit du Sault:


And was extremely happy to come back to home-cooking, like this Garam Masala Salmon with Zucchini:


We went to Belize (I even took you all on my honeymoon - now that's blogging devotion ;-)):


And we made Garlic Shrimp with Marie Sharp's Hot Sauce:


And most recently, we went to Porto Portugal:


and tasted some pretty amazing port:


Here's to a 4th year, full of shared culinary adventures! It's been wonderful having you along for the ride!