Tag: Onions
tomato soup with cheese & garlic toast
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This tomato soup was a revelation to me when I first made it. It’s based on a recipe in Peter Berley’s book The Flexitarian Table. How can a soup be so yummy, creamy and rich without any cream or butter in it? I think you’ll love it. In the summer, you can use our local carrots and onions to make it, and it’s wonderful, but I make this recipe all year long. I think it makes a difference to use really good canned tomatoes and tomato paste, and I like Muir Glen.
If you serve the soup alongside Rise & Shine Bakery’s toasted Alaskan cheese & roasted garlic bread, it’s like a gourmet flashback to the toasted cheese and tomato soup cafeteria lunches you ate at school long ago… still comforting and warming, but a lot yummier! I always make a double batch of the soup, because it freezes really well!
Serve this soup with any kind of a simple green vegetable or savory salad, like roasted broccoli with garlic, or roasted brussels sprouts, or green cauliflower with parsley and green olives, or grilled zucchini.
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups thinly sliced onions (3-4 medium)
sea salt or kosher salt
1 head of garlic, cloves separated and peeled
2 medium carrots (peeled if the skins are tough), sliced
large pinch of red pepper flakes, or to taste
2 tablespoons tomato paste
28-ounce can of whole plum tomatoes or diced tomatoes in juice
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water (I use broth left over from cooking white beans with onion and garlic)
two 2-inch strips of orange zest, removed with a vegetable peeler
1 teaspoon dried sage
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, for garnish when serving
Alaskan cheese & roasted garlic bread, or other hearty whole-grain bread
1. I slice the onions and carrots in the food processor—this is especially time-saving if you’re doing a double batch. Just cut off the stem end of the carrots and push them down through the narrow feed tube, pushing with the pusher cup.
2. In a heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and ½ teaspoon salt and cook, stirring, until the onions have softened—5 minutes or so. Add the garlic cloves, carrots, and pepper flakes, lower the heat, cover, and cook until the vegetables are sweet and juicy and tender, but not browned, 20 minutes or so. Check and stir occasionally, adding a few tablespoons of water if the vegetables are dry.
3. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes with their juice, the stock or water, orange zest and sage and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and discard the orange zest. Puree the soup with an immersion blender, or in batches in a blender. It’s easiest to do this if you’ve let the soup cool for a while first. Season with salt if you like, but I didn’t find it necessary because of the salt already added to the onions and in the canned tomatoes. Reheat the soup before serving, and add water to thin the soup if it seems too thick.
5. If you’re just serving 1 or 2 people, toast slices of the bread in the toaster. If you’re serving several people, heat the oven to 350 degrees and put the whole loaf in the oven, unwrapped and unsliced, for 15 minutes to heat and re-crisp the crust.
6. Ladle the soup into bowls, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve with bread or toast on the side.
rainbow chard sauteed with chard stems and onions
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You’re going to love this recipe with the fresh chard from the market! You can use rainbow chard, or red chard, or (my favorite) Swiss chard for this recipe.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
sea salt or kosher salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 bunches rainbow chard, stems diced into ½-inch pieces and leaves washed and sliced into 1-inch slices
1. Heat the olive oil and sauté the onions and the chard stems over medium heat with a teaspoon of salt until tender, adding a couple tablespoons of water every now and then when the pan dries out and the vegetables start sticking. You can cover the pan with a lid for this part if you like. This will probably take about 10 minutes.
2. Add the garlic and sauté for another couple of minutes. Then add the chard leaves and sauté for another 5-10 minutes, until the chard leaves are lovely and tender. Taste for salt, and add more to taste.
zucchini & tomato gratin
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This recipe is exactly what to do with the big, beautiful zucchinis you can find at the Farmers’ Market! This dish is just fantastic—savory from the thyme, sweet from the onions, and just delicious from the really fresh zucchinis and tomatoes. The recipe was inspired by a recent Cook’s Illustrated recipe, although simplified. It’s easier than lasagna but I think tastes just as good (maybe even better)!
The salting and draining is necessary to keep the gratin from being soupy. It really works—after you take it out of the oven and let it sit for 10 minutes, it slices nicely without making a big lake on your plate.
3 pounds zucchini, ends trimmed and sliced into ¼-inch thick rounds
sea salt or kosher salt
2-3 large ripe tomatoes, about 1 pound
olive oil
3-4 medium onions, halved lengthwise and sliced thinly, pole to pole (about 5 or 6 cups)
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme, or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
2 slices hearty bread (I prefer whole wheat sourdough)
2 medium shallots, minced (or substitute minced onion)
1. Coat a 13x9-inch baking dish with olive oil; set aside.
2. Toss zucchini slices with 1 teaspoon salt in a large bowl; transfer to a colander and let sit for about 45 minutes to let plenty of liquid drain out.
3. Toss tomato slices with ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl, and let sit for 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, heat 1-2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions, ½ teaspoon salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are softened and golden-brown, about 15 minutes. Set the onions aside.
5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
6. Drain the zucchini thoroughly.
7. Combine garlic, 3 tablespoons olive oil, ½ teaspoon pepper, and thyme in a small bowl. In large bowl, toss zucchini with the garlic mixture, then arrange in overlapping rows in the baking dish. Arrange caramelized onions in an even layer over zucchini.
8. Drain the tomatoes in the colander, then arrange the slices in a single layer on top of the onions. Bake until vegetables are tender and tomatoes are starting to brown around the edges, 40 to 45 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, process bread in food processor until finely ground. You should have about 1 ½ cups of crumbs. Combine bread crumbs, 1 tablespoon olive oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and shallots in a medium bowl. Remove baking dish from the oven and sprinkle bread crumb mixture evenly on top of tomatoes. Bake gratin until bubbling and the bread crumbs are nicely browned, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving.
Swiss chard with cumin, tomatoes, and cilantro
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This recipe is deceptive—maybe it doesn’t look all that phenomenal, but I’m telling you, it is fabulous. The fresh Swiss chard at the market now is so sweet and delicious, and those big red tomatoes are so good… You can get fresh cilantro, and I even used Alaskan storage onions! Even if you don’t have the cilantro, make this anyway!
It’s a variation of a recipe in a Cooks’ Illustrated from many years ago. I have all the back issues, and I love mining them for good ideas!
If you happen to have a fresh jalepeno hanging around, by all means use it, but otherwise, just use a small can of chopped green chiles. I always keep a few cans in the pantry just for these sorts of occasions. The chiles really do add a great taste.
I ate this with spicy roasted cauliflower with red peppers and cumin and a little brown basmati rice (recipes in the cookbook and on the website), and it was SO GOOD!
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, minced
sea salt or kosher salt
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 medium jalepeno pepper, OR 1 small can chopped green chiles
1 ½ teaspoons cumin
2 large tomatoes, chopped
2 pounds Swiss chard with stems
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
freshly-ground black pepper
1. Wash the chard and cut the stems off each leaf. Holding the stems in a bundle, cut them into ½-inch slices. If the leaves are large, slice them into 1-inch wide ribbons, but if they are small, you can leave them whole. Drain the leaves, but don’t dry them.
2. Heat oil in a large saute pan. Add onion and ½ teaspoon of salt, sauté for a minute or two until starting to soften, then add the chard stems. Cook until stems are tender and onion is cooked. How long this takes will depend on the age of the chard. If the pan is drying out before the stems are tender, just add a bit of water to steam them and finish cooking them.
3. Then add the garlic, chiles, and cumin; sauté another minute or so. Add the tomatoes and cook until their juices release, about another minute. Add wet greens to the pan, stir around a bit, then cover and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until greens completely wilt but are still bright green, about 5 minutes. Uncover, and if needed, finish cooking until just tender. Add cilantro. Taste and season with additional salt if desired, and pepper if it’s not spicy enough already from the chiles.
basic vegetable stock
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I always make a big batch of this very easy stock, and then freeze the extra. You can make a half batch if you like, but why would you want to? Don’t be tempted to boil it longer than 30 minutes—it can turn bitter, and it doesn’t need any longer than that, anyway.
2 large onions
6 large carrots
6 celery ribs
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
16 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
16 parsley branches
1 teaspoon dried thyme (or 12 sprigs of fresh thyme)
4 bay leaves
sea salt or kosher salt
1. Scrub the vegetables and chop them roughly into 1-inch chunks. Heat the oil in a large soup pot and add the vegetables and herbs and 1 teaspoon salt and cook over high heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently. The more color they get, the richer the flavor of the stock.
2. Add 2 more teaspoons salt and 4 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, uncovered for 30 minutes. Strain.
fresh tomato sauce
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I admit, if I didn’t have a friend with a really big greenhouse, I’d never make tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes. If you are lucky enough to have lots of fresh tomatoes on hand, you can increase the amount of sauce accordingly, to freeze. It’s a variation on one of Lynne Rosetto Kaspar’s tomato sauce recipes in The Italian Country Table. Most tomato sauce recipes (including hers) tell you to use a food mill to get rid of the skins at the end of the process, but 1) I don’t have a food mill, and 2) I like my sauce chunky. So I just peeled the tomatoes at the beginning to avoid the little tough bits of skin in the sauce.
sauce
2 pounds ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, minced fine
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced fine (the easiest way I’ve found is to use a coffee grinder)
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper
2 large cloves garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon sugar
pasta & toppings
½ pound pasta, such as spaghetti. (I prefer whole-wheat.)
kalamata olives, quartered lengthwise
chopped parsley
1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. You can use this water to prepare the tomatoes, and then to boil the pasta, so wash your tomatoes first. Mark an “X” in the bottom of each tomato with a serrated knife. Put 3 or 4 tomatoes in the water at a time for 30 seconds to a minute, until the skin starts to peel away from the “X.” Remove tomatoes with a slotted spoon, and cool in a bowl as you dip the other tomatoes. Peel the skin off the tomatoes and remove the core with a paring knife. Cut the peeled tomatoes into wedges.
2. Heat the oil in a heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and ½ teaspoon salt and sauté the onions to golden-brown, stirring often with a wooden spatula.
3. Stir in the rosemary, garlic, tomatoes, and sugar. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring often and scraping down the sides of the pot. Cook about 15 minutes, until the tomatoes have thickened and the tomato flesh is softened.
4. At this point, you’ll probably still have lots of chunks of tomato flesh in the pot. If you like it chunky, leave it this way. I wanted it a little smoother, though, so I used an immersion blender to puree some of the tomato pieces into the sauce. It still left the sauce quite chunky. If you don’t have an immersion blender, put some of the sauce into a blender and puree.
5. Now, stir it all around and taste it. Add more salt until you have the right balance of flavors. If you want the sauce to be thicker, boil it down some more.
6. Salt the tomato-dipping water and bring it back to a boil. Cook your pasta in that fiercely boiling water until done to your liking.
7. Serve the pasta with generous amounts of sauce, and top with a sprinkling of olives and parsley.
Savoy cabbage and sage on pasta with toasted walnuts
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I love this recipe! Here’s another of my pasta recipes that has loads of vegetables and not so much pasta. Healthy, healthy, healthy! Make this especially when you can get fresh Alaskan Savoy cabbage—it’s so sweet and delicious! The combination of sweet, browned onions, sweet Alaskan carrot slices, and the salty, toasted walnuts… it’s fantastically flavorful Fall food! It’s inspired by a recipe in rebar modern food.
One nice thing about this recipe is that you don’t need to put any cheese on it, because of the salty, roasty-toasty walnuts. Try it with just the nuts before you heap Parmesan on it!
½ pound whole wheat pasta, or buckwheat soba
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion (or 2 medium onions), diced
sea salt or kosher salt
6 garlic cloves, minced
¼ teaspoon red chile flakes
1 tablespoon dried sage (or ¼ cup fresh sage, minced)
1 ½ teaspoons dried thyme (or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves)
1 medium head Savoy cabbage, halved, cored, and cut into ¼-inch thick ribbons
½ to 1 cup vegetable stock, bean broth, or water
3 medium carrots, cut into thin half-moon slices
1-2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (optional)
freshly ground pepper
½ cup walnuts, toasted for 15 minutes in a 350-degree oven
1-2 tablespoons toasted walnut oil (optional—but I love to use Loriva oil)
½ bunch parsley, leaves chopped finely
1. Bring a large pot of water to boil to cook the pasta.
2. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and sauté the onions with ½ teaspoon salt until golden. Add carrots and sauté for another couple of minutes, then add the garlic, chiles, and herbs for several more minutes.
3. Stir in the cabbage with another ½ teaspoon salt and the stock or water, and add enough stock to keep the cabbage from sticking in the pan. Continue to sauté the vegetables until the cabbage is tender.
4. Meanwhile, add a couple of tablespoons of salt to the boiling water and cook the pasta until tender.
5. Chop the walnuts coarsely and toss them in a small bowl with the toasted walnut oil (if using) and a generous pinch of salt.
6. Just before serving, taste the vegetables and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar to taste, but don’t overdo it—you want to be able to taste the flavors of the vegetables and the toasted walnuts.
7. To serve, put a small mound of pasta on each plate, and mound a big pile of vegetables on top. Sprinkle with toasted, salted walnuts and chopped parsley.
bubble & squeak, deconstructed (savory sauteed cabbage with roasted potatoes)
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“Bubble & squeak” is a British dish made of mashed potatoes and leftover cabbage, fried in a skillet until browned. Here’s my version, using different cooking methods for each of the two components, to bring out the best qualities of each vegetable. My version, though, is easier than the interminable and oily pan-frying of the original! I made it with local onions, local cabbage, and local new potatoes!
The cabbage part of the recipe is based on a galette filling recipe in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. You can double the recipe if you have a big enough skillet—the cabbage mixture keeps really well in the fridge or freezer.
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
4-8 ounces mushrooms, thinly sliced (but I’m sure this recipe would still be great even if you don’t have them!)
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried dill
6-8 cups thinly sliced green cabbage (Savoy or regular green cabbage)
¼ cup chopped parsley
---------------------------------------
garlic-roasted potatoes (recipe below)
1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and ½ teaspoon salt and sauté until golden, about 10 minutes. Then add the mushrooms, garlic, and herbs and cook until softened, about 10 minutes.
2. Add the cabbage, another ½ teaspoon salt, and ½ cup water. Cover and cook slowly until the cabbage is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes, turning it occasionally. Add more liquid as necessary. When tender, uncover and raise the heat to evaporate some excess moisture, but it’s OK if it’s a little soupy.
3. Stir in the parsley and season with salt and pepper.
4. Serve alongside garlic-roasted potatoes!
garlic-roasted potatoes
2 pounds waxy potatoes (such as Butterball, Yukon Gold, or Purple Viking)
garlic oil (recipe follows, in Step 1.)
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1. Make garlic oil: Mash or mince 3 or 4 garlic cloves and cover with ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil. Let steep for 30 minutes if you have time. Strain out the garlic and store the oil in the refrigerator.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the potatoes into small bite-sized pieces. Toss them in a bowl with a few spoonfuls of garlic oil, then sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of salt and toss well.
3. Lightly oil a large baking dish or sheet pan, and transfer the potatoes onto it, making sure that a cut side of each potato is touching the pan. (The side touching the pan will brown nicely). Roast the potatoes until tender and browned, 35 to 40 minutes. Scrape and toss the potatoes after 25 minutes or so to get more than one side browned.
cauliflower with raisins & pine nuts on pasta
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This is a really fun and unusual pasta dish! As usual, I make tons of veggies relative to the pasta! It’s based on a similar recipe in Peter Berley’s Modern Vegetarian Kitchen
I haven’t tried this without the saffron, and I’m sure it would still be good without it, but the saffron does add a nice flavor. You can find it at Summit Spice & Tea Co., along with really full-flavored bay leaves, hot pepper flakes, sea salt, and any other spice you might need for other dishes!
This makes a big batch, because our Alaskan cauliflowers are usually quite large, and it seems silly to give you a recipe for a half a cauliflower. It makes good leftovers, too! But if you want a small batch, just halve this recipe.
1 large cauliflower, cored and separated into smallish florets
sea salt or kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, diced
6 garlic cloves, minced
4 large bay leaves
½ teaspoon saffron
½ to 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (to your taste)
¼ cup tomato paste
1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
¾ cup raisins
1 cup water
½ cup dry white wine
½ pound pasta (spaghetti or rigatoni, for example—I like to use whole-wheat pasta)
½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
freshly-ground black pepper
½ cup pine nuts, toasted in a small skillet over medium heat until lightly browned
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add 2 tablespoons salt. Add the cauliflower and cook until just barely tender, about 3-4 minutes. Remove the cauliflower, but reserve the water for cooking the pasta.
2. While you’re waiting for the water to boil, sauté the onions in a large, non-stick skillet in the olive oil until golden-brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, bay leaves, saffron, and red pepper flakes and sauté for another 2 minutes.
3. Stir in the tomato paste, optional tomatoes, raisins, water and wine. Raise the heat and bring the sauce to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, add the cauliflower, and stir well to combine. Let it sit, off heat or on very low heat, while you cook the pasta.
4. Return the cauliflower water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until tender. Drain.
5. Add the parsley to the cauliflower sauce, and season to taste with salt and fresh-ground pepper. (It is likely to need quite a bit of salt. Don’t be shy!)
6. Put a small pile of pasta on each plate or pasta bowl, and pile high with cauliflower. Garnish with lots of toasted pine nuts. Try it first, and if you like, add Parmesan cheese!
zucchini soup (soupe aux courgettes)
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zucchini soup (soupe aux courgettes)
(contributed by Nancy)
This simple soup is a French recipe from The French Farmhouse Cookbook. You can puree the soup or leave it as is. The celadon broth with flecks of bright green is beautiful. It is good both hot and cold. It really benefits from the fresh herbs; otherwise the flavors are really flat.
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
3 cups (approximately) zucchini, grated
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water (enough to cover vegetables)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup (loosely packed) fresh basil leaves
1. In a large heavy saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until it begins to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the zucchini and stir to blend it with the onion. Then add the liquids.
2. Increase the heat just enough to bring the soup to a boil. Then decrease it so the soup is simmering. Cook, covered, until the zucchinis tender through, about 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Puree the soup in a food processor, blender, or wand mixer or leave it chunky.
4. Just before serving, cut the basil leaves into fine strips.
5. Serve the soup and sprinkle in the basil leaves at the last minute.
Cook’s notes: If you don’t have basil, I have added a combination of fresh marjoram and parsley.
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Each week I'm so excited to read the Farmer's Market newsletter. Alison's newsletters are so inspiring, especially when I can't figure out what to do with all these summer Alaskan vegetables. When my refrigerator is bursting with greens and cabbage, I know just where to look for easy and delicious recipes. I've become more creative and adventurous since reading the South Anchorage Farmers' Market Cookbook. Some of my favorites are the salad recipes, red lentils with zucchini and the butterball potato salad with green beans. 
