Garlic soup

The Goods*:

4 cloves garlic

2 cups vegetable stock

2 large leaves lacinto kale

1 egg

3 tbsp orzo

1 tsp olive oil

grated parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place three cloves of garlic, with the skin still on, in a small pyrex container in the oven for 15 minutes to roast. Finely mince the remaining clove of garlic. Remove the the skins from the roasted garlic and finely mince them as well.

Place the stock in a small saucepan on medium heat. When it comes to a simmer, add the garlic. Cook the garlic for five minutes in the stock. Roughly chop the kale. After five minutes, add the kale, olive oil, and orzo to the pan. Cook for 8 or so minutes, until the pasta is al dente. Break the egg in a small bowl. Add some fresh ground black pepper to the egg, ladle some stock in, and thoroughly beat the mixture. It is important to add the hot stock to temper the egg, so it does not instantly scramble when added to the soup. When the pasta has cooked, remove the pan from the heat. Slowly pour in the egg. Top with grated parmesan cheese and serve immediately.

*My random wandering on the NY Times website brought me to this recipe a few days ago. I thought that it might be better to start from stock instead of water (spoiler alert: It was). Also, I went with more garlic, because one can never get enough garlic.

Celery root and leek soup

The Goods*:

1.5 ounces flour (~3 tbsp)

1 ounce butter (~2 tbsp)

1 medium-sized leek (white part only)

3 cups milk

1 lb celery root

3 ounces cream

fresh lemon juice

Melt the butter over medium-low heat in your favorite soup-making pot. Add the flour and cook until the color of the roux matches your preferred shade of roux-done-ness. Cut the leek into 1/4" slices. Add the leek slices and a pinch of salt. Be sure to keep the contents of the pan moving to avoid the roux sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning. Cook until they've softened considerably, then add the milk. Allow the milk to come up to a simmer and thicken a bit. Trim the rough outer skin from the celery root. Slice the root into small cubes and reserve some for garnish, if you're into the whole presentation thing**.

Add the celery root chunks and cook in the milk until they are soft. Remove from the heat and add to the blender or food processor (this would be a good place to use an immersion blender). Pass the pureed soup through a strainer. Add the cream and a splash of fresh lemon juice before serving. This will provide five small starter portions, or probably a meal for two.

*This is a much more verbatim following of a Ratio^ recipe. In fact, Ruhlman talks about using Celery Root as the focus vegetable here. I swapped the onion for leek, because I've been on a leek spree of late and they are oh so tasty.

^If you cook at all, even a tiny bit, purchase this book. Today.

**I decided to save some and slice it thinly. I then fried these in canola oil to make celery root chips.

Leek + Other Vegetable Soup

The Goods:

2 good-sized leeks
3 red bliss potatoes
1 portabella mushroom cap
1 small shallot*
2 cloves garlic
1 handful fresh italian parsley
1 small pad butter
1 spritz olive oil
1/3 cup arborio (or any other, really) rice
6 cups vegetable stock/water**

Add the butter and oil to a large, heavy-bottomed sauce pan and set to medium heat. After washing the leeks, trim off the ends and slice them until you reach the solidly green portion of the steam. Discard the tough green part. Add the leeks and a pinch of salt to the pan. Saute the leeks on medium heat for a few minutes, then turn the heat down to low to continue sweating them. Slice the mushroom cap and finely chop the shallot, garlic, and parsley. As the leeks sweat, add the mushroom, shallot, garlic, and parsley in that order. Add a bit more salt and some cracked black pepper. Once the vegetables are soft, but before they've begun to burn and/or liquefy***, add the water/stock and potatoes. Bring the liquid to a boil (turn up the heat), then simmer on low for about half an hour (adding the rice after about 15 minutes), or until the rice and potatoes are cooked.

*One can always substitute any manner of onion for shallot, though I must say that once you get on the shallot train, it is really hard to get off (or, if you prefer the Rachel Ray vernacular, "THEY BRING A LOT TO THE PARTY." They really do.).

**In this case, I only had 3ish cups of vegetable stock on hand, so I made-up the rest of the liquid with water. Obviously, the more stock you use the greater the flavor of the soup. I made the stock based on Michael Ruhlman's procedure in Ratio. If you're not familiar with Ratio, it is an excellent book on the subject of cooking. Ruhlman's deal is that rote following of recipes is bad form. Rather, you should just learn the fundamental ratios that underpin all of the key preparations in the kitchen. He tries to peel back the unnecessary ingredients to arrive at the things that fundamentally make up the character of something. Anyway, it is absolutely worth purchasing if you do a lot of cooking. Ruhlman delivers a particularly searing invective against store-bought stocks of all stripes.

***A big key here is to not burn the garlic. Nothing ruins things (read: Dinner) like burning up the garlic. I like to usually add it after I have plenty of other stuff in the pan so that it is not subject to big swings in heat from the burner.