About jacky grace

I grew up in an Italian house with big meals, big flavors and big voices. My husband comes from an even bigger Greek and Armenian house with even bigger food and voices. Here in our tiny city kitchen, we adapt our family recipes for our small space without sacrificing any of the flavors, traditions or love.

Parsley Pesto Pistachio Pasta

Posted on June 25, 2013 by jacky grace

Lordy lou is it hot!

Pardon my slipping into the mouth of an 85-year-old southern grandma, but that’s the only thing I can think to say.

Everyone is melting in the heat. But rather than rant and rave about it, I want to take a moment to share this picture I snapped on my way home from work.

You know it’s hot when the sidewalks are that empty!

We’re experiencing a full on heat wave here and today really is another salad day. But I think my boyfriend will rebel if I plunk another salad on the table and call it dinner.

Tonight needs something fresh and bright though.

And when I think fresh and bright, I tend to lean towards parsley. And tomatoes. Which I have a ton of still left over from making yesterday’s shirazi salad.

So the wheels started turning.

How about a bright and fresh parsley and mint pesto with tomatoes over some pasta?

Pasta is quick cooking, so less time standing in the hot kitchen, and the pesto just requires some ingredients to take a trip in the Cuisinart. Brilliant!

Pesto can be made with anything. Take some herbs, some garlic and some olive oil and blend it up and you have pesto. The standard variation is basil and olive oil. There’s usually pine nuts or walnuts, but I prefer to leave the nuts out of the pesto itself and instead chop them up and sprinkle them on top of the pasta. I like the texture.

Tonight, I wanted something really light and fresh and with a bit of a different flavor. So I chose to go with parsley and mint as my herbs and then sunflower seed oil in stead of olive oil. Everyone makes basil and olive oil pesto. March to the beat of your own drum!

I usually don’t like mint. But I do like mint and parsley together. Strange? Oh well.

So into the Cuisinart go the garlic, parley, mint and oil.

Whiz it up until smooth.

I suggest popping in the fridge for a bit so the flavors can meld. If you don’t have much time, just the few minutes it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta will suffice.

Part of the reason for the trip to the fridge is my love of temperature differences. The steaming hot pasta and the cool pesto in one bite. Yum. It’s the same concept as warm brownie and cold ice cream.

I used mini shells, but you can use any pasta you have on hand.

Cook the pasta to al dente.

Toss the pasta with the pesto and some diced tomatoes.

For some texture, sprinkle over chopped pistachios. Pistachios are so summery to me. Maybe I associate them with sitting on a beach towel, cracking the shells and snacking after a swim in the ocean. They also compliment the parsley and mint nicely. But you can use any nut. Walnuts would be great, too.

For a final layer, some parmesan cheese.

A bright and colorful bowl of pasta bursting with flavor. The mint and parsley bring enough freshness to the table that you’re not weighed down in this heat.

And dinner is on the table in about 15 minutes, so you can spend the rest of the evening lolling on the couch with a cocktail.

Experiment with the herbs in your fridge! Share some of your favorite combinations with me and I’ll give them a try.

Salad Days – Persian Shirazi Salad

Posted on June 24, 2013 by jacky grace

My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then! But, come, away;
Get me ink and paper:
He shall have every day a several greeting,
Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.

So spake Cleoptara in Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra.

And there is the meaning of the phrase salad days. A period of time in one’s life that points to one’s youth, to blissful abandon, to idealism. I tend to associate Salad Days with Richard Hell and punk rock in general.

In the reviews of Richard Hell’s book I Dreamed I was a very Clean Tramp, the reviewers have noted that “In the end, the demiworld salad days came crashing down.”

There’s a novel about growing up in the 80s punk scene by Charles Romalotti by the name Salad Days.

In any event, salad days and punk rock are linked in my mind.

Which I suppose isn’t that far off from it’s true definition of idealism and youth…

But I digress.

The phrase kept coming to mind today when I was trying to think of what to make for dinner. It’s hazy, hot and humid here in the city, with hair frizzing uncontrollably, and a walk to the coffee shop inducing loads of sweat.

So when dinner came up, I thought, well today is surely a salad day.

I was flippin gthrough Bon Appetit Magazine and came across a colorful and exuberant spread on Persian dishes. Cool and crisp salads with fresh cucumbers, tomatoes and herbs; even cooler creamy yogurt dips for pita breads.

Persia is speaking my language.

Tonight is about combining ingredients we love in a different way. It’s about bright, refreshing flavors and even brighter colors. This is a super simple vegetarian option for Meatless Monday, a great make ahead for lunch for work or a great way to start a meal.

We are going to make beet yogurt dip and shirazi salad.

Shirazi salad is simply a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes and herbs. There is a “right” way to prepare the “traditional” salad, but I’m a firm believer in adjusting for your tastes. But here’s the recipe if you want it.

You want a mix of different tomatoes for contrast, cucumbers for crunch, one or two herbs, and then the dressing.

Here’s what you need for the dressing:

red wine vinegar
olive oil
juice of half a lime
salt
pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 shallot, minced

Whisk up the dressing in a large bowl. I went with 3 parts oil to one part vinegar, plus the lime juice. But again, adjust to your tastes.

Now, get ready to start chopping. I used 2 English cucumbers, almost 2 pints of campari tomatoes and almost 1 pint of yellow grape tomatoes.

I quartered the camparis and halved the yellows.

Peel and cube up the cucumbers.

Toss it all in the bowl and coat with the dressing.

Tear in your herbs. I went with parsley and mint and a touch of scallions. The recipe calls for terragon and chives, but the groery store didn’t hae them. Salads should be thrown together with things you like and they shouldn’t be stressed about. It’s too hot to stress. So use the herbs you like and that will give some more freshness to the dish.

We added some crisp romaine to the mix as a bed for the tomato and cucumber mix.

I definitely suggest making this the night before or the morning of so it can sit in the fridge and, say it with me now, fester.

Truly, all jokes at dad’s expense aside, this is something that tastes better the next day.

To accompany the salad, you can easily do the crusty bread and butter route. You can also whip up some hummus and warm some pita bread. But, well, we just made hummus. And I don’t want you all to think I’m boring!

You know my obsession with Greek yogurt though. I put tzatziki on everything and dunk berries in the stuff for an afternoon snack.

But again, we’ve made tzatziki before.

But the beet yogurt recipe next to the shirazi salad. Now that caught my eye. A bright purple bowl of yogurt to dip bread into? Now that livens up a table!

I love beets. Beets are one of those things I am greateful is good for you. Loaded with nutrients and antioxidants and they have anti-inflammatory properties.

And did I mention the beautiful purply pinky color?

But back to the dip. You will need

Preheat the oven to 400.

The only cooking involved is roasting the beets. You are going to put them in the oven for an hour and then walk away. That’s it. I promise.

Trim the ends off the beets and wash them.

Lay out two sheets of aluminum foil, doubled, on the counter. You are going to wrap the beets up in a packet so make sure the foil is large enough to surround the beets.

Place the beets, skins on, in the center of the foil. Fold up the sides of the foil, leaving an opening at the top.

Drizzle in some olive oil and some salt and pepper.

Close ’em up.

Into the oven for one hour.

Flip through a magazine. Vacuum the apartment. Paint your nails.

Remove the beets from the oven.

Pop them in the fridge to cool them off if you’re in a rush, otherwise let them sit on the counter until they are able to be handled.

Take a paper towel and use it to rub the skins off. You can peel them off before you roast (I used to) but this is way easier.

Discard the skins.

Grate the roasted beets into a bowl.

Scoop in one small container of Greek yogurt (like the individual serving sizes).

Start mixing until the beets are well-incorporated with the yogurt and it takes on this beautiful purple color.

Add salt and pepper to taste and a minced garlic clove. Tear in a few mint leaves and mix.

Warm the pita in the oven, serve up the salad and slather the bread with the beet-infused yogurt.

Between the creamy yogurt and the bursting tomatoes, you will forget about the heat outside.

Blueberry Fizz Pie

Posted on June 24, 2013 by jacky grace

We went grocery shopping this morning and saw these

Piles and piles of ripe, juicy, tangy New Jersey Blueberries! That’s right. Jersey is the garden state, and besides tomatoes, we turn out some awesome blueberries.

Those glistening blue gems were screaming to be made into something, and what better way to kick off the first weekend of summer than with a blueberry pie?!

There are a lot of recipes out there for blueberry pie.

It got kind of overwhelming flipping through them actually.

So I took some from one and some from another and then I added my own little twist. Hence the fizz part of the pie.

One of the best pairings is blueberry and lemon.

I think the best blueberry pies include a squirt of lemon juice. It adds such a refreshing hit of brightness that gives the pie a great flavor. It keeps the berries from being one note.

But lemon juice and some sugar seemed a little… predictable.

So instead, this pie uses limonade. It’s a sparkling lemon soda. It’s French. My boyfriend introduced me to it. And I’ve been finding ways to add it to dishes.

For the pie, use your favorite crust recipe, or a store bought crust, or, you can use my grandma’s. It’s amazing. Here’s the recipe from when we made Strawberry Pie a while back.

For the filling you will need:

2 pints of blueberries, washed
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup limonade (any lemon soda will do. you can also use lemon seltzer but then you will need to add in sugar. since the soda has sugar, I didn’t add extra to the berries)
Turbinado sugar (for sprinkling on top, can be eliminated)

Preheat the oven to 400.

In a bowl, toss the berries with the cornstarch and the soda. The cornstarch will take all the juices that seep out when the berries bake and turn them and the soda into a sauce to hold the pie together.

Pour the berry mixture into the pie crust.

Sprinkle the top with some of the turbinado sugar.

Pop in the oven and bake for about an hour. When you remove, the berries will be all bubbly and will have changes to a gorgeous midnight blue.

Slice it up and top with whipped cream.

When you bite into it, the blueberries will pop in your mouth and you’ll catch a little hint of the lemon soda. A slight refreshing fizz that lingers on your tongue.

Drunken Oven-roasted Shrimp

Posted on June 23, 2013 by jacky grace

One of the best things we ate when we were in Hawaii came from a graffiti-covered trailer parked on the side of the road on the North Shore.

No kidding.

Seems that places covered in writing serve up great food. Remember Burger Joint yesterday?

What is this awesome meal I’m talking about?

A plate of white rice and steamed shrimp from Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck.

The North Shore is shrimp country. The roadside is lined with trucks like this serving up freshly-caught steamed shrimp in a ton of sauces. I had the straight up lemon and garlic. My boyfriend had one of their spicy options.

They were both phenomenal.

So incredibly simple.

But so freakin’ good.

And peeling and eating shrimp on the side of the road on the North Shore is an experience everyone needs to have in their life. It was hot. I was covered in saltwater. The shrimp was fresh. And we were a mess.

Shrimp will never taste the same as it did sitting at that picnic table.

But I can try, if not recreate, reminisce about that meal in my own kitchen.

This recipe is a slight tweak of the Pioneer Woman’s Spicy Lemon Garlic Shrimp. Mine has beer. It was that kind of day.

You will need

1 pound frozen shrimp, shells on
1 bottle Corona (half the bottle for the shrimp, the other half for the chef)
2 tablespoons butter
juice from 1 lime
salt
black pepper
A loaf of crusty bread for sopping up the juices

Preheat the oven to 375.

Drop the butter, lime juice, salt and pepper in a blender or food processor.

Whiz it up so the ingredients are blended, but the butter is still in pea-sized or bigger clumps.

Pour the beer over the butter chunks and let the butter soak up the flavor.

Rinse the shrimp under warm water to remove any chunks of ice.

Dry and lay on a foil-lined cookie sheet.

Drop the butter mixture over the shrimp.

Bake for around 15 minutes.

The shrimp will turn pink when they are done. The whole apartment smelled like beer and lime and butter.

Dish up the shrimp in two bowls and pour the sauce over each.

Get ready to dig in, make a mess and dunk the bread into the buttery, beery saucy goodness in the bowl.

The city streets below aren’t quite the sounds of waves crashing on the shore, but it will do for now.

Nutella Granola

Posted on June 23, 2013 by jacky grace

I could eat Nutella straight from the jar.

Big heaping spoonfuls.

I’d be happy.

Then I’d be guilty.

Then I’d be depressed.

And then because I was depressed, I’d eat more Nutella.

Then I’d be happy…

I think you see where this is going.

So I wanted to come up with something that would let me eat Nutella, squelch my afternoon chocolate cravings and still be semi healthy.

So was born Nutella granola.

This is super simple and a great thing to make on a Sunday to have for the week.

You will need

1 cup puff rice cereal

1 cup quick cook oats

1/2 cup hazlenuts

2 heaping tablespoons Nutella

Dump the nuts, cereal and oats in a bowl and stir them up.

Spoon in the Nutella and stir until all the dry ingredients are coated with Nutella.

Turn out the mixture onto a foil-lined cookie sheet or baking dish.

Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

The smell of chocolate and hazelnuts will waft through your kitchen.

Remove from the oven, let cool and then put in an airtight container to store.

Grab a few handfuls when you need a little bit of chocolate.

Add some to your boring, healthy cereal to jazz it up.

I plan on sprinkling this over my yogurt, adding strawberries and raspberries and having my lunch feel a little bit like dessert.

Another Itty Bitty City Kitchen Cranking Big Burgers

Posted on June 23, 2013 by jacky grace

Yesterday, I had no recipes to share with you because my boyfriend and I took a little mini vacation in our own city.

There are so many amazing things to see in the city, and with work and errands and every day life, sometimes we don’t get the chance to explore. Sometimes I think tourists see more of a city than the people who actually live there.

So we decided we’d change that.

There are two places we’ve been talking about going but something always comes up.

So yesterday we said no to cleaning and grocery shopping and, yes, even cooking, and hand in hand, set off for a stroll through Central Park.

It was an absolutely picture perfect summer day. It was the second day of summer in fact, so a walk through the park and a trip to the Central Park Zoo was in order.

I was surprised at just how many things are packed in! The park itself is a sprawling field of green in the tangle of the city, but the zoo doesn’t occupy much of the space of the park overall.

Exotic birds, polar bears, penguins. The sea lions! Can’t forget the sea lions swimming around playfully in their tank.

The only problem with the zoo trip is that now my boyfriend wants a red panda as a pet.

Thank goodness our apartment does not allow for pets.

We left the zoo and made our way over to Argo Tea for the best chai I’ve ever found in the city.

But the zoo and the park and the tea were just warmups.

We were walking around so we wouldn’t feel guilty for what we were about to do.

In Midtown sits the rocky facade of the Parker Meridien Hotel. Doormen in crisp shirts greet you. The gleaming marble, the heavy draperies. It’s gorgeous. But we weren’t here for the scenery.

We were here for the burger.

Say what?

Yes, the burger.

I had been there once before, but I couldn’t remember how to get to…

“You here for the burger?”

One of the doormen, seeing us in our tee-shirts and shorts, rightfully guessed that we were NOT checking in to the hotel.

We laughed.

“You look hungry,” he said. This guy was good.

He pointed us around the curtains and down a narrow hallway. There was no sign, no indication. Until you got to the end and saw the neon light in the shape of a burger with an arrow pointing right.

We were in the right place.

You walk in and you do a doubletake. Were we really just in that elegant lobby? Really?

This is what you see when you walk in:

A dimly lit wood-panelled box completely covered in scribblings and signatures, 6 or 7 booths, a long table with barstools, and there, directly in front of you, an itty bitty kitchen.

The grill, the register, the fryers, the blenders for milkshakes. Yup, all crammed in that little space.

And guess what they crank out of that itty bitty kitchen?

These big burgers and even bigger bags of fries.

Any description I give here will be completely inadequate.

Just go.

Read the rules on ordering (yes, there are rules), and wait your turn.

Grab a seat as soon as one opens up.

Sip your beer and get ready for a bite of the best burger you will ever have.

No overexaggeration.

I mean, did you see the kitchen? There’s no room for overexaggeration.

Hummus – Meme’s Secret

Posted on June 21, 2013 by jacky grace

Remember yesterday when I told you that I can never get food to taste quite like meme’s?

Well, that was a tiny fib. I can get one thing right.

Hummus.

I’ve told you before about my love of tahini. Hummus is probably the most common introduction most people have to the sesame seed paste.

Nothing compares to homemade hummus. There are some store brands that are okay in a bind, but once you make it yourself, you will never be able to dip your carrots and celery sticks into the plastic tub again.

This is a ridiculously easy recipe. For a while though we couldn’t get it to taste like meme’s.

Granted, meme’s recipe was something like garlic a lil bit of lemon, a lil bit olive oil, some tahini, some pepper and the chickpeas. And fresh lemon juice. My lil bit would always be different from her lil bit.

But no matter what we did, it wasn’t quite right. It was delicious, but not quite right.

Until the day that meme told us her secret. She had been holding out on us.

So here it is. How meme makes hummus

Into the cuisinart (meme calls it a cuisinart not a food processor.) So into the cuisinart

2 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons tahini

olive oil (enough to make the mixture smooth. this is an add and blend and add if you need more ingredient)

juice of half a lemon

a few grinds black pepper

1 can chickpeas, rinsed, and here’s the trick. reserve the liquid the chickpeas are in. Add maybe one or two tablespoons to the mix. Trust me.

Blend it all up in the cuisinart. Serve with carrots, celery, cauliflower, warm pita, use it as a sandwich spread. This is a great healthy snack or a great way to start a meal if you’re tired of salad.

I promise you, once you make it, you’ll never buy it again. And bonus, it’s way cheaper to make it yourself, so the money you save can go into paying for the itty bitty city kitchen. You may even be able to buy a new gadget for your kitchen!

If you can find the room for it.

I say meatball, you say kebab- an Italian girl makes a Middle Eastern Meal

Posted on June 20, 2013 by jacky grace

I love Italian food. It’s what I grew up with, it’s what my mother cooks, it’s the smells of home.

But I have a very culturally diverse palate. Mexican, Brazilian, Chinese, French, you name it. Since dating my boyfriend, my appreciation for Middle Eastern flavors has really grown.

I always loved Greek salad and kebabs and gyro and falafel and hummus. (I really like food in general and there’s very little I’ll say no to.) Then I ate homemade hummus and babaganoush and tabouli and my mind was blown. And no salad will ever hold a candle to his dad’s.

What meme makes in her kitchen is magic. I had never had a stuffed grape leaf (dolma) I really truly loved until I had hers. Instantly addicted.

Thankfully, meme always sends us care packages. Because much as I try, mine never tastes quite like hers.

Also thankfully, there is an amazing Turkish restaurant near us that makes food that tastes almost, almost, like meme’s. We even brought meme there. It has the meme seal of approval.

So if we’re really having cravings, we have that down the street.

But I was away from itty bitty city kitchen yesterday. I had a lovely trip to D.C. with my coworker for a day in our office there, but you know I hate eating out two days in a row.

I’m a good cook. I’ve watched meme in the kitchen. I can do this.

I’m going to tackle one of my boyfriend’s favorites. He’s had a rough week. And a rough week surely calls for Adana Kebabs.

Adana Kebabs are essentially minced meat (lamb, beef, veal, whatever, though lamb is traditional) with some vegetables and seasonings that is mixed and formed into logs, skewered and then grilled.

I’m switching it up and baking mine since there is no room in my city kitchen for a grill, but I’m working with all the Middle Eastern ingredients, so the flavorings should be similar enough to make up for the lack of grilled taste.

Now call me crazy, but doesn’t that sound like a meatball? Some ground meat with some stuff in it to add to the flavor? So it’s a log shape instead of a ball shape. Details, details.

This isn’t totally the traditional way, but hey, I’m an Italian girl from Jersey making kebabs. Kebabs, meatballs. Same thing!

I used

1 pound ground beef (you can use lamb. Grocery store didn’t have any today)
small green bell pepper, diced
1/3 white onion, diced
handful of parsley, chopped
paprika
all spice
salt and pepper

Throw all of the ingredients in a bowl

and mix until well combined.

Form the mix into sausage-shaped logs. I almost said mini meatloaves, but meatloaf is one of the few foods I cannot stand, so I will not draw that comparison.

Lay out the meat logs (haha meat logs, don’t know why but that makes me laugh) on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Pop in the fridge for a bit to set up.

When you’re ready to cook them up, remove from fridge and let them come to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 400.

I’m making a side dish of paprika roasted cauliflower over couscous.

For that, throw cauliflower florets into a foil-lined baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and douse with paprika.

Roast for 40-45 minutes. The cauliflower takes on a golden orangey hue.

The kebabs will take about 20 minutes to cook, so throw them in with the cauliflower about halfway through its roasting time.

Whip up some tzatziki and some quick cook couscous, or warm up some pita bread and yemek!

(That’s eat in Turkish!)

Not bad for an Italian girl from Jersey.

Eggplant Parm Pie

Posted on June 18, 2013 by jacky grace

The only thing I love more than my mom’s meatballs is her eggplant parm.

If you’ve only eaten eggplant parm out at a restaurant, you have never eaten eggplant parm.

Sorry restaurants. But mom’s will win every time.

Bobby Flay should really come do a Throwdown with my mom.

Here’s the thing about her eggplant though. It’s a process. Totally worth it in the end, but it involves a lot of time over a hot stove. First you make the gravy, then you fry the eggplant in batches, then you layer the gravy and the eggplant in a casserole dish, then you top with cheese, then you bake for an hour, and then, during that hour, you clean your grease-splattered stove.

In the summer, my itty bitty city kitchen is ridiculously hot.

So no thanks.

But I was thinking about eggplant. And so I came up with this. It’s not at all the same thing as mom’s, but it’s quick and it’s light.

Think of it as the summertime cousin to mom’s cheesy, melty, tray of eggplant wonderfulness.

A sort of quichey, eggplant pie.

You will need

4 eggs

1 eggplant

1 tomato

1 heaping scoop ricotta cheese

mozzarella

splash of milk

olive oil

salt

pepper

butter for the dish

Turn your oven to 400.

Peel the eggplant and slice into discs. The more even the width, the more evenly they will bake.

Lay them on a foil-lined cookie sheet.

Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast for about twenty minutes.

When the eggplant is nice and browned up, remove from the oven and set the slices aside. Slice up the tomato in rounds and place on the foil-lined sheet you just removed the eggplant from. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast for about ten minutes.

This recipe sounds a little lengthy, but to me roasting time isn’t really cooking time. I throw things in the oven and forget about them for a little bit, taking the time to unwind after a long day or to swiffer the floors or to do some previously neglected tasks. Like paying the bills. While the tomatoes roast is the perfect time to pay the bills.

When the tomatoes are done, butter a baking dish or pie pan. I’ve extolled the virtues of my pie pan before. Namely, that it is dishwasher safe. So between the foil-lined cookie sheet and the pan that goes in the dishwasher, this is a no cleanup necessary dinner.

Line the bottom of your pan with eggplant.

Next add a lawyer of tomatoes.

Top with the remaining eggplant.

In a small bowl, beat together the eggs, a splash of milk and a scoop of ricotta cheese. This is serving as the parmigiana part of the dish.

Pour the mix over the eggplant and tomatoes and then top with mozzarella.

Lower the oven to 350 and bake for 45 minutes. Again, a long baking time, but there’s very little active cooking time in this recipe. There’s a lot of hang out, put your feet up, sip some wine and let the smells fill the apartment time.

Remove from the oven when the eggs are set.

Slice up and serve with a side salad and some crusty bread.

It’s not mom’s but it does the trick.

For now.

Baked Potato Soup

Posted on June 17, 2013 by jacky grace

I love soup.

It could be 100 degrees in the shade and it won’t deter me from having soup for dinner if that’s what I’m craving.

And soups are very itty bitty city kitchen friendly. They usually just require some space for your cutting board and then it all goes into one big pot.

I was thinking about summer barbecues and some of my favorite flavors from them.

I love me a big juicy burger, covered in ketchup, cheese melting down the sides.

But the supporting cast has a lot to offer too. Like potato salad. A big scoop of potato salad beside your burger. Yum.

That made me think of potatoes in general. I feel like potatoes get a bad rep for being starchy and fatty. When you fry ’em, yea, they’re not so good for you. And when you cover ’em in mayonnaise in potato salad, they’re not so good for you.

But guess what? That little spud had 45% of your daily value for Vitamin C, 10% of your B6, and more potassium than a banana.

Go Idaho Potato!

I’ve turned baked potatoes into dinner before, stuffing them with broccoli and cheese and adding a side salad. But today was a day when I wanted soup.

Lightbulb!

Baked potato soup.

Bonus? It’s vegetarian. So it’s Meatless Monday friendly.

You will need

3 baking potatoes
carrots
celery
onion
olive oil
1 cup whole milk
salt
pepper

That’s for the base of the soup. If want to, you can add toppings such as scallions or chives, grated cheddar cheese, a dollop of yogurt or sour cream, and, if you’re not making this as part of meatless Monday, a crumbling of bacon. But the toppings are entirely up to you.

Here’s how you make the soup.

Bake the potatoes at 400 for about an hour, being sure to poke holes so they don’t explode in your oven.

If you don’t want to spend an hour baking potatoes after work, bake them up over the weekend. But really, baking potatoes requires no effort. You throw them in and walk away. So come home, go to the gym, take a nice long hot shower. Flip through a magazine.

The potatoes will be fine.

When the potatoes are done, remove from the oven, cut in half and let cool.

Leaving the potatoes to cool, drizzle some olive oil in the bottom of a pot.

Toss in the chopped carrots, celery and onion. I used two carrots, two ribs of celery and about a third of an onion. I know I’m going to add scallions on top, so I don’t want to overwhelm the soup with onions.

Cook the vegetables until they are soft, but not brown.

Add salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

Stir and cover for a few minutes.

Peel the skins from the potatoes and discard (or snack), adding the insides to the pot.

Using the back of a spoon or a potato masher, mash the potatoes into the carrots and celery and onions.

Add more seasoning and then add enough water to cover the potatoes.

Cover and cook for a few minutes until the water softens the potatoes more.

Lower the heat, and, using an immersion blender or transferring to a food processor or blender, blend the soup until smooth. Pour back into the pot and cook over low, adding in a cup of milk for some richness.

Let cook a few more minutes so the rawness of the milk is gone and the soup is warmed through.

Serve up in big bowls and add your toppings.

Leftovers of this are great.

If you have any.

Itty Bitty City Kitchen

tiny kitchen, BIG CULINARY ASPIRATIONS

Author Archives: jacky grace

About jacky grace

Parsley Pesto Pistachio Pasta

Salad Days – Persian Shirazi Salad

Blueberry Fizz Pie

Drunken Oven-roasted Shrimp

Nutella Granola

Another Itty Bitty City Kitchen Cranking Big Burgers

Hummus – Meme’s Secret

I say meatball, you say kebab- an Italian girl makes a Middle Eastern Meal

Eggplant Parm Pie

Baked Potato Soup