Dried Mushroom Soup with Barley

I'm in the process of kicking a cold, so I have really been in the mood for a warming, brothy soup. I've made this one before, and I love it. It's a little time consuming because of the dried mushrooms, but it is well worth the effort. Plus this soup is extremely healthy, and the boyfriend likes it! I've included the recipe below. It's in the Moosewood Low Fat Favorites cookbook. Enjoy!

Dried mushroom soup with barley
Serves 4 - 8

1/2 oz. dried mushrooms -- shiitake, porcini, chanterelle, etc.
6 cups boiling water
1 tsp veg oil
2 cups chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup peeled and finely chopped carrots
3 cups sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup soy sauce
pinch dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup raw pearl barley
1/4 cup dry sherry or 2 tsp honey (optional - I omitted it)
salt and pepper, to taste

In a saucepan, cover the dried mushrooms with 6 cups of boiling water. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, warm the oil in a soup pot on low heat. Add the onions and garlic, cover, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the celery and carrots and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add fresh mushrooms, increase the heat to medium, and cook, stirring continuously for about 3 minutes, until the mushrooms begin to release their juices. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Drain the dried mushrooms, reserving the mushroom stock. Cut off and discard any tough stems, then rinse and chop the mushrooms. Strain the stock through a sieve or a paper filter. Add enough water to the stock to make 7 cups of liquid. Add the chopped dried mushrooms, mushroom stock, soy sauce, thyme, pepper, barley, and optional sherry or honey to the pot sauteed vegetables. Bring to a boil and then cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 45 minutes.

When ready to serve, add salt and pepper to taste. Add more water if it's reduced down and become too thick.

Heavenly Halibut

Lucky me. I got to go to the gym, come home, take a nice hot shower, and emerge clean and relaxed just in time to be served a beautiful dinner. The boyfriend made baked halibut.

On his walk home from school, he bought a 22 ounce Alaskan halibut steak with bone in at our local co-op. He prepared an Asian style sauce for the fish consisting of about a cup of soy sauce, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1.5 teaspoons of garlic powder, and some fresh ground black pepper. He whisked it all together, marinated the fish in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes, and baked it for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. (The rule is 10 minutes per inch of thickness according to the website we referenced.)

It was delicious! The meat was flaky and well flavored. Add some green beans and a baked sweet potato, and I was in heaven. It was healthy too! Bravo boyfriend.

Lemony Lentil Soup

Tonight after work I made an easy lemony lentil soup from a recipe I found on vegWeb. It was just lentils and brown rice, a bunch of herbs and spices (including curry powder), and some sauteed onions. Then you finish it with a squeeze of lemon juice just before eating.

It was okay. I would eat it again. It's nice because you can get the lentils and rice going while you're chopping the onion, and you're completely done making a soup that will last 4 days in less than an hour.

I think next time I would add some carrots and celery to the sauteed onions. Or maybe some chopped tomatoes...

The boyfriend, not surprisingly, was underwhelmed. You win some; you lose some. Like I said before, it's a lot harder to please a carnivore with low-fat vegetarian fare than a rich, buttery mushroom lasagna.

Sweet Potatoes

I have rediscovered my love of sweet potatoes. They are packed with vitamins, and they have so much flavor you don't need to put anything on them. I will admit, though, that some maple syrup, butter, and brown sugar makes a sweet potato sinfully good.

Today for lunch, I had a plain microwaved sweet potato. I pricked the surface a bunch of times with a fork, put a paper towel down in the microwave, cooked it on high for 3 minutes, flipped it over and cooked it for another three minutes, let it sit for a couple more minutes, and ate it. Delicious!

Lesson of the day: good food does not have to be complicated.

Valentine's Dinner

My boyfriend and I are trying to cook for each other twice a week -- once he cooks for me, once I cook for him. It has the dual purpose of saving us money and giving us some romantic quiet time. I'm vegetarian (or sort of since I eat seafood), and he is WAY not vegetarian. So finding foods that make both of us happy can be hard -- the solution usually involves rich food. Yesterday that was definitely the case.

I would like to report that I made a fabulous lasagna. The boyfriend wanted lasagna. I've never made lasagna. I found a recipe online, made it, and it turned out great!

It's a Barefoot Contessa recipe for portobello mushroom lasagna with a bechamel sauce. It is NOT healthy, but as a special Valentine's Day dinner it was perfect. The recipe called for nutmeg in the bechamel sauce. I replaced it with garlic and shallots as suggested in one review of the recipe. Those flavors worked well with the mushrooms. The same reviewer suggested deglazing with wine or chicken stock. I always thought deglazing was done after cooking meat. I wasn't sure how to do it in this case, so I didn't. Maybe next time I'll look into that more.

For now I'm proud, and I've got a lot of leftovers!

Introduction

A few years ago I started baking. I discovered that I'm pretty good at it. Somehow, though, cooking meals has remained a struggle. I'll do it once in while, but I'm often too tired or too lazy to do it. I'm turning over a new leaf, and I'm going to chronicle my progress here. I hope you enjoy my adventures in domesticity!