Menu for One

Spinach, Tomato, and White Bean Soup

Do you ever have those nights when you look through the kitchen and say to yourself, "there is NOTHING to  eat?"  I uttered those words earlier this week, seconds before I grabbed my phone to order takeout.  Then I stopped myself.  Am I not the same girl who blogged about the benefits of a well-stocked pantry?  The same girl who said maybe, just maybe, in order to make this cooking for one thing work, that I'd have to try taking the recipe-training wheels off and just try cooking without a script?

Seizing the spirit of adventure, I opened my kitchen cabinets.  I decided soup might be a good place to start.  I know I love soup, and maybe it's not everyone's favorite, but I figured that it would be easy to mess with proportions and to add a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  I grabbed everything I thought might be good in a soup and laid it on the counter.  I grouped these ingredients into categories:

BASE: water and/or chicken stock

VEGETABLES: frozen spinach, canned tomatoes, great northern beans, carrots, onions

FILLERS: barley, egg noodles, small pasta

FINISHERS: parmesan cheese rinds

Remembering that most recipes start by sweating some version of the mire poix (carrots, onions, and celery), I took what aromatics I had (about a two-handed scoopful of chopped carrots and onions) and let them cook slowly in a heavy-bottomed pot, seasoning them with salt and pepper.  When they started to get soft (and to smell really good), I added half of a can of great northern beans (drained), half of a 14oz can of chopped tomatoes (not drained), and half of a defrosted 10 oz package of frozen spinach that I had squeezed dry.  After giving everything a quick stir, I let these ingredients warm up a little bit.  

Remember when I made chicken stock?  It was at this point that I pulled out the bag of chicken stock I had frozen in the muffin tin molds, and added about four to the soup.  You could probably defrost them before adding them to the pot, but I just through them in frozen - I'm not sure it made much of a difference.  After they had melted, I added water to the pot until I liked the consistency, and voila!  Dinner was served!

[In the end, I decided not to add any fillers, such as pasta or barley...the choice is yours.  If you do add them, add them at the end, and just simmer the soup until the pasta is cooked through].

In this instance, I also added a couple of rinds of parmesan cheese I had stashed in my freezer last month.  I let them hang out in the soup from about the time I added the stock and the water until I was ready to serve.  "Waste Not Want Not" strikes again.

The verdict?  Not likely to be featured in next month's Gourmet, but it was a simple dinner that I'd make again.  But more than anything, this very small success gave me a little confidence boost to try cooking off-script again.  And if I can do it, believe me, you can do it, too.  Bon appetit!

OH.  And wondering what to do with the rest of the beans, tomatoes, and spinach?  I was, too.  So I mixed them  up, stored them in a tupperware container and stashed it in the freezer.  I can pull it out the next time I make soup, but I'm sure that I can add it to whatever I serve next with rice, pasta, or tomato sauce.  Imagination at work.

UPDATE: I've recently started listening to a wonderful public radio broadcast called The Splendid Table (www.splendidtable.org) hosted by Lynne Rossettto Kasper, who is just a wealth of information on all things food.  In a recent episode, she discussed the three methods of Basic Soup Improvisation (a summary is printed on her website).  I encourage you to take a look - it will help give you the confidence you need to cook without a script!

Cooking for Two

If you're not familiar with it already, next time you're at the supermarket or the bookstore, pick up a copy of Cook's Illustrated.  It's your high school science book meets consumer reports meets Antiques Road Show and the result is fantastic.  In a nutshell, it's produced by America's Test Kitchen (who also has a video podcast and cooking show on public television), and the fine folks there will make a classic dish a dozen ways until they fine the way that works best.  Then they tell you what it is so you don't have to go through all that trial and error, unless you want to, of course.

That's why when I got this email from them regarding their latest cookbook (Cooking for Two), I knew it would be worthwhile to recommend that we all check it out (even though I haven't seen it yet):

the reality of the home kitchen is that kids grow up and move out, or, for a variety of other reasons, many home cooks are preparing supper for themselves and just one other. It's cozy, to be sure, but it raises a multitude of culinary issues.
You might simply say, "Just cook for four and eat the leftovers the next day." Sounds reasonable (and this was my first reaction), but many dishes don't reheat well, many cooks want something cooked fresh each night (Great lasagna starts to lose its luster when you're eating the leftovers for the fourth day in a row), and there is always the issue of not using up produce and other ingredients, even when cooking for larger numbers. (What does one do with half a head of cabbage?) When we started work in the test kitchen, we found that "cooking for two" was quite a different thing entirely; there are different rules and approaches that truly change the way one cooks.

Isn't this where we're at?  I thought they summed it up quite nicely.  Ultimately, I suspect that our success will come down to two things: ratios and a sense of adventure (a script-free cooking experience, if you will).  I have a feeling that this book might get our imaginations going.  (Anyone read it yet?  What did you think?)  Allez cuisine!