Spring Chowder (and the only way I eat asparagus)

I realize that the words "spring" and "chowder" seem to be going in completely different directions, but hear me out. I normally think "chowder" and my stream of consciousness goes something like this: sausage, hearty, fall, cozy. I think spring and the words "light, sunny, flowers, fresh" come to mind. How do we reconcile these things? For me at least, the solution was...leftovers.

My sister had a baked potato BONANZA fundraiser last week: hence the leftovers. We took home a large ziploc bag of cooked broccoli florets as well as several baked potatoes. What to do with these giant things? I did what I usually do for inspriation. Go to the grocery store when I'm hungry. I picked up some milk, heavy cream, and (believe it or not) asparagus.

For those that don't know my dislike of asparagus, here it is. My Grandpa Floyd had a great big garden, and one of the things that he would always grow was, you guessed it, asparagus. Sounds great, right? A grandpa sharing his lovely home-grown vegetables with his kinfolk. Wrong! This is a vegetable that I DO NOT like. Not to mention the added pressure from my parents (asparagus-lovers) that "Grandpa grew this fresh, you should eat some!". Sorry folks, not my thing. So due to that, I've avoided that veggie like the plague.

Until...they were roasted. I went over to a family friend's house for dinner, and when given the menu report I heard the vegetable on the menu was asparagus. Well...I should be polite I suppose. I will eat a few bites and then quickly move on to the other offerings. I was sorely mistaken. This asparagus was roasted on parchment paper in the oven, drizzled with olive oil, salt, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. My whole asparagus world changed that day.

Back to the chowder. I had determined that I would use the potatoes and broccoli to make some type of chowder. But I wanted a little extra. So, I grabbed that beautiful asparagus, roasted it in the oven at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, and went to work. The result was a hearty, yet healthy solution to my leftover dilemma. It resembled a homemade "cream of" soup, but with some nice substance added in. Creamy, light, but somehow still rich because of the broth. And a little zip to boot.

Spring Chowder
Serves 4
Ingredients:
2 large potatoes, baked and chopped into bite-size pieces (I left the peels on, do whatever you want)
2 c broccoli florets, cooked
1 c asparagus, roasted (see below)
1/8 c freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/2 c heavy cream
2 c milk
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp garlic, minced
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp sage
1 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or go bold and add some more!)
Salt and pepper to taste
(you will also need an immersion blender, or a regular blender will work fine)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place asparagus on parchment paper (easy clean-up!) and drizzle with olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and some freshly grated parmesan (the more the better for me...in the oven it turns into an AMAZING thing!). Roast for 15 minutes, allow to cool and then chop into bite-size pieces (about 1 c).

Heat a large pot over medium heat. Put the 2 remaining tbsp of olive oil in the pot and roast the garlic until "california tan" (thanks, Guy Fieri for that term!). Add the butter and flour in equal parts and allow the flour to "cook" for a minute to get rid of the "floury" taste. Stir to incorporate the butter and flour together. Ta-da, a roux! Turn the heat down to med-low and add the heavy cream. Note how the roux thickens the cream...it will do the same thing when you add the milk. Toss in half of your potatoes, broccoli, and asparagus. Slowly add about 1 c of milk and allow the mixture to heat up and thicken.

Time to immerse and blend! If you are using a stand blender, take care not to burn yourself while pouring the mixture in and out of the blender. Blend to a smooth puree...this is the "cream of" part I was referring to.

To this creamy broth add the rest of the potatoes, broccoli, and asparagus. Add your seasonings and the rest of the milk, and keep on medium heat until everything is up to the same temperature (tip: err on the side of too runny for the broth...the potatoes can act as a thickening agent, and leftovers always thicken up as well).


Serve with some bread to sop it up, and enjoy!

Upgrade the chop

Sometimes you find a beautiful cut of meat and just have to cook with it right away.

Enter the pork chops.

Yeah, I know...big deal. "It's just pork chops!" But aren't they lovely?

We made these on a brisk Wisconsin evening, so they had to be cooked indoors. I decided to give my cast-iron grill pan a rest, and broke out the Emerilware pan instead. The cooking process was pretty basic, really. A small amount of vegetable oil in the pan, heated to medium-high heat. Salt and pepper the chops, and cook for about 7 minutes on each side, or until internal temperature reaches about 160 degrees (you are looking for 165 degrees, but the meat should continue to heat up for a few minutes while resting).

To accompany these bad-boy pork chops, I steamed some broccoli. Not rocket science. But a small twist: orange zest. It scents the broccoli in a subtle but noticable way, and adds some brightness to the veggies on the plate. It's also a great way to add aroma and flavor but not add "American flavor" (a.k.a. SALT).


Allright, so we've got some chops a'grilling, and some steamed broccoli on the side. Something is missing. We need an upgrade. A great way to make any type of mediocre event better--wine.

We had this tart and tasty cranberry wine which my dad had brought over. There was half a bottle left. Perfect. (I have this thing for cranberry wine, especially ones made in Wisconsin...more on that in another post)

I put the wine in a pan on medium heat until it started to reduce. It probably simmered for 10-15 minutes, until it was so thick that it could be described as a syrup instead of a reduction. The consistency was perfectly clingy. A tart but sweet sauce to top the chops with. Pork chop upgrade: complete!

Confession

I have something to confess...I've been afraid of risotto. Well, not "afraid" in the phobia sense. It's just always seemed like an intimidating dish, so I've avoided it.
That is, until this week.

The stars were all aligned for this dish. I had to use up the rest of this stock and we had some broccoli that needed to be used up. Broccoli risotto. Well, ok...time to wing it.

As usual, I don't really use a recipe. I had an idea of what I needed: onion, garlic, wine, stock, parmesan, arborrio rice. What order? No idea. What quantity? Again, no idea. But hey, look at that, there's an ingredient list on the side of the rice box (Trader Joe's rice too...I love them more all the time).

So anyway, using their ingredient list and ignoring the quantities, I followed the order of operation. The result...


...was...


...uhh-maz-ing!
Seriously, why have I not made this before??


Here's the play-by-play, in case you haven't made risotto either.

Begin by heating up 2-3 cups of vegetable or chicken stock in a saucepan until simmering.

In a large pot, melt some butter on medium heat. Maybe 3 tbsp? Then, add some minced onions, say 1/4 cup. Sweat them until they become translucent. Add a tbsp of garlic and saute until golden. Now, add the rice. I used 3 palm-fulls (the recipe said 12 oz). Stir the rice in with the sauteed onions and garlic until the rice is clear. If the mixture starts to stick too much, add a little more butter.

Now the fun part--add the (white) wine. I had to break open my favorite seafood wine because everything else we had was red (if I had more options I'd probably use a sauvignon blanc). I used about 1/3 cup. Continue to cook on medium heat until the white wine is absorbed. Add the heated stock, one cup at a time, until the rice absorbs it. Continue this process for about 20 minutes, until the rice is fully cooked (you are looking for a smooth, not runny or pasty texture). I added the broccoli florets about halfway through this process so they would be perfectly cooked by the end.

When the rice is cooked, take it off the heat and shred parmesan into the pot, about 1/8 cup. Stir it quickly into the rice so it doesn't clump together. As the cheese melts it will add a great texture to the dish.

My husband rates my dishes (don't worry, I ask him to). It is a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best. This dish got a 9. Need I say more?