Saucy Apron’s Tomato Bread Soup

Shamefully, I let the end of a delicious loaf of marble rye go stale longer ago than I care to admit. For the last few days, I’ve been keeping an eye out for recipes that called for hard bread. At first I thought I’d make it into bread crumbs but my laziness for cleaning crumbs out of, well, anything got the better of me and I decided it would be best to use the bread more or less whole.

I came across this post by the Saucy Apron for Tomato Bread soup. It seemed just the ticket for an unseasonably cold day on which I happened to have all of the ingredients. But before I get to the recipe, I should say that I’ve been following the Saucy Apron for some weeks now. I have to resist the urge to bookmark almost every single one of her posts to try later. Her style seems very similar to mine: grab whatever is in the fridge, throw it together, see what happens. This was the perfect opportunity to try one.

Of course, because it’s me I couldn’t simply follow her instructions. I was low on broth and had no fresh basil on hand. I used way too much bread and mixed canned and fresh tomatoes. Jen decided to add some sharp cheddar on top instead of olive oil. The soup came out… good. Not great. But it’s definitely something I’m going to try again in the future, changing it a bit until it’s great. From what I’ve read on the Saucy Apron, sounds like she’d forgive me for playing around with one of her recipes. This recipe has definitely inspired me to experiment again. I can’t wait to try another one of hers!

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Gyros, Revisited: Beef

Between visits from family and petsitting, it’s been difficult for Jen and I to settle into any sort of routine here at the new place. There has not been much time to document cooking and the cooking we’ve been doing has been of the classic sort. We’ve been making some old simple favorites over and over to get us through the work-week.

But of course, my creative mind can’t ever leave well enough alone when cooking up tried-and-true favorites. I always find the need to tweak here and there, or in this case, substitute ingredients entirely. Last night, the craving for gyros hit again (as happens often to an old salt-hound like myself). I could have followed recipe for Chicken Gyros that I recently shared. For once, I had all of the correct ingredients; even fresh yogurt for tzatziki.

But I was lazy and hungry. I opted to use ground beef instead taking the time to finely chop chicken.

For beef gyros, follow the recipe for chicken gyros, just add a pinch more of each spice and don’t use any cooking oil. If possible, use leaner ground beef (sirloin or round) as you would ideally use for hamburgers. Twenty-percent or less fat should be more than enough to fry the gyros in and soak up the flavors of the spices during marination, the less fat the better here.

Last night, instead of broth, I used the briny liquid at the end of a jar of heart of palm I had finished the day before.

How do you make your gyros? What are your favorite meats, spices or techniques?

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Velvet Lemon Pasta Sauce, Revisited

Earlier this week I was invited to an impromptu potluck event for a large number of people. I wasn’t sure what other people might be bringing and knew I would have less than 2 hours to cook and get over to the event. I had no time to shop and still not very many fresh ingredients in the house due to the move.

When I got home, I looked around to see what I had an abundence of. I had a quarter of a very large red onion, a big bottle of “real” lemon juice, vegan “chicken” bouillon and a LOT of pasta due to a recent trip to Costco. I decided to whip up a big family-sized batch of my Velvet Lemon Mushroom pasta sauce. I followed the general procedure, but swapped out garlic powder for fresh garlic, and dropped the mushrooms and white wine. I also quadrupled it and made a big pot of this lemon gravy. I left the onions a bit uncooked which led to crunchy delicious pink-purple onion bits throughout.

Then I poured half of it over a pound of rigatoni,  gave it a good mix and off I went to the potluck. The dish was a hit and one of the few vegan entrees among savory meat dishes and many desserts. The bowl was empty by the time the event was over.

The other half of the sauce was used last night when I added it to a pound of rotini and threw in some meatballs. I’m enjoying the non-dairy creaminess as I type. This just goes to show that a very basic sauce can be adjusted for any number of circumstances. I know for a fact that the same sauce goes great on chicken too!

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Chicken Gyros

After Passover ended, I immediately rushed out and got some delicious thick flatbread at the supermarket. One of the last nights in our old apartment, I had a major craving for gyros, but realized that, except for the bread, I had almost no proper ingredients. I had no lamb or beef, and not a clue how to season either to taste right. Since we were moving and trying to limit the groceries we bought that week, I had practically none of the ingredients for tzatziki sauce, which is arguably my favorite part of gyros. Somehow though, my craving won out over reality and chicken gyros were born out of my kitchen. The recipe for the makeshift tzatziki I somehow created will not be published here (unless demanded) as it’s probably far easier to make it the traditional Greek way than whatever it is I ended up doing. It served its purpose well enough though.

It should be noted that I know little of traditional Greek cooking techniques – please grace us all in the comments if you’d like to teach me a thing or two. I was simply following my tastebuds here. I like to pride myself on being able to recreate my favorite fast/street foods in my own kitchen (sometimes at twice the cost and time of the pros, alas), so this experiment was a fun one. I report it as a complete success that will be added to my repertoire as often as the craving hits. Who knew rosemary and salt were the secrets to getting chicken to act as an, albeit imperfect, stand-in for lamb?

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