Lapin d'Argent

One of my favorites is from an old back-issue of Gourmet -- but I can not longer find it on Epicurious. However, this one is very close. The only change I would make is to not bother to soak the bread in water first; it will get plenty moist from the soup ingredients. Also, the most recent issue of Cook's Illustrated has a recipe for Creamy Gazpacho that looks pretty good. Personally, I prefer the creamier, less chunky style, although a garnish of finely chopped vegetables is lovely.

Braised celery from Braising with Molly is delicious. Sort of like Thanksgiving stuffing, only braised. Uh, that didn't sound very appetizing, but you get the idea. It really tastes better than the sum of its parts, and is worth making on its own. Combined with carrots and celery root -- perfection!

Recipes that tell you to dump all the vegetables and seasonings into the pot at the same time and saute them together. Not happening in my kitchen. If we're cooking, we're taking our time and building up our flavors carefully, one or two at a time, in the correct order. And whatever amount of garlic a recipe calls for, I'll be putting in more. Ditto onions, and most other vegetables. Things like that, I don't measure. In fact, I don't measure much of anything. Recipes are more like templates or patterns for me -- variations on techniques I'm already familiar with, or a new technique that I can fit into an existing framework. Well, I guess I am more precise with baking, but I tend to bake only a few things like bread and tarts. Now that I have my own homemade vanilla (thank you, Fat Guy!), lots of it goes in everything! We have both salted and unsalted butter in our house, but it's really just habit. I think it's time to switch to all unsalted.

Good idea, Heidi -- you do really need pesticide-free lemons if you're going to preserve them. But I wouldn't hesitate to put a decent amount of finely minced (preserved or not) lemon rind in a mixture of rice and with lots of mint and parsley, some chicken stock, pine nuts, and dried currants to balance the flavors. I'll be interested to see how your freezer experiment goes.

Well, technically, they're almost the same thing. At least, they're botanically related. Both are members of the Umbelliferae family, which also includes (among others) parsley, fennel, parsnips, angelica, asafoetida, poison hemlock, coriander, caraway, Queen Ann's Lace, chervil, and dill. What they all have in common is a seed head generally in the form of an open umbrella, or "umber" (think of Queen Ann's Lace, or dill), and a hollow leaf stem. So you can have your carrots, and eat your celery too. Personally, I like pretty much all members of the family. Well, maybe not hemlock; I haven't had the, uh, opportunity to try that yet...

I can't answer jgm's post, other than to note that carrots strained out of stock sound like a darned good human treat to me, if there doesn't happen to be a dog around. Just saying. But to the main point, I have an excellent, very simple recipe for leek and potato soup that calls for vegetable stock. Makes sense -- chicken stock or broth would overpower the delicate leek flavor, and turn it into something else. There might be times when you want those stronger flavors, perhaps even a light homemade beef broth, which I try to keep in my freeze, a la Marcella. I think the answer, Chris, is to use vegetable stocks as a flavor component where and when you think they would enhance the dish. And of course, vegetable stocks are relatively quick to make, and there are so many different possible flavor profiles -- more emphasis on onion, or carrot, or tomato, or whatever -- that you can pretty much design them to fit your needs. It might take time to develop enough familiarity with the recipe you're pairing the stock with, and to develop just the stock flavor you're looking for, but heck, it's not like we're gonna all be doing something besides cooking, is it?

I get lovely wild flowers that I've never planted and never seen anywhere else on my 2 acres...or on any of my neighbors land either, for that matter. There's a hyssop that is particularly beautiful every year. If you work it right, the volunteers at the front of your compost pile will actually screen the pile itself from view, turning it into an attractive feature. Sort of. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Uh Huh...no torment intended, I'm sure. OK, now make yourself some some preserved lemons, and mince a little in there, and I bet that will really rock!

For dinner tonight, I needed something to go with leftover steak, and it was way too hot to even grill outside. So I seeded and sliced up some lovely pickle cukes, added a bunch of quartered cherry tomatoes, salt, pepper, and a little Hellman's. Much, much, better than the sum of its parts. I guess this is about as American as it gets, and I'm reverting to my childhood roots in the 60s.

Oh, Heidi...my mouth is watering just looking at those beauties. You're right...they are perfect at room temp. Every once in a while, a wild Concord grape vine shows up at the edge of our woods, but somehow my DH always manages to accidentally weed it out, despite years of my trying to train him to recognize grape vines. Sigh. And I don't know which is more wonderful -- the scent when they're in bloom, or the scent when the grapes are ripe. Either one can just about make me swoon. Maybe I can hack out some poison ivy and replace it with concord grapes instead...

I have a blender jar with pureed strawberries in the fridge right now cooling down so it can go into the ice cream machine for sorbet. The recipe is from a 2002 Cook's Illustrated, but it's really very simple -- here's how I make it: 3 cups strawberries, pureed (strain the seeds if you want; I don't bother) Add: 1 cup sugar 1 tbls lemon juice 1 tbls vodka or liqueur (I like Campari) Blend, gently, until the sugar more-or-less dissolves. Throw the blender jar into the fridge to chill until the mixture is at least 40o cool; then pour into your ice cream maker and finish. BTW, I made this several times, following the original instructions exactly, transferring from blender to mixing bowl to storage bowl, until it finally dawned on me to use the blender from start to finish. Duh. The CI article does have a nice table with proportions for lots of other fruits and flavors, for those of you with back issues or an online subscription.

Just the two of us this weekend, but that wasn't going to stop us from eating as if there was a crowd... Yesterday, we started off the weekend with steamed lobsters for dinner. To go with them, I grilled local corn and some Vidalia onions, mixed them into bowl of salted, chopped cherry tomatoes, a bit of basil from the garden, olive oil, and a dash of very rich balsamic. The trick is to char those onions to within an inch of their lives...we are a carbon-based life form, after all. Amazingly, we had a bit of leftover lobster (I tend to buy two 2-pounders, which I know from experience is just a bit more than we can eat comfortably, if we behave ourselves, eat our vegetables, and save room for dessert). So lunch today was lobster salad rolls (only lobster, a little chopped celery, and barely enough mayo to hold it together, thank you) on beautiful brioche rolls from Biga Breads that I found at Verrill Farm, in Concord. And we were at Verrill Farm to pick up one of their own grass-fed sirloin steaks, which I grilled for dinner tonight. DH made potato salad from a 2002 Cooks Illustrated, using herbs from our garden. I didn't do anything to the steak, except cut it into more manageable portions -- it was huge! It came out great; juicy and flavorful, with a beautiful sear. Dinner took 10 minutes, which was fine with me, because it was really hot today, and I was tired. Tomorrow I'll do something with the huge radishes I also picked up today -- they're long and thin and look like pink carrots. And there's leftover steak to use for a salad or sandwiches. More tomatoes and corn and onions for more salad; we put it over grilled bread and call it a meal. Oh, and there's strawberry puree sitting in the fridge, getting cooled down and ready to go into the ice cream maker for sorbet. DH is watching the Boston Pops right this minute, so I think all in all we have carried out our patriotic duty, at least in the culinary department, pretty well for just two people.

This is a good time of year to be thinking about gazpacho; there's an article about the creamier style (=more pureed)in this month's Cooks Illustrated. Try making it in small batches with different types of tomatoes and peppers and bread to find what you like best. Wow, that sounds like a tasty project, doesn't it?

Wow, Heidi -- that sounds great! I'm so jealous; I've always wanted my own grape leaves -- ever since I made stuffed grape leaves from a wonderful recipe in the Open House cookbook. Of course, we've lived in our house for 20 years now, so I don't know what exactly is stopping me from planting a vine or two...

Bump. We've been enjoying the Q tonic, but it's a bit out of our budget for my DH's daily rum-and-tonic, so I'm now determined to finally experiment with making our own tonic. Having reviewed this thread for the umpteenth time, I realized I can get my quinine from from Zooscape (same as Q!), and use Johnder's recipe as a starting point. But I do need help with one thing (well, OK, I'll probably need help with lots of things once I get started, but we'll leave those for another day...): the buchner filter. What should I get? Not even once having set foot in a chemistry class in my life, I have no experience with these things. I wonder if this would be suitable? What sort of buchner filter do I need -- they seem to come in a wide range of measurements (and prices!) that I don't know how to evaluate. Thanks! - L.

Oh, God, the lettuce, the lettuce. Why did you have to bring that up? How many an innocent, organic head has wilted at my neglect and inability to buy paper towel? The shame, the shame. Nevermind the cilantro. Dear Lord -- I hear you ladies! If i were to do an archaeological dig in my fridge right now, I'd find month old moldering romaine and gelid cilantro. I truly feel bad, as a first world lazy ass and a soi disant frugal cook. There is no health in me. Thank you...I feel so much better. Not that I repent, mind you -- I'm much too hardened for that -- but apparently I sin in good company. The best greens will continue to go to the rabbits, not our dinner plates.

Salad. I mean, how hard can it be? And we have house rabbits, for crying out loud, so we probably buy more greens than most people. But I just can't seem to get around to making a salad.

Good heavens...thanks for the reminder! Time does fly! I still have all these in front of me: 1. Bacon. 2. Duck confit. 3. Souffle. 4. Ravioli. Stuart, I only hope my ravioli comes out half as nice as yours. Looks like it's time to crack open Marcella...

OK, well if it's on sale besides...what's not to love? This seems like exactly the solution I need to make my own, perfect half-sour pickles, exactly the way I like them: salt and garlic, period. Thanks, Kathleen. And thanks, Chris for bringing this to our attention.

I've added this to my list of projects for June....

So, for those of us who don't happen to have a wine maker's press, and would like to make the strawberry version, any suggestions? Do we really need some sort of press, or can we use a food processor and strain the juice? Or put it through a food mill, perhaps?

I bet they'd be a great addition to Spaghetti Carbonara. They also make a wonderful pizza topping, especially combined with roasted peppers, goat cheese, and rosemary. One of our favorite, quick winter mainstays.

Chris... do the ovens still work? If so, continue to use them until they die. We've been using our original 1963 Westinghouse ovens since we moved in almost 20 years ago. The best advice: plan to replace them Any Day Now. They'll work like a charm forever. However, don't try using any of the timing, clock or other fancy features -- that is a sure Road to Confusion and possibly Breakage. Just stick to the temperature controls and you'll be fine.

Just had another idea -- I bet some finely minced preserved lemon peel would be perfect in shortbread.

Spiffy! Can't wait to see the backsplash. Very impressive.