Spring soup & salad: Cranberry vinegarette and Spicy white bean soup

This week we've been trying a few new recipes on for size. Specifically, we've been looking for lighter fare to herald in the Springtime.

I've never been great at following recipes and this week's soup and salad were no different.

We took this salad greens and cranberry vinegarette recipe and altered it, using beets from the garden (or carrots or any other shredable veg) in place of the zucchini and substituting a 100% juice (cranberry plus apple and grape, I believe) for the cranberry cocktail. No corn syrup for us, please!

We paired that with Spicy White Bean Soup, adapted from a SparkPeople meal plan.

My version of Spicy White Bean Soup for 2

• Huge spoonful of minced garlic (and roughly chopped garlic greens too, if you have them)
• 1/4 of a large yellow onion
• 1-2 tsps grapeseed oil (or coconut or canola or olive, whatever you prefer)
• 3 cups of water
• .6 cup of wild rice
• 1 cup of navy beans (canned or previously cooked, any white bean will do)
• 1 cup of roughly chopped kale (or other braising green)
• Oregano, cumin, ground clove, cayenne, salt, and pepper

1. Saute the garlic and onion (and garlic greens) in oil.
2. Once the onions are soft, add the water, rice, and beans. Feel free to add more rice, but be sure to also add more water.
3. Season with the seasonings. I used a large dash of oregano and cayenne, and a pinch of everything else.
4. Simmer for about an hour. In the last few minutes, throw in the kale.

This soup is not very soupy. If you want more liquid, add more. It's also a good idea to keep an eye on the rice to make sure it doesn't need more liquid to cook properly.

We really enjoyed this soup & salad combo that used several of our CSA items (lettuce mix, beets, kale, and garlic greens).

Habanero Chile Oil and Hot Sauce

Even though the season is technically over for a few more weeks, Guy and I are still working on some of our produce. The last of the tomatoes are starting to turn, a few squashes are still hanging in there, and we are finally seeing the end of our Habanero peppers.

Although we've done a lot with those little Habaneros, our favorite recipes by far are Habanero Chile Oil and Habanero Hot Sauce.

The chile oil is simple to make and extremely hot. It's really good on a stir-fry, although I think using a different type of pepper might make a more interesting oil. Here is ours in the microwave, bubbling away:

The hot sauce we made is possibly my favorite hot sauce ever. And I do not say this lightly as, until now, I've been quite the loyal devotee to Frank's. We've already gone through one recipe of this ourselves, taken a double batch to Taco Tuesday, and gathered the ingredients to make ourselves a second batch tomorrow. Here it is working its magic on brekkie:

Green tomatoes and Curry

Our tomatoes are turning.

We have three batches of them: one from before Thanksgiving, one from after Thanksgiving, and one from this week. We've eaten most of the tomatoes from the first batch but there are still a few holding on. I'm really impressed with how well it works to just patiently wait for your tomatoes to ripen. We've been eating them in salads or raw with salt and with few exceptions they've been delicious!

Not all of our green tomatoes have had a chance to turn red, and here's why: Green Tomato Curry with Potatoes and Garlic.

I can't get enough of this recipe. We ate it last week for the first time and I was shocked at how different it was from what I had expected. I wanted more... and I usually get what I want. ;) So, this week it's on the menu again and probably next week's too!

<--- This turned into this -->

Smoky, Amazingly Spicy Sweet Potato Soup

Guy and I just got back from a holiday trip at my mom's house. We didn't do our work share or pick up our box of food this week because we were gone. (Actually there was no work share this week, either way.) I'm eager to get back out in the dirt next week even though I'm sure it's going to be cold.

Aside from the chilliness at the farm, we're loving the cold weather. Cold weather means SOUP! I recently received an email from Rachel Ray about a smoky spicy sweet potato soup that can be made in just 30 minutes. While I'm not a fan of Ms. Ray personally, I've had great success with several of her soups and stoups.

Instead of the one chipotle pepper and teaspoon of adobo sauce that is called for, I used about 8 peppers and 1/2 c of sauce. I also used the sweet potatoes that we had from our last haul.

This soup is an easy delicious way to greet the cold.

Potato, My Sweet

In an effort to use up our veg in interesting and delicious ways, as well as add to our paltry stock of kitchen items, Guy and I decided to eat our way through the Good Eats series. We'll learn about our food, try the recipes hands on, and have help buying those kitchen appliances and utensils that we so badly need.

Our CSA haul last week included four pounds of sweet potatoes, so we decided to start with "Potato, My Sweet" (Season 7, Episode 11). In this episode, Alton makes chipotle mashed sweet potatoes, sweet potato waffles, and (oh my!) sweet potato pie. He also talks about choosing a waffle iron. We already have a good enough waffle iron (plastic and square and without any of the functions Q suggests, but it works for us). What we did need was a steamer basket (we thought ours was lost to the moving gods) and a potato masher. We got ours at Target for about 13$ total.

We jumped right in to the sweet potato waffle recipe and, of course, we served it up with delicious pan-fried chicken. Guy made the waffles and I made the chicken.

All told it took us approximately 30 minutes and every bite of it was fantastic. A few days later I saw this post on Serious Eats and now we want to try those waffles with some leftover turkey and a cranberry chutney. OMnom.

The next day we made the chipotle mashed sweet potatoes.

I used about half a can of chipotle instead of just one pepper because we love it hot (we are Texans after all). Next time I'll use the whole can. My only concern is that the adobo sauce might overpower the sweet potato flavor, but I'm going to give a try and see what happens. We served it up with blackeyed peas stewed with greens and a good chunk of steak. So good.

Sweet potato pie was our last recipe to try. Even though it wasn't in the recipe, our pie was served with Cool Whip. We enjoyed it and so did our friends who ate the leftovers. However, I

want to try this filling with bourbon added (like this recipe) and in the gingersnap pecan crust that this recipe uses.

Overall results: "Potato, my Sweet" was a win. My favorite recipe was the chipotle mashed sweet potatoes. Guy can't decide between them. The mashed potatoes are the most practical recipe, one we can whip up really quick and will probably use often. But the pie was delicious! And so were the waffles! He wouldn't want to make the waffles in the morning though; it's more of an afternoon chicken-and-waffles thing.