The anti-bagel: sourdough, cream cheese, avocado

I love bagels. I love going to the bagel shop for a spontaneous lunch. I love how low-pressure, inexpensive, and easy the whole experience is. I love picking out the exact combination I want--one day sun-dried tomato with basil schmear, and the next pumpernickel with copious dill. I love how it never gets old.

However, I am also a big cheapo, and I often want a higher vegetable content in my cream cheese. Thus the anti-bagel was born.

I've been making my own cream cheese schmears for quite some time. It's super easy. All you need is cream cheese, vegetables and herbs of your choice, a spoonful or two of yogurt, and some pepper.

In this case, I wanted a super-green and herbal cream cheese, so I grabbed several sprigs of parsley, some green onion greens, and a couple handfuls of arugula. A few minutes with my trusty knife produced this:

Then I just mixed my mass of finely chopped green with a chunk of cream cheese, a little plain yogurt, and a sprinkle of pepper. The yogurt makes the mixture a lot more workable, not to mention a bit more tangy and complex. You could use a splash of milk instead.

Cream cheese can take much more vegetable content than you might think. I actually used about a third again more greens than cheese, and I could have added even more. You can absolutely just keep mixing in more chopped veg until your schmear is bursting with all the chlorophyll in the land.

Then just toast your bread of choice, spread on your cream cheese, and add whatever else you'd like. I had an avocado in need of use, so I sliced it up and layered it on. I also added a bit more pepper and a pinch of salt, because what avocado doesn't benefit from a bit of seasoning?

Voila! Now you have your very own customized anti-bagel. Eat it in good health and good conscience.

Other options for amazing schmears:

- green olives and lemon zest
- sun-dried tomato, basil, and a little crumble of feta
- chard, beet greens, and toasted almonds
- cilantro, hot pepper, and a couple cubes of cooked sweet potato
- all the sprouts in the land!
- herb spectacular: parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
- dill, capers, and red onion
- dried cranberries, orange zest, and toasted sesame seeds
- dried apricots, pistachios, and lots of black pepper

The possibilities are endless. GO FORTH.

How do you guys customize your bagels and bagel-like sandwich concoctions at home?

New year's ramen noodles with oyster mushrooms and cabbage

John and I really like noodles. Our pantry has prominently featured an assortment of noodles, from somen to rice sticks to soba, for years on end. We also live in an area with a preponderance of ethnic foods available. Why, then, are we just now starting to cook with fresh Asian noodles?

An excellent question.

So we went to our closest big Asian market and stared at all the fresh noodles in the case, wondering what to try first. It turned out that we wanted ramen. So we bought a pack of four wodges of fresh ramen noodles and brought them home, where they disappeared in short order. Several days later, I went back and got a pack of eight wodges of fresh ramen. Half have vanished so far. If this trend continues, we're going to be buried in fresh Asian noodles for months on end. Are you ready?

You may be familiar with dried ramen in instant soup form; fresh ramen is not even vaguely similar. Instead of being overly salty, either too crunchy or too mushy, and awkward to eat, it's perfectly chewy and silky and amazing for slurping up. You want some of this ramen.

I went simple to start, with ramen and vegetables in broth. This soup is perfect for January--clear and hot and spicy, with fragrant herbs and onions and pepper assailing your sinuses. It's an amazing (not to mention vegan) alternative to the traditional flu season chicken noodle.

This is exceptionally easy to make. All you really need is twenty minutes and a pantry stocked with the right seasonings. And if you do have the flu, it also helps to have someone else cook it for you. I'm just saying.

Fresh ramen noodles in broth with oyster mushrooms and cabbage

peanut oil/veg oil of your choice
garlic
green onion
ginger
hot pepper
oyster mushrooms
green cabbage (standard, Chinese, savoy, or sub bok choy et al)
optional soft tofu
fresh ramen
vegetable broth
soy sauce, mirin, sriracha sauce or sambal oelek, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil
black pepper & cilantro to finish

If you need to make vegetable broth, start with that. Also, put a separate pan of water on to boil for your noodles. It can sit on the back burner until you're ready to cook them.

In a soup pot of your choice, warm a slug of peanut oil. Add minced garlic, sliced white of green onion (keep the greens for garnish), and minced ginger.

Slice or mince a hot pepper and add it to the pan, including the seeds or not at your discretion. I used a red fresno pepper--conveniently also available for next to nothing at the Asian market--but jalapeno, serrano, or whatever other hot pepper you have on hand would also work well.

Stir it all up and let cook for about five minutes, or until everything is amazing and fragrant and you essentially just want to dive into the pan.

Cube some oyster mushrooms and shred a wedge of cabbage. The sizes and shapes don't really matter that much here; just cut them however you like. It's also fine to use button or other mushrooms if you have them on hand.

Add the mushrooms to the pan, stir, and cook for several minutes before adding your cabbage. Give the cabbage five minutes or so to wilt.

Next, add vegetable broth, bring the whole business to a boil, and reduce the heat to simmer. If you want tofu in your soup, cube some up and add it to the hot broth. Since soft tofu is fragile, try not to whack it around too much. Now is also a good time to cook your ramen. Mine took about four minutes, but timing will depend on the brand.

When your ramen is cooked, add it to the soup, turn off the heat, and start seasoning. I tend to add small amounts of soy sauce, mirin, and rice wine vinegar, a larger amount of sriracha or other hot pepper sauce, and just a few drops of sesame oil. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking. Start small and add more gradually, being especially careful not to oversalt via an overabundance of soy sauce.

Serve your soup with chopped green onion greens and cilantro scattered over the top. You can always switch out the cilantro for basil or just eliminate it if you think it tastes like soap. You can also grind some black pepper over your bowl if hot pepper plus sriracha sauce is not enough of a spice kick for you. I have definitely been known to do this on occasion, but I also have a fairly high spice tolerance.

Now drink up your bowl of hot soup and eat your ramen and veg. You might need both spoon and chopsticks for this one.

Pass the kleenex. Feel better, whether you have the flu or not.

What new ingredients have you discovered lately?

Cauliflower leek soup with smoked pepper flakes

Let's continue the new year by catching up on something I made before we even flew out to Michigan, okay?

The night before we left, we were doing the responsible thing and trying to eat everything perishable in the refrigerator. This included a cauliflower, a couple leeks, a potato (okay, that was in the cabinet), the tail end of a loaf of sourdough, and an entire head of red-leaf lettuce. Clearly, this called for soup and salad.

You'd think a soup created from a random assortment of veg on the turn would not be that interesting. NOPE. This was one of the best dinners we'd had in ages.

The key was smoked pepper.

My friend Gus just moved overseas, which is very sad, and we will miss her. Actually, two different sets of my friends have moved overseas within the past 6 months. Boo! But one side effect is that I was one of the lucky recipients of half a kitchen's worth of various food and spices. And that's how I came to own a grinder full of Trader Joe's South African smoke seasoning--which is to say, full of paprika flakes (have any of you even seen paprika in flake form?), sea salt, garlic, and basil--with an unmistakable smoke scent and flavor.

Why have I never eaten such a thing before? I mean, in our half-vegetarian household, bacon has never been a particularly viable flavoring agent. So we've had to get our dose of smokiness through bottled smoke seasoning or smoked cheese. But now? Now there is a third way. I'm SUPER EXCITED.

So I made cauliflower leek soup with smoked pepper flakes, and it turned out to be amazing. While the soup was cooking, John made the sourdough into garlic toast fingers. Those were also amazing. Then we tore up the lettuce and made salads with homemade vinaigrette. In short, it was just about the best possible clean-out-the-fridge dinner ever.

Cauliflower leek soup with smoked pepper flakes and garlic toast

olive oil
leeks
potato
cauliflower
vegetable or bean broth
smoked red pepper flake, marjoram, thyme, sage, salt, pepper
if I'd had any dry mustard I would totally have added some of that too
dry vermouth
yogurt, sambal, and/or parsley for garnish

Start by warming a slug of olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot. If you don't have any veg broth, start up a batch in a separate pot.

Split a couple leeks lengthwise and wash them thoroughly under cold running water. Trim them, chop them into inch-long pieces, and add them to the soup pot with a pinch of salt. Stir to distribute the oil. Cook for a few minutes while you prep all the other vegetables.

Notice the ethereal glow of slowly melting leeks. NICE.

Scrub, halve, and slice a potato or two. Core a cauliflower and chop it into small pieces. Don't worry about keeping the florets intact; you're going to puree the finished soup anyway.

When your leeks have softened, after about five minutes of cooking, add your potato and cauliflower to the pot. Season with smoked red pepper flake, marjoram, thyme, sage, and a bit more salt. Stir it all up and cook for another five minutes or so. Deglaze as needed with the dry vermouth (or dry white wine if you happen to be drinking some).

Next, add broth to cover. Bring the pot to a boil, lid, lower the heat, and simmer until all your vegetables are cooked through. Our soup probably took ten or fifteen minutes.

Take the pot or soup off the heat, puree with an immersion blender, taste, and correct seasonings, adding black pepper if nothing else. Cook your soup down a bit if you want a thicker texture. Otherwise, go ahead and serve it.

I think a garnish of additional smoked pepper flakes would go pretty well here. I had mine with a big spoonful of plain yogurt and one of sambal oelek, which, as you may have noticed, are a couple of my default soup garnishes.

We ate our soup with the aforementioned garlic toast. It was super simple.

Garlic toast

sourdough
clove of garlic

Toast sliced sourdough until deep golden. Let it rest and harden up for a minute while you peel a clove of garlic and cut it in half. Rub each slice of bread with the cut side of the garlic, covering one entire side. The garlic will grate a bit against the rough toasted texture of the bread.

Cut your slices of bread into little strips to serve. Dip them into your hot soup and eat them all.

Which hot, comforting winter soups are you guys eating this January?

Poached salmon with peas and mushrooms

I sat on this for a few days because I wasn't sure how it would go over. I'm still not sure, but I think it's important enough that I'm just going to bring it up and see how you guys respond.

I'm pretty happy with how we've started off the year of food. I mean, we're still at the very end of vacation, and have eaten a bit of restaurant food already, but I'm okay with that. We don't do resolutions at our house. I'm not going to beat myself up for eating a dosa. Everything is fine. And when I actually started cooking myself new year's food, my brain and body wanted poached fish. So I made poached fish.

Man, could I be more defensive? Probably.

I tend to stay away from discussing this kind of thing because I find it horrifying that anyone should be smacked around by perceptions of female beauty. I myself have largely escaped this type of body issue. How did that happen? I think it was a convenient confluence: I met traditional beauty standards while not really caring what other people thought. But it's unhappily clear that I am an infrequent exception to the norm when I discover foodblog posts about following certain diets, or self-consciously targeting exercise to a particular body area, or overcoming eating disorders that should never have had to occur in the first place. January is a particularly bad time for this, with page upon page of new year's resolutions outlining how this year the author will Be Good and Eat Healthy, too often with a galloping subtext of self-hatred and dysmorphia. I especially don't like how I notice myself also edging into self-judgement after reading these things, even when I actually think what I'm eating is healthy and normal.

No one should have to deal with body hatred, especially in conjunction with food--something that should be joyful and amazing. Obviously a simple statement like that is not going to suddenly change things, though. The situation is far too problematic. So I don't quite know where to go, or if I'm even qualified to open a discussion, and I REALLY don't want to alienate anyone or exacerbate the problem in any way. But I also think the subject is too important to ignore.

I think the best thing for me to do is to acknowledge the situation here, but also to continue simply presenting cooking and eating food as an approachable, delicious, and normal experience. That's how I normally see food, and that's how I hope others can see it too. So that's what I'm going to do.

I made poached salmon and vegetables because I wanted poached salmon and vegetables. They were really good.

Poached salmon with peas and mushrooms

filet of salmon
water
bay leaf
butter/olive oil
shallot
mushrooms
peas
dry vermouth
salt & pepper
parsley & lemon to garnish

Fill a small saute pan with about an inch to an inch and a half of water--enough to cover your piece of salmon. Add a bay leaf and a generous sprinkle of salt, and bring the pan to a boil. Slide in your fish, reduce the heat to simmer, lid the pan, and poach for about five minutes, or until done to your taste. The timing will depend on the filet's thickness.

In the meantime, slice up a shallot and a big handful of mushrooms. In another saute pan, melt a chunk of butter or warm some oil. Add the shallot and saute for a minute or two, until softened, before adding the mushrooms. Season with salt and maybe a little paprika. Cook over fairly high heat, shaking or stirring frequently,

When your mushrooms have exuded all their liquid and begun to brown a bit, tip in a bunch of frozen peas. Add a splash of water and dry vermouth, stirring to deglaze. Now put the lid on the pan, turn the heat down to medium, and let the peas steam for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper to finish.

To serve, pour your peas and mushrooms onto a plate. Top with your finished salmon. Quickly deglaze the pea and mushroom pan with a pat of butter. Pour the melted butter over your fish and top with chopped parsley and a grind of salt and pepper. If you want a squeeze of lemon, now is the time.

Eat.

Isn't it great?

Happy new year!

The perfect new year's breakfast is always bagels. Bagels with cream cheese. Bagels with hummus. Coffee. Yes.

BAGELS!!

In other news, if you still have eggnog in the house, have I got a deal for you! First, in John's words, "Just admit it! Admit that you like eggnog-flavored things!" Of course, if you have eggnog in the house you may have already accepted this. I had not. ANYWAY, here's what you need to do. Go brew a cup of strong hot chai. Now, instead of adding milk to it, add eggnog.

AMAZING.

If you happen to have made any of the gingerbread liqueur we discussed a few weeks ago, and you have remained sober enough throughout the holiday season to consider drinking now, you may want to add a glug of that too. It's so good.