Soup is comfort food for me.  More than chocolate or ice cream.  I love soup season.  My cast iron Dutch oven pretty much just lives on the stove from October to April.  La Famiglia has a long tradition of making ‘Garbage Soup’.  I’m sure it has it’s home economics roots in in the generations before me having lived through two world wars and The Great Depression, with a big, close, extended family that was legion all by itself, and has a habit as far back as anybody ever recorded of taking in strays.  For generations, someone in my family is always bringing home another slightly startled looking stranger.  It’s genetic.  ‘You look hungry, you need to come with me.’ is just imprinted on all of our brains from childhood.  We all do it. Then we keep them and all of their offspring for generations until nobody even knows for sure which ones are blood relatives, and which ones just had an unwary ancestor who followed one of my ancestors home one day.  It makes untangling the family tree a bit of a chore, but there is a solid upside to being part of your own standing army.  You can put two complete football teams on the field without even having to resort to second cousins if you want.  It has always been this way.  Everyone on my side of the family has inherited walls and a table that stretch to fit however many they need to.  

Crowded homes and crowded noisy tables are better than new cars and swish vacations any day, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, but it can mean sometimes needing to feed a crowd with not much.  Not truly the case in our house, we have more of everything than we really need, and room left over for considerable comfort.  Our ends don’t just meet.  They overlap pretty comfortably most of the time.  Still ‘Garbage Soup’ is a thing.  

As a child I had an aunt who would steal corn cobs off your plate.  Or chicken bones.  Or WHATEVER.  Before you could throw it out and waste food, it went into the ‘soup bucket’.  A clean ice cream tub in the fridge.  The same aunt hung teabags on the clothesline for reuse.  We also grow them a little strange. Everything in the ‘soup bucket’ would simmer in a pot on the back of the stove all afternoon the next day, with a parmesan rind, whatever else was around that needed using, and whatever seasoning it inspired, plus whatever pasta or rice was closest to hand.  Food and family are a connection for most people.  For me, the soup was like the echo of whatever noisy family meal it was the remains of.  It tastes as much like the stories told over the table as whatever was on it.  As a result, some days the more we stretched things to make room for ‘just one more’, the better and richer the soup turned out.  Bread is cheap and easy to make, and you can always find an extra potato, onion or carrot to make the soup go a little further.  No matter what kind I ultimately wind up making, it always winds up tasting like home, and family, and time spent with loved ones.  

The more we water the soup, the better it gets.

I miss my noisy, crowded table of chosen family this year.  Cooking is EASIER when not stepping around the fiddle player, over someone’s kid, and ‘when did we get a dog?’ but it isn’t nearly as much fun.  For now I have to settle for knowing that you’re all safe, healthy, and the separation is temporary.  

And so I’m making soup.

I love zucchini.  I will put it in anything, and have been happy as heck to have a garden overflowing with the stuff this summer.  In a few minutes, I’ll be starting zucchini fritters for my own family, but a friend asked for a zucchini bread recipe, and it happens I have a good one.  You can tell.  The recipe card is spattered and sticky, and almost impossible to read.  I use the same formula for almost all of my quick breads and swap out whatever I have on hand, mashed banana, shredded carrot, cooked pumpkin or in this case, zucchini, and then adjust sweetness and spices accordingly.  Quick breads are a satisfying, easy entree to baking, make lovely gifts, and for me, sweeten the pre-dawn hour of silent communion with my coffee cup that I need before I’m ready to face another human being in the morning. Even zucchini haters love this moist, spicy bread.

WHAT

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I am in love with the roasted cinnamon a friend gave me)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup sugar

1 cup finely shredded unpeeled zucchini

1/4 cup cooking oil (you can lower the fat and use unsweetened apple sauce, but the result is a slightly tougher bread)

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon fresh lime zest

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

HOW

Grease the bottom and about 1/2 inch up the sides of your loaf pan and set aside.  In medium mixing bowl (or bowl of stand mixer), combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

In another bowl, blend sugar, zucchini, cooking oil, egg and lime zest. Fold nuts in last.

Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes, or until it smells amazing, has risen, and a wooden toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

I like to top this with either a sprinkle of coarse sugar crystals, or this cinnamon streusel topping, which I keep prepared and frozen, so it’s on hand for all kinds of baking. (scroll through to the bottom to get instructions for the topping)

Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes, and then you can invert and cool completely on a wire rack.  If your family doesn’t just eat it all before you’ve even finished the dishes.

Enjoy

Adapted from Canadian Living.

I’ve been making this one at Christmas for a few years now.  Like any of my recipes, this one is very versatile, and easy to double, and even triple.  You can make individual turnover style tourtiere for a cocktail party or buffet, or a full sized pie if you like.  Each double crust pastry recipe should yield 24 turnovers.  I tripled this recipe and made 48 turnovers and a full sized pie.

WHAT

• 2/3 cup cubed, peeled potato.  I almost never do this.  I make a whole pot of mashed potatoes, and then use it as an excuse to make Leek & Potato Soup on the back burner.
• 12 oz lean ground pork, or whatever convenient, non-standard sized package your grocer or butcher has.
• 1 small onion, finely chopped (I use a quarter to a half of a large Texas sweet)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (or a heaping teaspoon of the minced stuff from the jar)
• 1 rib celery, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup sodium-reduced chicken broth – use a tetra, use concentrate, a bullion cube, make from scratch- it doesn’t matter.
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 bay leaf

HOW

If you’re not just going to make a pot of mashed potatoes, you can microwave cubed potatoes for 5 min or so with a couple of tablespoons of water, and then coarsely mash with a fork and set aside.

Brown the meat.  I add the garlic, onions and celery while it’s browning.  Don’t forget to drain.  Once browned, add the spices, mashed potato, bay leaf and chicken broth.  Simmer, stirring regularly until most of the liquid is evaporated and then turn off the element and let it cool.

You CAN make your own pastry, I often do.  The one over at Canadian Living is as good as any I’ve used.  But this close to Christmas, I’m desperately short of counter space and time, and since Thursday was a chemo day, I’m still not feeling that hot, so I cheated.  Each double crust makes either one family sized tourtiere, or 24 or so turnovers.

If making turnovers, I use a pint glass and punch out rounds of pastry, then fill with 1tbsp (ish) of filling.  Dip finger in water and trace edge of pastry round, then fold over and crimp with a fork.

Don’t overfill.

They explode.

For a full pie, just drop whatever you’re using for pastry in to a 9″ pie plate, fill, add top crust and crimp edges to seal.  Whether making turnovers or a pie, don’t forget to cut vents.

They explode.

For turnovers, space them evenly on a parchment lined cookie sheet, for a pie, I always set the filled pie on a pan and lift that, so I don’t wind up breaking the crust trying to get it out of the oven.

Beat one egg lightly with about a tbsp of water, and brush pastry.  Sprinkle with Kosher salt if desired.

Bake in the bottom third of the oven at 425 for the first 15 minutes or so, then reduce heat, and bake an additional 15 min at 350.  For the pie, you may wish to use pie shields or tinfoil over the outer edge of the crust when you reduce the oven temp, on order to prevent scorching.

You’ll know when they’re done.  They’ll be golden brown, and your house will smell delicious.

Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.

If you’re making these ahead, freeze them in a single layer, then reheat on parchment lined baking sheet at 350 until they smell good.  If reheating a pie from frozen, don’t forget to shield the outer crust.

Your other option, of course, is just to eat them all.  🙂

My cousin posted yesterday about how, with the holidays approaching, she was craving a particular cookie my grandmother always used to make at the holidays.  Another cousin chimed in, and pretty soon we all realized that we all share a ‘sense memory’, associating the smell, taste, and texture of my grandmother’s molasses cookies with family and the holidays.  After my grandmother died, another cousin went through her recipe cards, many annotated or hand written, and made each of us a copy of ‘Grandma’s Cook Book’.  A fair number of the recipes are missing steps, or have ingredients that my grandmother forgot to mention, since it was assumed that you already KNEW what you were doing, and what the end result should be.  She was an accomplished home cook who would feed anybody, and whose cooking and kitchen, whether at the winter house or the cottage, were the anchor of pretty much every childhood holiday, as well as a gathering place for half the known world.  As a teenage runaway, I held on to some of those sensory impressions for dear life, the only shreds of home and security I could carry at times.  Now, as an adult, I take as many opportunities as I can to fill my home and kitchen with people, and a lot of the same tastes, smells and textures that were the foundation of so many great childhood memories.  Food nourishes so much more than just the body at times.  This is one of those recipes I keep going back to,every holiday season, because it brings an echo of my gigantic, messy, wonderful family, both living and not, into my present day life, along with all of the associated great memories of time spent with them.

Enjoy.

Grandma’s Molasses Crackles

WHAT

3/4 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon each of ground cloves, ground ginger and salt

Granulated sugar for rolling

HOW

Cream together molasses, shortening, sugar and egg

Sift all dry ingredients and blend into wet to form a soft, sticky dough.

CHILL- I recommend at least two hours.  Unchilled dough makes flat cookies that don’t crackle.

Once dough is chilled, roll into 1″ balls, and then roll in granulated sugar. I use the coarse, sparkly kind.  It’s pretty, and adds a nice crunch.  Place cookies at least an inch and a half apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet, and bake at 350. ‘Till done’ is what my grandmother’s instructions say.  For the rest of us, that’s about 10-11 min if you prefer them soft, and 12-15 if you like them hard and crunchy, like a biscotti.  Let cool on the pan for a minute or two before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.  Depending on how big you roll them, this makes 4-5 dozen.  Make a double batch.  They’re delicious, and your whole house will smell wonderful.

Try not to eat them all before anyone gets to see what a genius you are in the kitchen.