Simple Soup

Last week was a busy week.  There was a leftover pizza night and a soup and grilled cheese night, each preceeded by a 'what am I going to serve for dinner' moment.  It was one of those weeks.  The only bright spot was that I didn't run out of milk, but only because I'd bought way more than the sleep-over boys could drink.  (Because really, mom, why would they drink milk when you had cans of root-beer and ginger ale on hand?  sigh.  Yes, a better mother would have had only milk and sliced fruit to go with the pizza, but I was just winging it.)

There was one small, shining moment of decent eating in the middle of this work-life-unbalance.  Pasta soup.  This was winging it to the max - no recipe, no plan, just making the most of two frozen italian sausages, some slightly dehydrated carrots rattling around in the bottom of the crisper, dried pasta, boxed broth and some frozen duxelles. The sausages were sliced and browned, deglazed the pan and added the carrots and broth, brought to a boil, added duxelles and pasta and cooked for 8 minutes.  Done.

I put it on the table and, glad it wasn't pizza, dished it up.  Nothing fancy, but it was hot and satisfying.  It felt good, in the middle of all the chaos, to remember that sometimes simple is the better balance to busy.

No recipe tonight, since this was mostly about making a little bit of peace from the chaos.

Lemon-Herb Spaghetti with Scallops

We needed some simple dinners this past week, so I pulled a few staples from the crisper and we got chopping.  I wanted to do something that would use the duxelles we made earlier in the week, and scallops were on sale at the store.  Since they don't take long to cook, we went for an easy pasta dish.  The nice thing about pasta is that you can make a double batch and dress it up differently the next night, so lemon-herb-scallops tonight, red sauce with meatballs the next.

First things first, I put my son in charge of the giant pot of pasta.

I put the scallops in a colander between layers of paper towles to get them as dry as possible.  If you put them wet and gloppy in the pan, they tend to overcook by stewing in their own juice.

Next, I put my daughter in charge of chopping (herbs) while I minced (garlic) and squeezed (lemon).

When all that was ready, we heated a few tablespoons of olive oil in a large saucepan and let it get hot enough so you could see the ripples in the surface of the oil.  We added the scallops and let them cook quickly.  As soon as they got opaque, about 4 minutes total, I lifted then from the pan and, leaving only a little bit of the juices, quickly sauted the garlic and herbs, about 1 minute.  Then we added about 1/2 cup of the duxelles and let them warm up.

I added about 2 cups of chicken stock and the lemon juice and let the whole pan warm up, then turned it off.

Meanwhile, some frozen peas went into the microwave.

When the peas and pasta were both ready, they went into the saucepan with the scallops and we brought it to a boil, then served it up.

You could make this recipe without the scallops or with another protein in its place, but the scallops reminded of the linguini with clam sauce my grandparents used to make.  

Duxelles

Duxelles - they're all the rage right now (apparently!).  They've turned up in two of the cooking magazines I get and I was reading about them in two different cookbooks recently.  So, what are they?

Lots and lots of mushrooms.

Duxelles is a prepared mushroom dish that you can use as a flavoring, topping or taste-booster in other dishes.  Like salt, stock, anchovy paste or other enhancers, it's an addition that boosts other flavors - and something we've never tried before.

So, into the food processor went all the mushrooms...

And out came this giant quantity of spongy, chopped mushrooms.  We cooked them with olive oil, some onion, garlic and leeks until all the liquid was evaporated - that took some time!

Then we used them in a salmon dish and a potato gratin.

Comparing the two we had a clear winner.  Including the duxelles with the potato dish gave the potatos deeper flavor.  With the salmon, they were a good note, but a little lost in the saucy fish-flavored broth that collected while the dish cooked.

Lucky for us, the recipe made a significant quantity of duxelles, so we've got two freezer bags we'll be using for upcoming recipes to see how we can use this treat best.

If you want to make some of your own, here's a recipe:

Duxelles

Process 1 lb of white mushrooms in the food processor until finely chopped.  Only put about 6 mushrooms in the food processor at a time, working in batches, pulse about 15 times until the mushrooms are chopped, but not pureed. 

Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a pan and add:

1/4 cup chopped onion and 1 clove minced garlic, a dash of salt and pepper.

Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid has evaporated.  About 25 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup minced parsley.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

The recipe can be multiplied to produce extra for freezing.

We used about 1/2 cup duxelles in the gratin.