comfort food

My Soup Bible Cookbook

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Hey all, I have a confession. I’m  a pantster cook. I don’t really follow recipes, I tend to wing it with ingredients on hand. And I have to say, this Japanese Hot Pot cookbook is one of my favorite cookbooks for ideas. Let’s face it, soup is really forgiving; you don’t need to be fastidious with measuring.  I keep vegetable and chicken broth on hand as well as cooking sake, Mirin, oyster sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce. From there I can make a soup base. Add veggies and a meat, simmer and voila, dinner.
The other day, I pulled some frozen mackerel out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge. I had a bag of baby bokchoy that I got at the Asian market, some frozen corn. Adding some noodles at the last  minute and ta da! I whipped up a fish noodle soup that turned out mighty tasty! And I have to thank this gorgeous cookbook. The pictures are mouthwatering, the recipes are simple and I use it mostly for inspiration. Lots of vegetarian ideas here too, folks.. mushroom hot pot, acorn squash hot pot…
Looking for healthy comfort food on a cold night? If this cookbook doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what to say!

JAPANESE HOT POTS Comfort One-Pot Meals by Tadashi Ono & Harris Salat

Polish Borscht (Barszcz) Beet Borscht

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https://www.facebook.com/anetabistro/

Visited Aneta’s Bistro in Ocala recently — best borscht ever! I’d never attempted borscht before, so I was excited to give it a go. I don’t know Aneta’s recipe, but it had a bit of vinegar to it. In recent, years, I’ve gotten addicted to the local specialty oil and vinegar shops where you can sample a wide assortment of flavored oils and vinegars… and hello, there’s a chocolate vinegar– lovely with fruit salads…

This is a beautiful book with large, lush photos throughout.

So I found a recipe for borscht in a lovely picture/recipe book called “from borshch to blinis: Traditional Cooking from Russia and Poland” by Catherine Atkinson, contributing editor, Lesley Chamberlain.

I modified the basic ingredients a little as I’m not wild about celery or parsley, but here is the original list of ingredients, to which I would add chocolate vinegar. (2 teaspoons) I did have celery salt on hand, (weird I like that more than celery, suspect it’s a remnant from my mother’s Bloody Mary days…) so I added celery salt.

I followed the instructions and the result was tasty but not quite right. Now, I did have more than 2 pounds of beets, I’m sure. For lunch the next day, I poured the leftovers into a blender until it was smooth. This did the trick! The flavors were blended nicely. It was so good, I didn’t even heat it up, it was lovely chilled!