Jewish Minestrone Soup

I fall into the category of people who could have soup every day. I've been hanging with the golden girls as a babysitter/general slave but no complaints - I'm in southern California escaped from the brutality of Canadian winter. My mother's friend "R", not to be mistaken with Psychgrad's "R" showed me her version of Minnestrone soup. We call it Jewish Minestrone and it's quite different than the Italian version that we're all very familiar with. It all begins with 2 packages of Manishewitz Minnestrone dry soup mix.


2 pkg Manischewitz Minnestrone soup mix
3 carrots, diced
3 medium sized diced potatoes
1 head cut cauliflower
1.5 pints sliced button mushrooms
6-8 cups water
1 tsp of granular chicken broth (such as Maggi or Osem)



Take both packages of the soup mix and add to the bottom of the pot.



Add cold water to fill a large pot approximately 2/3 full, keeping in mind you're adding a number of vegetables.
Bring soup mix with water to a boil and turn heat down to medium; cook until the pea and bean soup mix combination is beginning to soften.
Add the diced carrot to about 50% doneness.



Add potatoes and cook to approximately 50% doneness






Now the cauliflower and mushroom and continue cooking until all vegetablest are fully cooked without being mushy. Mix in the granular broth, stir well and you're done.

Ahora

Ottawa may not be a hub for Mexican food...but we do have Ahora (and a few other places of varying authenticity).


It's a small, casual restaurant (almost fast food style), in the market. After picking your dish, you go up to the front counter to place your order. The food is then brought to your table. Even though it was -25 out, I couldn't resist getting a margarita.



The taste was great until I realized that the rim was covered with salt (I thought it was sugar)...after mixing the salt into the drink. I don't fault the restaurant because salt around the rim is (apparently) common and is meant to bring out the flavour of the margarita. Personally, I find the flavour combination gross.

We started with an order of chips and salsa. There wasn't much to them, but I took advantage of the hot sauce selections at the front of the restaurant, which made them more appealing.



For the main, R had a Burrito Grande. His verdict: "It was okay".



I quite enjoyed my Quesadilla de Pollo. Again, the free hot sauces were much appreciated.



In general, I'd go back... But, judging from other online reviews, I'm not as big of a fan as others who have visited the restaurant. I'd probably wait until summer to return because I found the restaurant to be quite cold. It's also hard to "swallow" the summer feel of the place when it's -25 out. The tables are fairly tightly packed in there, which is fine, unless your neighbours feel the need to yell the entire time. I think they got the hint when I yelled to R, "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Gotta love the Canadian-style passive-aggressiveness. Service was friendly, price is good.

Turkey: 3rd Stop on the Culinary Tour

I didn't miss the third stop on the tour, did I? We're all packed and ready to go!

In 2006, R and I spent a couple of weeks in Turkey. We visited Istanbul, Oludeniz and the Cappadocia Region. Here is a selection of photos from our trip:

Istanbul:









Oludeniz (by the mediterranean, a great place for paragliding, which is how these arial shots were taken):

Cappadocia (known for its caves and rock formations made out of lava)






Here's a selection of some of the yummy food we ate during the trip:









When I saw that Joan of Foodalogue was including Turkey as one of the stops along the culinary tour, I was really pleased to have a little nudge to try a Turkish-themed dinner.

I picked out everything middle-eastern looking in my house and dressed up the table with it:


I still have wine that we brought home from Turkey (as I mentioned in a previous post, I hoard specialty food products). But, I couldn't justify not opening a bottle of it for this dinner. This bottle comes from Tursan, which is located in Ürgüp (pronounced something like ur-guhp, with a rolled "r"), in the Cappadocia Region.

It's a pretty sharp wine. I left it in the decanter for a while, to let it aerate. But, I think that's just the way it tastes.

As an appetizer, we had za'atar pita with hummus along with cashews and almonds.



For the main course, we ate a pomegranate salad, kind of like this one.


For the rest of the main, I really lucked out with finding two great Turkish recipes:

Turkish Chicken
(source)

8 bone-in chicken thighs, (about 3 1/2 pounds total), skin removed, trimmed
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons hot paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons dried mint
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place chicken in a large bowl. Add lemon juice and toss to coat. Whisk yogurt, garlic, ginger, paprika, mint and salt in a separate bowl. Pour the yogurt mixture over the chicken and stir to coat.



Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours.


Position rack in upper third of oven; preheat broiler. Remove the chicken from the marinade (discard marinade). Place the chicken on a broiler rack and broil until browned on top, about 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 400°F and bake until the chicken is juicy and just cooked through, about 15 minutes longer. (Thigh meat will appear dark pink, even when cooked through.) Serve immediately.


Turkish Rice
(source)

1 bud garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil or salad oil
3 tablespoons shredded cashews or pine nuts
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup uncooked rice (I used long grain rice)
1 quart chicken or veal broth, or cube or canned consomme (I used chicken broth)

1. Start oven, set at Moderate, 350° F.
2. Saute the garlic in the oil 3 minutes. Add the nuts and heat 1 minute only.
3. Remove from the heat, add the salt, pepper and rice. Stir to mix thoroughly, then add the broth or bouillon. Pour into a casserole, and cover the dish.
4. Bake 45 minutes, or until the rice is tender.

Only thing about the rice, which kind of threw me off from the beginning, is the ratio of rice to broth. I'm used to a 2-1 ratio. But 1 cup of rice to 1 quart of broth is a 4-1 ratio. I ended up putting closer to 1.5 cups of rice. I would probably add even more rice next time because it was a bit on the soft side.

For dessert, we picked up a selection from Swiss Pastries.